Chapter V: Modern Chips of the Old Blocks (4)

There is a further division of the winter festivals, by the partial adoption of New Style in reckoning. Thus just as one half of the people keep Halloween on the last night of October, and the others observe the 11th of November, so with the New Year. This is especially remarkable on the Inverness and Ross-shire coasts, which face one another, on either side of the Beauly Firth. Long before sunrise on the first of January, the Inverness hills are crowned with bonfires, and when they burn low, the lads and lassies dance round them, and trample out the dying embers. The opposite coast shows no such fires till the morning of the New Year, Old Style, when it likewise awakens before daybreak to greet the rising sun. One curious old custom is still observed in our good town of Burghead (on the Moray Firth). It is called the burning of the Clavic. Its meaning and its origin are alike unknown—but from time immemorial the fisher folk and seamen, have, on this Yule night, reckoned according to Old Style, assembled at the west side of the town, carrying an old tar barrel and other combustible materials. This barrel being sawn in two, the lower half is nailed into a long spoke of firewood, which acts as a handle. _This nail must not be struck by a hammer_, but is driven in with a stone. The half-barrel is next filled with dry wood, saturated with tar, and built up like a pyramid, leaving only a hollow to receive a burning peat, for no modern lucifer match may be applied, and a final libation of tar completes the Clavic, which is shouldered by one of the lads, quite regardless of the streams of boiling tar which of course trickle all down his back; should he stumble or fall, the omen would be held unlucky indeed, both to the town and to himself. When weary of his burden, a second is ready to fill the honoured post, and then a third and a fourth, till the Clavic has made the circuit of the town, when it is carried to a hillock, called the Doorie, where a hollowed stone receives the fir spoke. Fresh fuel is added, and in olden days, the blaze continued all night, and at last was allowed to burn itself out untouched. Now, after a short interval, the Clavic is thrown down the western side of the hill, and a desperate scramble ensues for the burning brands, the possession of which is accounted to bring good luck, and the embers are carried home, and carefully preserved till the following year, as a safeguard against all manner of evil. In bygone times it was thought necessary that one man should carry it right round the town, so the strongest was selected to bear this weighty honour. Moreover it was customary to carry the Clavic round every ship in the harbour, a part of the ceremony which has latterly been discontinued. Last year, however, the Clavic was duly carried to one vessel, just ready for sea. Handsful of grain were thrown upon her deck, and amid a shower of fire-water, she received the suggestive name of the “Doorie.” The modern part of the town is not included in the circuit, only the old town is thus encompassed, if we may in all reverence borrow the expression from the grand old Hebrew Prophets, by a protecting wall of fire. Round this town of Burghead, are certain green hillocks known as the Bailies. Doubtless they also bear witness to the balefires which once crowned them.

The only other place where I can hear of any custom akin to this burning of the Clavic, is at Logierait, in Perthshire, where certainly till late years (probably even to this day) the young men assembled on Hallow-e’en, and made great torches of faggots, by binding broom, flax, and heather on a pole. This being kindled, is, or was, carried on the shoulders of a strong lad, who runs round the village, followed by all the crowd; and as fast as one faggot burns out, a second is kindled. Sometimes several are lighted simultaneously. Pennant describes the same ceremony as one of the regular institutions of Hallow-e’en a hundred years ago, and says that when the faggot had been thus carried round the village, its embers were used to kindle a great bonfire. This custom, says Borlase, was forbidden by the Gallic Councils, and all concerned were held to be as guilty as though they had actually sacrificed to devils.

How strangely all these traces of old days bring to our very doors that stubborn idolatry at which we so often marvel in reading the history of the Israelites. Here, in our own land, we find our forefathers constantly practising the same rites which were so solemnly prohibited upwards of three thousand years ago; so that as we read the sacred records of those old days, we almost seem to have stumbled on a history of our heathen ancestors. There is just the same gradual departure from a pure monotheism to the worship of many gods; so that the people who once had worshipped one only Lord, began to burn incense in high places, and on the hills, to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the planets, and to all the host of heaven, which they loved. They worshipped Ashtaroth, and set up graven images in her honour under every green tree. They planted groves; they assembled beneath the oaks to burn incense to her as the queen of heaven. The children gathered wood, the fathers kindled a fire, and the women kneaded their dough to make cakes in her honour; probably just such crescent-shaped cakes as the women of Britain were wont to bake for her. Then they worshipped and poured out to her drink-offerings, such as those libations of milk which in this land were poured out on the _Gruapach_ stone of the villages.

The custom of passing children and cattle through the fire was one of the rites which was longest in force in these isles. Even in the early part of this century, it was, as we have already noticed, the constant practice at these festivals, both in the Highlands and in Ireland, for fathers to take their children in their arms and leap thrice through the flames. The cattle were driven between two fires kindled near together. It was also the custom to make criminals stand between two fires, to expiate their sins, or else walk barefoot thrice over the burning ashes of a carn-fire. Hence the Gaelic description of a man in dire extremity, that he was “Edir da theine Bheil,” that is, between two fires of Baal.

