can kill his body, since his life is not in it." Sometimes the soul is believed to be stowed away in a tree, injury to the latter involving disaster to the former. The custom of planting trees, and calling them after certain persons may nowadays have nothing to do with this notion; but, undoubtedly, a real connection was at one time believed to exist between the partners in the transaction. A certain oak, with mistletoe growing on it, was mysteriously associated with the family of Hay. The superstition is explained in the following lines:

"While the mistletoe bats on Errol's oak

And that oak stands fast,

The Hays shall flourish, and their good grey hawk
Shall not flinch before the blast.

But when the root of the oak decays

And the mistletoe dwines on its withered breast,
The grass shall grow on the Earl's hearthstone,
And the corbies craw in the falcon's nest."

At Finlarig Castle, near Killin, in Perthshire, are several trees, believed to be linked with the lives of certain individuals, connected by family ties with the ruined fortress. Aubrey gives an example of this superstition, as it existed in England in the seventeenth century. He says, "I cannot omit taking notice of the great misfortune in the family of the Earl of Winchelsea, who, at Eastwell, in Kent, felled down a most curious grove of oaks near his own noble seat, and gave the first blow with his own hands. Shortly after, the countess died in her bed suddenly, and his eldest son, the Lord Maidstone, was killed at

sea by a cannon bullet." In the grounds of Dalhousie Castle, about two miles from Dalkeith, on the edge of a fine spring is the famous Edgewell Oak. Sir Walter Scott, in his "Journal," under date May 13th, 1829, writes, "Went with the girls to dine at Dalhousie Castle, where we were very kindly received. I saw the Edgewell Tree, too fatal, says Allan Ramsay, to the family from which he was himself descended." According to a belief in the district, a branch fell from this tree, before the death of a member of the family. The original oak fell early in last century, but a new one sprang from the old root. An editorial note to the above entry in the "Journal” gives the following information:-"The tree is still flourishing (1889), and the belief in its sympathy with the family is not yet extinct, as an old forester, on seeing a branch fall from it on a quiet still day in July, 1874, exclaimed, 'The laird's deed, noo!' and, accordingly, news came soon after that Fox Maule, eleventh Earl of Dalhousie, had died."

The external soul was sometimes associated with objects other than living trees. Dr. Charles Rogers tells us that that "a pear, supposed to have been enchanted by Hugh Gifford, Lord of Yester, a notable magician in the reign of Alexander III., is preserved in the family of Brown of Colston, as heirs of Gifford's estate." The prosperity of the family is believed to be linked with the preservation of the pear. Even an inanimate object would serve the purpose. The glass drinking-cup, known as the

"Luck of Edenhall," is connected with the fortunes of the Musgrave family, and great care is taken to preserve it from injury. Tradition says that a company of fairies were making merry beside a spring near the mansion-house, but that, being frightened by some intruder, they vanished, leaving the cup in question, while one of them exclaimed :— "If this cup should break or fall, Farewell the luck of Edenhall."

Some living object, however, either vegetable or animal, was the usual repository of the external soul. A familiar folk-tale tells of a giant whose heart was in a swan, and who could not be killed while the swan lived. Hunting was a favourite occupation among the inhabitants of the Western Isles; but on the mountain Finchra, in Rum, no deer was killed by any member of the Lachlan family, as it was believed that the life of that family was in some way linked with the life of these animals. A curious superstition is mentioned by Camden in his "Britannia." In a pond near the Abbey of St. Maurice, in Burgundy, were put as many fish as there were monks. When any monk was taken ill, one of the fish was seen to float half-dead on the surface of the pond. If the fish died the monk died too, the death of the former giving warning of the fate of the latter. In this case the external soul was thought of as stowed away in a fish. As is well known, the Arms of the City of Glasgow are a bell, a tree, a

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fish with a ring in its mouth, and a bird. The popular explanation of these emblems connects them with certain miracles, wrought by Kentigern, the patron saint of the burgh. May we not hold that an explanation of their symbolism is to be sought in a principle, that formed an article in the beliefs of men, long before Kentigern was born, as well as during his time and since? The bell, it is true, had, doubtless, an ecclesiastical association; but the other three symbols point, perhaps, to some superstitious notion like the above. In various folk-tales, as well as in Christian art, the soul is sometimes typified by a bird. As we have just seen, it has been associated with trees and fish. We are entitled therefore to ask whether the three symbols may not express one and the same idea under different forms. It is, of course, open to anyone to say that there were fish in the river, on whose banks Kentigern took up his abode, and quite a forest with birds singing in it around his cell, and that no further explanation of the symbolism need be sought. All these, it is true, existed within the saint's environment, but may they not have been regarded as types of the soul under the guise of objects familiar to all, and afterwards grouped together in the burgh Arms? On this hypothesis,

the symbols have survived the belief that gave them birth, and serve to connect the practical life of to-day, with the vague visions and crude conjectures of the past.

CHAPTER XV.

CHARM-STONES IN AND OUT OF WATER.

Stone-worship-Mysterious Properties of Stones-Symbolism of Gems-Gnostics—Abraxas Gems-Gems in Sarcophagi―Lifestones-Use of Amulets in Scotland-Yellow Stone in MullBaul Muluy-Black Stones of Iona-Stone as MedicineDeclan's Stone-Curing-stones still used for Cattle-Mary, Queen of Scots-Amulet at Abbotsford-Highland ReticenceAberfeldy Curing-stone-Lapis Ceranius and Lapis HecticusBernera-St. Ronan's Altar-Blue Stone in Fladda-Baul Muluy again-Columba's White Stone-Loch Manaar-Well near Loch Torridon-Stones besides Springs-Healing-stones at Killin-Their connection with Fillan-Mornish-Altars and Crosses-Iona-Clach-a-brath-Cross at Kilberry-Lunar Stone in Harris-Perforated Stones-Ivory-Barbeck's BoneAdder-beads-Sprinkling Cattle-Elf-bolts-Clach-na-Bratach -Clach Dearg-Lee Penny-Lockerbie Penny-Black Penny.

WE have already seen that in early times water was an object of worship. Stones also were reverenced as the embodiments of nature-deities. "In Western Europe during the middle ages," remarks Sir J. Lubbock in his "Origin of Civilisation," "we meet with several denunciations of stone-worship, proving its deep hold on the people. Thus the worship of stones was condemned by Theodoric, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the seventh century, and is among

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