St Simeon Stylites

He was a 3rd century hermit who took to living on top of a tall pillar to gain solitude. He lived for four years on a pillar 6 cubits high, three years on a twelve cubit, ten years on a twenty two cubit and twenty years on a forty cubit pillar. There seem to be many different kinds of cubit but my understanding is that a cubit is a forearms length, meaning that his first pillar was not very impressive at all. This is possibly why it took him so long to progress to the forty cubit one. The pillar was not wide enough to lie down on so he apparently was able to sleep just by stooping over. Another of Simeon's talents was the ability to not eat or drink anything at all for forty days during Lent.

His feast day is the 5th of January-I would have done the photo then but I forgot. There is no statue of the plucky Simeon in Edinburgh for some reason so I had to make do with Lord Melville instead.