The Highlanders still call the year Bheil-aine, the circle of Bel or the Sun. It does not appear that they ever called their children after him, as did some nations, where we find such names as Hannibal, the gift of Baal (Dieu-donné), and Hasdrubal, one helped by Baal; or Belteshazzar, Bel’s treasurer, the “new name” conferred on Daniel by his Babylonian master. But the salutation of “Bal dhia dhuit,” or “Baal be with you,” was retained, till the present century. And it seems probable that in the English word _marvel_ and the French _merveille_ we still make use of the Celtic description of a miracle, as being _Miov-Bheil_ or _Meur-Bhe’il_, the finger of Bel.

Even the old Scotch saying, that a man will go to the Clachan, or “stones,” meaning Church, is evidently derived from the days when the temples of the land were simply circles of great stones; circles by the way which are supposed to have been typical of eternity. Sometimes the church was more clearly defined as Clachan Muire or Clachan Michael, the stones of Mary or of Michael. It is also said that the old Saxon word Kirk or Circ simply denotes such a circle. In fact the words Clachan and Church seem to have been used promiscuously to describe either the old pagan temple, or the Christian Church; for while the latter is constantly called the Clachan, and the village is indiscriminately known as the Clachan, or the Kirktown, we find various Druidic circles bearing the more Christian title. One in Glamorganshire is called the Old Church. One in Aberdeen is the Auld Kirk of Alford. Another is the Kirk Hill of Logie Newton; while a fourth is the Auld Kirk of Tough.

One great Druidical cairn in the Isle of Bernera is called Clach-na-greine or the Stone of the Sun. The very frequent recurrence of this word _Grean_, in some form or other, is in itself a curious proof of the wide-spread worship of the Sun in these isles. Colonel Robertson has recently told us that in seven different counties of Scotland he finds a stream called Greenburn, the stream of the Sun (answering to the idea of the Suaj Khoond or Mirror of the Sun which we find so often in India). He has also shown Greenock to mean Grian-chnoc, or the Knoll of the Sun, _i.e._ the place where he was worshipped. In six counties he finds Bal-green or Baile-greine, which was the town of the sun, and at Ba-green in Perthshire a large artificial mound, with flat top, marks the site of the holy ground. He also notes various mountains and lands, in whose name the same word occurs; the latter sometimes further marked by circles of Druidical stones as at Grenach or Grian-achaidh, the field of the sun, in Perthshire.

Another familiar name is that of Grianan in the Isle of Arran; grand serrated crags, whose bare crests catch the first gleam of the rising sun, long before the dark shadows have rolled from off gloomy Loch Ranza. On the opposite coast of Ayrshire we find Grianan Castle. One great spur of Bein-na-Cailliach in Skye is called Bein-na-Grianan, and Jura also, has its mountain of the sun, another Bein-na-Grianan, where many a time we have watched the last rays linger, ere the great Day Star seemed to sink beneath the waves. Perthshire also, has its Ben Grianan above Glen Lyon; at its base there still remain the ruins of one of the twelve great round towers, built by Fingal in this “winding valley of the grey-headed stones.”

It is worthy of notice that, when the Romans invaded Britain, they bestowed on Apollo, their Sun-god, this surname of Grianach, under which they found him worshipped in these Isles: so he was known as Apollo Grannus. That the worshippers of Apollo observed precisely the same ceremonies as the Druids of the British Isles, has been recorded by many old writers; more especially in describing the rites practised on the Mount Soracte in Italy, where as soon as the flames of the great fires ceased, one of the chief men present took in his hands the entrails of some animal that had been sacrificed, and, walking thrice barefoot over the still half-kindled embers, delivered them to the officiating priest. This was the identical custom of the British Druids.

The fact is that there is scarcely a corner of the earth where the worship of sun and fire do not seem to have found a place. Whatever lesser gods were adored by any nation, the first place seems always to have been accorded to the great Day Star.

We know how many cities were specially dedicated to the sun; as, for instance, Rhodes, whose far-famed Colossus was supposed to be his image; and it is now generally admitted that the Hercules of the Phœnicians was simply an impersonation of Orchol, or Aurkl, the Sun. Perhaps his history may have been originally borrowed from those ancient Hindu legends that tell of the Heri-cules, the lords of the Solar race, who claim descent from Heri, the Sun. Again he appears as the Phœbus, Cephalus, and Endymion of the Greeks, and under divers other names of Pagan gods, whose worshippers, when going forth to battle, caused their priests to march at the head of their armies, bearing fire as his emblem on little altars of silver—a symbol which to them was doubtless akin to that guiding pillar of fire wherein the Israelites recognised the presence of the Almighty going forth with their hosts.

Nor was this worship confined to what we are wont to term the old world. In the sun temples of Mexico and Peru the ruthless Spaniards found their richest spoils. On the site of one of these was erected the present great Roman Catholic Cathedral in the town of Mexico, within which is still preserved the Kellenda, a circular stone covered with hieroglyphics, by which the Aztecs used to represent the months of the year. In Peru, the Incas, as the monarchs were called, claimed to be children of the Sun; and in their capital city stood a magnificent temple dedicated to him. It was open at the east end, so that the rays of the rising sun were reflected with dazzling light as they fell on a great golden image at the western end representing his disk and rays. Here a great annual festival was held at the summer solstice, when multitudes gathered together from all parts of the empire, and, headed by the Inca himself, awaited the moment when the first ray should touch the golden image. Then all fell prostrate in devout adoration. Sacrifices were offered akin to those of the Jews, after which the worshippers shared a solemn feast of bread and wine.

