Biography
Talarican
About Talarican
Talarican, also called Tarkin, is remembered as a missionary bishop in Scotland. Later tradition associates him with Sodor and preaching along the northern coast. The Aberdeen Breviary calls him Irish-born, while the Catholic Encyclopedia considers Pictish origin probable. His background remains uncertain.
A proposed episcopal date around 720 rests on matching a pope and a king named in later accounts; it is not a contemporary appointment record. Dempster places his death on Lismore. Churches and wells preserved his name in several parts of Scotland.
The Catholic Church in Norway records confirmation of his cult by Leo XIII in 1898 and a commemoration on 30 October. His memory is clearer in these devotional traces than in a securely dated personal biography.
The University of Glasgow’s Saints in Scottish Place-Names identifies him as a Pictish churchman whose cult left traces around the Moray Firth, in Buchan and on Skye. It warns that he cannot be dated confidently and records his traditional patronage at Fordyce.
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