and the crowd, who had collected to witness the trial, exclaimed, "To Satan's kingdom she hath gone.” The incident is of interest since the view of her case, then taken, was contrary to the one usually held, as explained above. Perhaps the people standing by thought that the devil was so eager to get his own, that he would not lose the chance of securing his victim at once. Elginshire has another memorial of the black art in the form of The Witch's Stone at Forres. It consists of a boulder about a yard in diameter and probably marks the spot where unhappy females convicted of witchcraft were executed. About the year 1790 some one wished to turn the stone to good account for building purposes and broke it into three pieces. The breaker, however, was compelled to put it together again, and the iron then used to clasp it is still in position. Legend accounts for the breakage in a less prosaic way. When the boulder was being carried by a witch through the air in her apron, the apron-string broke, and, as a result, the stone was broken too. The spot was formerly reckoned ill-omened. It would be too much to say that belief in the black art has vanished from the Highlands; though, fortunately for the good sense of our age, as well as for those who live in it, witch pools are not now in requisition. Pennant bears witness to the fact that belief in witchcraft ceased in Perthshire soon after the repeal, in 1736, of the penal statutes against witches. In more northern districts it continued a vital part of the

popular creed till much later.

The Rev. Donald

Sage mentions, in his "Memorabilia Domestica," that the Rev. Mr. Fraser, minister of Killearnan in Ross-shire, about 1750, was much troubled with somnolency even in the pulpit. He was in consequence thought to be bewitched-a notion that he himself shared. Two women were fixed on, as the cause of his unnatural slumbers. It was believed that they had made a clay image representing the minister and had stuck pins into it. Certain pains felt by him were ascribed to this cause. Had it not been for the Act of 1736, it would doubtless have fared ill with the supposed witches.

Witches, however, were not alone in their power of floating. According to a popular belief in the north-west Highlands, insane people cannot sink in water. Sir Arthur Mitchell, in the "Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland," volume iv., refers to the case of a certain madman-Wild Murdoch by name-concerning whom strange stories were told. He was born on the small island of Melista, near the coast of Lewis, used only for occasional habitation in connection with the pasturing of cattle. Anyone born in the island is believed to become insane. The superstition about not sinking was certainly put to a severe test in Wild Murdoch's case. "It is said," remarks Sir Arthur, "that his friends used to tie a rope round his body, make it fast to the stern of the boat, and then pull out to sea, taking the wretched man in tow. The

story goes that he was so buoyant that he could not sink; 'that they tried to press him down into the water;' that he could swim with a stone fastened to him; that when carried to the rocky holms of Melista or Greinan, round which the open Atlantic surges, and left there alone, he took to the water and swam ashore."

CHAPTER X.

WATER-SPIRITS.

Influence of Scenery-Science and Superstition-Loch-nan-Spoiradan-Lochan-nan-Deann-Lochan-Wan and its SacrificeJenny Greenteeth-Poetry and Superstition-Tweed and Till-Dee and Don-Folk-practices for Finding a Drowned Body-Deeside Tradition-Salt used by Tweed Fishers for Good Luck Guardian-Spirit of Conan - Peg PowlerWater-kelpies- Nikr-Halliwell Boggle-Robin Round Cap -Round Hole, near Flamborough-Aberdeenshire Kelpy Legends-Some Sutherland Kelpies-Story about an Islay Kelpy-Mermaids in the North.

"ONE of the great charms of Highland landscape is the gleam of still water that so often gives the element of repose in a scene of broken cliff and tumbled crag, of noisy cascade and driving cloud. No casual tourist can fail to notice what a wonderful variety of lakes he meets with in the course of any traverse he may take across the country. Among the higher mountains there is the little tarn nestling in a dark sunless corry, and half-encircled with grim snow-rifted crags. In the glen, there is the occasional broadening of the river into a lake that narrows again to let the stream rush down a rocky ravine.

In the wider strath there is the broad still expanse of water, with its fringe of wood and its tree-covered islets. In the gneiss region of the North-West, there is the little lochan lying in its basin of bare rock and surrounded with scores of others all equally treeless and desolate." So writes Professor Sir A. Geikie in his "Scenery of Scotland." His point of view is that of a scientific observer, keenly alive to all the varied phenomena of nature. But amid the scenes described lived men and women who looked at the outer world through the refracting medium of superstition. They saw the landscape, but they saw also what their own imagination supplied. In Strathspey, is a sheet of water bearing the Gaelic name of Loch-nan-Spoiradan or the Lake of Spirits. What shape these spirits assumed we do not know, but there was no mistake about the form of the spirit who guarded Lochan-nan-Deaan, close to the old military road between Corgarff and Tomintoul. The appearance of this spirit may be gathered from the Rev. Dr. Gregor's remarks in an article on " Guardian Spirits of Wells and Lochs" in "Folklore" for March, 1892. After describing the loch, he says, "It was believed to be bottomless, and to be the abode of a water-spirit that delighted in human sacrifice. Notwithstanding this blood-thirsty spirit, the men of Strathdon and Corgarff resolved to try to draw the water from the loch, in hope of finding the remains of those that had perished in it. On a fixed day a number of them met with spades and picks to cut a