Thus, truly, the tabernacle of the sun was set in all the ends of the world; so that there was neither speech nor language where the host of heaven failed to declare, not the glory of God, but their own majesty. Even in the Christian Church there arose in the third century a schism whereby the true Sun of Righteousness was confounded with the visible sun, wherein He was said to have put off His incarnate body.[42] This doctrine found the more ready acceptance from the fact that Pagan Rome was at that time deeply stirred by a wide-spread revival of the old faith; and the Christian converts lent a willing ear to the teaching which seemed so well to blend the old and new creeds.

Fifteen hundred years have passed away since then, and still the fiery god claims his place among the divinities of the earth. If we turn to the wide plains of Hindustan, we there find that though many of the old reverential customs of sun-worship are still retained in the complex creed of the modern Brahmins, they are for the most part so blended with the fables of an intricate mythology, that they are to educated minds as purely symbolical as they are to the Parsees—a race who utterly repudiate the name of fire worshippers, declaring that in their reverence for sun and fire, they merely recognize the same symbol as does the Christian in the lights which burn on the Christian altar.

But in some corners of the land the descendants of the aboriginal races still retain the worship of their ancestors unchanged. There are small colonies to the south-west of Calcutta[43] which bear the name of Sauras, in honour of the sun, to whom, night and morning, they offer a burnt sacrifice of clarified butter, and otherwise adhere to the ancient ritual described in the Vedic hymns. They tend the undying fire in some deep grove, where, beneath the waving palms, they may worship undisturbed. Here they assemble also at every full moon and hold solemn service. In India, as in England, the first day of the week bears the name of Sunday.[44] There, however, it is treated rather as a fast than a feast, for the strict worshippers of Vishnu abstain on this day from all animal food. On this morning, throughout the time of harvest, each household makes special offerings to the sun. They prepare trays of earth, in which they sow rice seeds, and thereon pour out a libation of water while invoking the sun. Some tribes exist, both in Orissa and in the Himalayas, who will not break their morning fast till they have obtained a clear view of their god, and who in cloudy weather sometimes go all day without tasting food, rather than sin in this matter. In the Garrow Hills in Bengal, there is another race of primitive Highlanders, who profess the simplest nature worship; they adore the Sun, Moon, and Elements; their temple is a dark mountain pass, where beneath the blue canopy of Heaven, they assemble to offer solemn sacrifices with just such ceremonies as we believe to have been formerly observed in these Isles of Britain. But for traces of Sun-worship in its perfection, we must look to such marvels of beauty as the ruined Sun temples in Orissa—such as those at Kanarak, Jájpur, and Shergarh, where amid an endless profusion of rich and intricate sculpture, the Sun-god still drives his celestial car, drawn by the seven symbolic horses, carved in imperishable granite. Other sculptures show the Sun, Moon and Planets. These splendid temples have long since been forsaken save by a little colony of faithful worshippers who still keep up the sacred fire in a grove near Jájpur. But the mass of the people now follow the teaching of the sagacious Brahmins, who have stretched their own faith, so as to incorporate those of all their neighbours, and they now worship the Sun under the form of Vishnu or Juggernaut. Yet within the great courts of Juggernaut, one small temple is specially dedicated to the Sun, and thither the people have transported their sacred black stone, from the old temple at Kanarak. Not a shapeless unhewn stone, such as those whereon the simple islanders of the Hebrides, used to pour out their libations to the Sun, on Sunday morning—but a monolith 150 feet high, carved into a stately and graceful pillar. Such pillars, we are told, were common in Southern India even half a century ago, but they have for the most part been destroyed by the ruthless ravages of Mohammedans and others.

To return to the Scottish Sun-god, Grian. It seems that the Highlanders consider the beneficent Brownies to be in some way his representatives, though all their kindly work was done at night. The name by which they were commonly called was Gruagach, the fair-headed. For, just as in the Rig Veda, the Hindu Sun-god is described as the golden-haired, the bright-haired, so the old Celts always spoke of the sun’s rays as his yellow hair, and the Brownies were therefore supposed to have long yellow hair. Hence this was a lucky colour, and the same Gaelic word expresses both yellow and fortunate. Whether the same notion may account for the sacred saffron robes of the Hindu Fakeers and of the Buddhist priests of Siam and Ceylon; I will not venture to guess.

Each village in the Highlands had its rough unhewn stone, called the Gruagach-stone, where, till very recent times, the villagers poured out libations of milk on every day consecrated to Graine or Grian, just as we now see the Hindus pour their daily offerings of milk, flowers, and water, on a similar rough unhewn stone, wherein their god is supposed to be present, and which invariably occupies a place of honour in every village. I do not know whether any of these stones still remain in Skye, but we are told, that not many years ago, there was scarcely a village in the island where the Gruagach-stone was not still held in some sort of reverence. Even in the last century libations of milk were poured on these stones at dawn every Sunday as a preliminary to Christian worship! Often, and I confess somewhat grudgingly, have I watched the poor Tamils of Trincomalee thus offering their oblations of precious milk, which they pour on the mighty headland of rock, where twice a week they assemble at sunset, to make offerings of fire, which their priest, standing on the utmost verge of the crag overhanging the sea, lifts heavenward, while all the people throw their arms upward—a weird and striking scene.

It would appear that the Romans likewise honoured their Sun-god with milky offerings, one of the titles of Apollo being Galaxius, the milky one, in whose honour was held a festival called Galaxia, when his votaries feasted on pulse boiled in milk.

Pennant mentions divers places in Wales and Ireland which he describes as Greinham, the house of the sun, where, he says, the Celts of old were wont to worship. We also find an island on the Druidic coast of Brittany which still bears the name of L’Ile de Groach. In Ireland there is to this day a great number of ancient stone altars,[45] which are called Graine’s beds. Of these there are said to be three hundred and sixty, one for each day of the old Celtic year, and the people have a quaint old legend, like one of Ossian’s songs, telling how Graine, the fair-haired and beautiful wife of Fin-Mac-Cool, fled from her lord, with young Dermot, and so incessantly did they fly from their pursuers that they never rested twice on the same spot; a strangely poetic version of a scientific fact, showing how early these old Celtic bards had noticed and idealized the sun’s daily, restless course. Among the ancient Breton legends we find divers versions of the loves of Graine and Diarmid, as also in the songs of Ossian, where Diarmid is slain by a poisonous bristle of the mysterious boar, which has pierced his heel. In the county of Donegal, at Grianan of Ailach, there still remain various traces of Cyclopean masonry, where, doubtless the temple of the Sun formerly stood.

Those places in which the name of Graine occurs are by no means the sole topographical traces of the early faith.

Many others thus betray their origin, as Dochann-le-bas in Perthshire, which means “the agony pertaining to the flames,” having evident reference to the old trials by fire. There are also a multitude of names in which _teine_, or fire, occurs as Tulliebelton, from Tulach-Beil-teine, “the knoll of the fire of Bel;” Ardentinny, from Ard-an-teine, “the height of the fire;” and Craigentinny, from Creag-an-teine, “the rock of the fire:” all doubtless having originally been the places where the great Baal fires burned. As to the prefix Bel, or Bal, which occurs in upwards of two thousand places in Scotland, and which at first sight would suggest a similar connection, Colonel Robertson declares it to be in every case derived from Baile, a village, or dwelling; not even excepting such names as Balnacraig or Belcraig, or even Balfron in Stirling, which is still marked by a Druidical circle, at which, tradition says, all the people had assembled for worship, leaving their little ones at their homes, where, alas! the wolves found and devoured them. Hence the Clachan received the name Bail-fron, “the town of mourning” (or the mourning by reason of Baal, as the case may be). Belan, in Montgomeryshire, and the Baal hills in Yorkshire, are, however, said undoubtedly to owe their names to the old faith.

Speaking of derivations, the name of the Hebrides is suggestive of one of those curious amalgamations of Paganism and Christianity, which we have so often had occasion to note. The name is literally Ey-Brides, the Islands of Bridgit, to whom six parishes in Scotland are also dedicated. Killbride, the cell of Bridgit, occurs eighteen times in Scotland alone, and we also find Panbride, and our own Lhanbride in Morayshire. The latter name tells its own story of the dubious saint; _Lhan_ being the sacred grove of the Druids. Hence Lhanbride means simply the grove of Bridgit, the Celtic goddess. Panbride is said to mean the light of Bridgit, implying a place where light was vouchsafed.[46] Hence, it is said, the church lands round Elgin Cathedral and the gate leading thereto, derived their names The Pans, and Pans Port.

It seems, then, clear that the Hebrides (the Ebudæ of the ancients) were under the special protection of that goddess Brighit, wife of Tath, whose temple was attended by virgins of noble birth, called the daughters of fire, or sometimes merely Breochuidh, the fire-keepers. Like the ancient Persians, they fed this fire only with one kind of peeled wood, and might never breathe upon the sacred flame. The ancient Irish are said to have so greatly reverenced all fire that they would not even put out a candle without uttering a prayer that the Lord would renew to them light from heaven.

When Christianity began to make its difficult way in these isles, it was so impossible to wean these vestal virgins from their post, that it was found simpler to institute a Christian Order of Nuns of St. Bridgit. To one of St. Patrick’s converts was assigned this delicate work of adapting things old to new meanings. St. Bridgit accordingly took up her abode in the grove of sacred oaks, where the people were accustomed to worship the goddess, and here she instructed them in the new faith. The vestal virgins were thus transformed into the first Christian community of religious women, and the temple of Bridgit at Kildare, became a great convent. To these Christian nuns was entrusted the care of the sacred fire, which from time immemorial had been kept burning in honour of the Celtic goddess. When, on the Eve of Good Friday, all other churches and convents extinguished their fire, not relighting it till Easter Eve, the nuns of St. Bridgit always kept theirs steadily burning, a practice which Giraldus Cambrensis says he knows not whether to attribute to a desire to have warmth and food always ready to bestow on all pilgrims and poor people, or whether it was done in obedience to the Levitical command that the fire should be ever burning on the altar, and never go out.

Thus the fire of Bridgit was kept perpetually burning till the year 1220, when it was extinguished by order of the Archbishop of Dublin to avoid superstition and scandal. So great, however, was the veneration in which it was held by the people that it was speedily rekindled, and was kept burning steadily on, till the monastery was suppressed in the time of Henry VIII. The ruins of the Fire House are still to be seen.

A somewhat similar incorporation of things old and new, was the Romanist procession of lighted candles on the 2nd February, “in memorie of Christe ye spirituall Lyghte.” It seems that on this day the ancient Romans burnt candles to the goddess Februe; and Pope Sergius, seeing it was useless to prohibit the practice, ordained offerings of candles to the Holy Virgin. Hence the feast of Candlemas.

Thus you see, Christianity was made easy by a very simple process of assimilation. Sometimes, indeed, it was found necessary to make a decided stand, as when the Christianized Goths craved permission to retain many wives, and to eat horse-flesh. The former point was conceded; but on the latter question the Church remained firm. Certainly it was a better decision than that which sanctioned St. Vladimir, the first Christian prince of Russia, in putting away all his wives, preparatory to his Baptism and marriage with the sister of the Emperor of Constantinople, inasmuch as putting them away meant simply depositing them in the Volga together with Perune, his deposed idol. So the process of assimilation certainly had some advantages!

This rigid prohibition of horse-flesh must have had reference to the sacrificing of horses to the Sun; a custom common to all the Aryan nations. The Scythians did so we know, so did the Armenians and Persians, whose costly horse sacrifices, and milk-white chariot of the Sun, have been described by Xenophon. Those of the Hindus are recorded in the Rig Veda, wherein we are told how at the great festival of the Aswamedha, a horse with rich trappings was led thrice (sunwise of course) round the sacrificial fire—then, while the king confessed his sins, and offered gifts to the Sun, the horse was sacrificed by the priests, and its flesh was made into little balls, and eaten by the worshippers. On some of the ancient Hindu Temples, such as the marble ruins on Mount Aboo, we find sculptures representing the car of the Sun drawn by seven horses, a custom probably still retained in Rajpootana and other native States. The Sun, however, is now honoured with an extra steed, as recent residents in Jeypore describe how on the festival of his birth, his chariot is brought from his temple and drawn through the city by eight horses. Other steeds are solemnly dedicated to him by the people, who pray that in return for such sacrifice, their cattle, and their children may multiply.

Precisely similar was the custom of the Welsh, who long continued to offer horses at the Holy Well at Ceqidoc, in order to bring a blessing on their herds; and there seems no doubt that the horse-flesh eaten by our ancestors had been previously sacrificed to the Celtic Sun-god Heul, under which name they worshipped that Helios, to whom the Greeks offered white horses. The horse occurs on the old coins both of Gaul and Britain; in connection with other emblems of the Sun and sometimes even with the head of Apollo.

Thus, too, the Egyptians of old were wont to represent Ra, their Sun-god, in a car drawn by seven horses, bearing with him seven prisoners, to represent the seven days of the week. Doubtless it was this Egyptian practice that suggested to the Kings of Judah the offering of chariots and horses to the Sun.

Several curious relics of heathen days, connected with the baptism of children, were kept up in the Highlands certainly till the beginning of this century. The fire-place of a Highland cottage being in those days almost invariably just a hollow in the middle of the floor, such as you may see in some parts of Argyle and the Isles, the child was handed across the fire, immediately after its baptism, being thus as it were, made to pass through the flames. This was done thrice. Then each person present took three spoonfuls of meal and water, or something stronger. Sometimes the child was placed in a basket covered with a white cloth, and bread and cheese being laid beside it, the basket was suspended from the crook in the fire-place, which was moved round thrice sunwise. Moreover every person entering the house was required to take up a burning firebrand from the hearth, and therewith cross himself, before he ventured to approach the new-born child or its mother.

These customs seem to have formed part of the ceremony to which Pope Gregory alluded, when speaking of pagan baptism, a ceremony in which both fire and water were employed by the Druids, in honour of Neith, their goddess of waters, whose name is said to signify purifying with water. Perhaps when these men first beheld the symbolic use of these sacred elements in Christian baptism, they may the more readily for old sake’s sake have submitted to that mystic rite. As regards the presence of fire in the Christian Sacrament, we must bear in mind that although the majority of Protestants disallow it, it is still retained by very large sections of the Church, as representing the fire of Divine love. Thus the Romish Church, in blessing the water to be used in baptism, dips a lighted taper in the font, in token that the baptism from on high is not with water only “but with the Holy Ghost and with fire,” and the Greek Church symbolizes the same mystery by the great lighted tapers, which are ranged round her font.

Whatever may have been the original idea in worshipping Neith, as a goddess of purifying water, it seems to have quickly degenerated into the commonest invention of mythology. This River-goddess had the power of assuming the form of a horse or of a bull, and invariably proved treacherous and malicious. Hence she was dreaded as a destroyer, who lured men to their doom. She appears in endless stories of Water Bulls and Water Kelpies, and is supposed still to haunt Loch Lomond, Loch Rannoch, Loch Awe, Lochan Dorb in Morayshire, and many of the distant isles. Sometimes she takes human form, and sucks the blood of man or maid. Sometimes she appears as a stray horse, quietly grazing by the water; then should any rash rider mount her, or any canny farmer harness her, with others, to the plough, she will dash into the water and there at her leisure, devour her victims. Sometimes an irreverent hand has tried to kill the suspected stray horse, but at touch of cold steel, she is transformed into a quiet pool of water.

Various places both on the mainland and in the Hebrides still bear her name of Neith or Nait; Annat burn, and Annat glen in Perthshire; the Tempul-na-Anait in Skye, and the Tabir-na-Annait, or Well of Neith, in the little island of Calligray belonging to Harris, where the worshippers purified themselves before proceeding to the Teampull-na-Annait, close by—the ruins of the old Christian Chapel, retaining the name of the heathen goddess. Colonel Forbes-Leslie has pointed out the singular identity of this name with that of the Persian goddess Anaitis, whose temple was reared on an artificial mound. Strabo describes having himself witnessed the ceremonial of the Magi in her honour; and, as we know that they offered horses to the rivers, the origin of the water kelpies seems plain enough. Wilford writing in the last century describes certain springs of naphtha near the Tigris, which were sacred to the goddess Anaïas, and he mentions that many holy Hindus made pilgrimages to her temple. Pennant also speaks of Anait as a goddess of Armenia, and mentions that Diana was sometimes called the Anait. He says that in the Isle of Skye he found traces of four temples of Anait; one of these was near Dunvegan. In each case they were built at the spot where two rivers met, a stone wall extending from stream to stream, so as to form with the two waters a triangle, in the centre of which stood the ruins of the temple.

Doubtless the worship of the goddess Neith was the origin of the reverence paid to all wells and fountains, and of the custom of leaving offerings of more or less value, to propitiate the spirit of the well. Both Edgar and Canute issued prohibitory statutes touching this matter; and Gregory of Tours, writing in the sixth century, shows that woods, waters, birds, and beasts, were still commonly worshipped. Pope Gregory III. in 740, prohibited the Germans from offering sacrifices and consulting auguries beside the fountains in sacred groves. And so late as A.D. 1102, St. Anselm issued commands in London, forbidding well-worship. In Ireland the difficulty was solved by dedicating the wells to saints, whose votaries still deposit a rag or a pin, to represent the more precious offerings of olden days. But it is strange indeed to find the very same custom still lingering in this land of sturdy common sense, and to find that divers wells and lochs are still supposed to have miraculous powers of healing. For instance there is a loch in Strath Naver in Sutherland, to which people constantly resort for all manner of cures. They must walk backwards into the water, take their dip, and leave a small coin as an offering. Then without looking round they must walk straight back to the land, and so, right away from the loch.

On the island of Inch-Maree, in Loch Maree in Ross-shire, there is a well where the people still hang “clouts,” and leave small coins, and which till very recently, had the property of curing madness, at such times as the waters were full. Should they be low, it was a sign that the spirit of the well was unpropitious, and the waters had no such power. Close by the well, and surrounded by a low copse of oak and birch wood, there is a very old burial-place surrounded by a circular wall, which Pennant believed to have been originally a Druid temple. The stump of a very old tree was pointed out to him, as the place of the altar, and here lunatics were made to kneel, and make their offerings; thence passing to the well, they drank its sacred waters, and made a second offering, after which they bathed, thrice in the lake. This ceremony was repeated daily for several weeks, by which time, the feverish madness was often pretty well cured; and so firmly did the people believe in the power of St. Maree (Malruba), that his name was the most solemn oath by which they swore. All went well, till one evil day, when alas! a mad dog was thrown into the well. The dog was cured, but the angry spirit of the well departed for ever. The man whose presumption wrought this mischief himself went mad; but he tested the waters in vain; their virtue had gone from them, never to return, nor have they ever again risen to their former level. Whether this miracle had any connection with certain deep drainage cuttings made at that time, I leave sceptics to determine.

In like manner in a churchyard on Loch Torridon is a well where for centuries three stones have been perpetually whirling round and round. All manner of illnesses have been cured by carrying one of these stones in a bucket of water to the patient, who touched the stone, after which it was carried back to its usual place, and began whirling as usual. But one day, a foolish woman carried home one of them in her bucket to heal a sick goat, and when it was put back, it would no longer whirl, but sank to the bottom of the well, where it has lain quietly ever since.

All these well-stories seem to prove the spirits terribly prone to take offence. One of the springs held in especial reverence was the Tonbir Knabir in Islay, literally the locomotive well, so called because it was originally in Isle Colonsay; but one day a rash woman was guilty of washing her hands in it, whereupon it instantly dried up, and transported its waters to Islay, where it was henceforth honoured with _Deisul_ processions, and small offerings were made to its tutelary spirit. St. Catherine’s well and chapel in the Isle of Eigg were also treated with much reverence. So was that at Sleat in the Isle of Skye. At Broadford there is a well in the churchyard, near to which used to hang a bell, that rang supernaturally about once a week. No human bell-ringer had any hand in producing the wild chimes that rang out so loud and clear that they could be heard for miles, giving warning to all the sick folk to come to the healing waters and be made whole. But a new power at last interfered (minister or steward) and the bell was removed, since which time the virtue of the well is gone, and the people are left to the tender mercies of a human leech. One loch in Ross-shire is still said to cure deafness, and the neighbours told me of one man who had undoubtedly recovered his hearing by judicious adherence to the letter of the law; thrice he had walked backwards into the water and thrice returned to land without looking round. Their admiration of the cure was somewhat damped by the fact of the man’s death within a year. The well at Craig-Howe in Ross-shire also cures deafness, and receives large stores of clouts, pins, and coins.

In the parish of Avock, in the Black Isles (facing Inverness), is a well called Craigie Well, probably from the dark crag rising behind it. On the first Sunday in May (old style) all the people from far and near gather here at daybreak—a regular hearty Highland gathering—as merry as a fair, all exchanging kindly greetings and good wishes for the health of the coming year, in good broad Scotch, in Gaelic, or in such pure English as we rarely hear from the poor in any part of Britain, save here, where it is an acquired tongue. The health, of course, is to be secured by a draught of the lucky well. But they must get their drink before the sun rises. Once he climbs the horizon the spell is broken, so as the last moments draw near the eager pressing forward for a taste amounts to a downright scramble.

A stranger, whose curiosity induced him to go forth betimes and witness this curious scene, tells how “some drank out of dishes, some stooped on their knees to drink, the latter being occasionally plunged over head and ears by their companions.” As the first rays of the sun appeared a man was seen coming down the brae in great haste. He was recognised as “Jock Forsyth,” a very honest and pious, but eccentric individual. Scores of voices shouted, “You are too late, Jock. The sun is rising. Surely you have slept in this morning.” The new-comer, a middle-aged man, perspiring profusely, and out of breath, nevertheless pressed through the crowd and never stopped till he reached the well. Then, muttering a few inaudible words, he stooped on his knees and took a large draught. Then he rose and said, “O Lord, Thou knowest that weel would it be for me this day, an’ I had stoopit my knees and my heart before Thee in spirit and in truth, as often as I have stoopit them afore this well. But we maun keep the customs of our fathers.” So he stepped aside among the rest and dedicated his offering to the briar bush, which by this time could hardly be seen through the number of shreds which covered it. For part of the ceremony is that each comer must hang a shred of cloth on a large briar bush, which grows close by the well, as an offering to the healing and luck-conferring waters, forcibly reminding the beholder of those holy wells and bushes in the Emerald Isle, where many-coloured rags flutter in the breeze; poor Paddy’s votive offerings to the blessed St. Somebody on behalf of sick parent or child. Reminding us also of the tombs of the Mohammedan saints, near Constantinople, where every pilgrim ties to the window bars a shred torn from his or her own raiment. The same custom is religiously observed by the Mohammedan pilgrims visiting the Mosque of Omar at Jerusalem; beneath the great dome of which lies that huge rock whence Mohammed ascended to heaven, supposed to be the identical rock whereon Abraham did not sacrifice Isaac. This rock is surrounded by a great iron railing, adorned with thousands of rags, tied up by the pilgrims as reminders to the Prophet. Indeed, strips of old cloth seem to be a recognised medium of communication with the spirit-world in all corners of the globe, for in our eastern wanderings we found many a gaily decorated shrub in the lonely Himalayan glens and passes, which, in the distance, seemed to be loaded with blossoms, but which on closer approach proved to be laden with bright morsels of rag, the simple offerings of the Hill-men to the spirit of some tree or well. In Ceylon also, where we spent a lovely moonlight night on the summit of Adam’s Peak, the “Holy Mount” of Buddhists, Sivaites, and Mohammedans, we noted the multitude of rags tied to the iron chains which prevent the roof of the temple covering the holy footprint from being blown away. The poor pilgrims believe that a shred of their raiment, thus offered, will surely prevent Buddha from forgetting them and their vows. On these superstitious customs in far-away lands we look with calm indifference. But to find the very same practice still lingering among our sturdy Ross-shire Highlanders is certainly somewhat startling.

Similar customs are still kept up at St Mary’s Well, in the birch wood above the house of Culloden, two miles from Inverness, where on this same morning (first Sunday in May, old style), several hundred people assemble from far and near, to wish for their heart’s desire, drink solemnly, and hang up a rag on the bushes before sunrise as being a most efficacious hour, though they continue coming as long as the dew lies on the grass, which it often does all day. Formerly a chapel stood close by, but its ruins have now disappeared.

There were certain wells from which water was carried to the sick. It was necessary that it should be drawn before sunrise, that the bearer should not speak on his way to or from the well, neither open his lips till the sick man had drank the life-giving potion. Nor might the water-vessel be allowed to touch the ground. There were also peculiar virtues belonging to water drawn from under a bridge “over which the living walked and the dead were carried.” Especial virtue was attached to south-running water.

One condition of success in all these charms was that there should be no looking backward, and the same idea is clearly traceable in various Hindu customs. Thus in Bengal, a man intending to travel will first consult an astrologer, and having ascertained the lucky moment to start, he takes a green leaf from out a brass lota (vessel) filled with water from the sacred Ganges, and then walks straight out of his house and right away, without once looking back.

All lads and lasses who, on Hallow-e’en, peer into the looking-glass for visions of the future, know well that they must not dare to glance backward lest they should see more than they ought. One curious legend of our own dear old home tells how Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonstown, who was well known to have dealings with the powers of darkness, chose one morning to drive his coach and four across Loch Spynie after a single night’s frost. He bade his servant to sit steady, and on no account look back. The man obeyed till just as they reached the further side, he could not resist “a glower ower his left shoulder,” and as he turned he beheld a large black raven fly from the back of the carriage, which at the same instant sank into the mud, so near the edge, however, that the good steeds managed to extricate it without further aid from the spirit-world.

So strongly is this point insisted on in all dealings with the wizards of all lands, that I almost fancy some such notion may have crept in among the old Jews (who were constantly tainted by the superstitions of their heathen neighbours), and may have been the cause why, when the ten lepers were cleansed, the nine went straight away, and the stranger alone returned to give thanks for his cure. They were always sufficiently ready to attribute the miracles of our Lord to witchcraft and the agency of Beelzebub, prince of the devils, and may have done so in this case also.

These sacred wells seem to have been reverenced all over the country, and every now and then the records of the kirk sessions tell of some luckless wight having been subjected to discipline for heathenish practices as an example to all other offenders, without, however, producing the desired effect. Among the various efforts made to check the well-worship in the seventeenth century was an order from the Privy Council, appointing Commissioners “to wait at Christ’s well in Menteith on the first of May, and to seize all who might assemble at the spring, and imprison them in Doune Castle.”

Great efforts were then made to extinguish heathenism of all sorts, necromancies, and spells with trees and with stones, as also to put down the custom of bringing men sick of divers diseases to be touched by “the seventh son of a woman; never a girl or wench being born between.” But at the same time, the law still sanctions all cases of scrofula being brought to the King, as “daily experience doth witness that Kings and Queens do possess this speciall gift of God, to heall with only touching.” Therefore, not only did the kirk authorise the continuance of this practice, but the Church of England sanctioned a special liturgy to be used on these occasions. This custom was first introduced by Edward the Confessor in 1058, and was continued by his successors. So we hear that Charles I. did on St. John’s Day 1633 visit Holyrood Chapel, and there “heallit 100 persons, young and old, of the Cruelles, or King’s Evil.”

In the days of his captivity, when a rude soldiery would not suffer the poor cripples to come near the royal person, the King prayed aloud that God would grant their petition, and that prayer, says the historian, was granted, although the touch was thus prevented. Charles II. actually touched ninety-two thousand one hundred and seven such patients, being an average of twelve per diem for twenty years. Verily he had “a doctor’s trouble, but without the fees!”

In fact, he paid the fees, as he restored the custom of giving to each sick person a broad gold piece, instead of the “beggarly silver coin” which his predecessors had substituted for the original “fair rose-noble.” According to Wiseman, the King’s Physician, scarcely one instance occurred in which the Royal touch failed to accomplish a cure. Indeed, not he alone, but a host of learned divines and surgeons wrote treatises on the subject, declaring their perfect faith in this miraculous power. Even in the days of good Queen Bess, an eminent surgeon, in a professional work on the treatment of this disease, declares his confident belief that when all the other methods of cure have failed, people may expect sure relief from the touch of Her Majesty.

Nevertheless, when vain men and women dared to practise soothing mesmeric passes and “stroking,” the cures which they sometimes performed were invariably attributed to witchcraft, just as magic was suspected, when the Egyptian priests of old proved that “by touching with the hands,” or “stroking with gentle hands,” they could immediately restore to health those to whom medicines had proved of no avail; a miraculous power which descended to one, at least, of the Egyptian saints of the desert, of whom it is recorded that he found that by his touch he could heal all manner of diseases.

In early days these royal physicians signed their patients with the cross; but this was discontinued when the wrath of Rome was fulminated against Protestant kings, to whom, nevertheless, Catholics, as well as patients of other creeds, continued to come for relief. In fact, as if to prove how powerless was the anathema of the Pope to check this gift of Heaven, we find Henry VIII. not content with miraculously curing all scrofula-stricken patients who came to him, but also such as were afflicted with cruel cramps. The former he cured by the usual royal process of stroking; while on the latter he bestowed magical rings, known as cramp rings. So strictly orthodox, however, were these miracles, that Church and State alike clung jealously to them, as to a most precious item of regal prerogative, and so late as 1684 (while presumptuous subjects who dared to work similar cures, were condemned as wizards and witches), we are told how one Thomas Russell was tried for high treason, because he had spoken with contempt of the King’s touch.

The practice of bestowing on every patient a gold coin, suspended from the neck by a white ribbon, was first introduced by Henry VII. in the gladness of finding that he indeed possessed the regal gift of healing, just as truly as that poor Richard whose Divine right to the throne he failed to acknowledge. Charles II., as we have seen, dealt out his ninety-two thousand cures and golden coins with liberal hand, but in later days a trifling silver coin was substituted. Such an one was bestowed, by Queen Anne on the infant Dr. Samuel Johnson, and is still preserved as a relic by the Duke of Devonshire. It is strange indeed, to think of the great embodiment of heavy learning having been subjected to this quaint remedy for his infantile pains. He speaks of his earliest recollections of Queen Anne, as a lady dressed in a black hood, and glittering with diamonds, into whose awful presence he had been ushered in his infancy, that by her royal touch she might cure him of his sore disease!

The office appointed by the Church to be said on these occasions was actually retained in the English liturgy till 1719, when it was quietly omitted by command of George I., who altogether discouraged the superstition. Yet the practice was only finally relinquished by George III. As to the Jacobite party, they retained their faith in the Stuart touch to the very last. Thus when Charles Edward was at Avignon, certain sufferers were taken to him there; others were brought to him at Holyrood.

The same strange power has always been claimed by the Kings of France, as part of their Divine right. So early as A.D. 481 it was practised by Clovis. And we are told that on Easter Day 1686 Lewis XIV. touched sixteen hundred people, saying to each, “_Le roy te touche, Dieu te guérisse!_”