Part 14

Winchburgh, the name of the second largest village in the parish of Kirkliston, and a station on the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway, is perhaps worthy of note, from its being placed in the same district as the stone of Vetta, the son of Victa, and from the appellation possibly signifying originally, according to Mr. Kemble (our highest authority in such a question), the burgh of Woden, or Wodensburgh. (See his History of the Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. p. 346.)]

ON SOME SCOTTISH MAGICAL CHARM-STONES, OR CURING-STONES.

Throughout all past time, credulity and superstition have constantly and strongly competed with the art of medicine. There is no doubt, according to Pliny, that the magical art began in Persia, that it originated in medicine, and that it insinuated itself first amongst mankind under the plausible guise of promoting health. In proof of the antiquity of the belief, this great Roman encyclopædist cites Eudoxus, Aristotle, and Hermippus, as averring that magical arts were used thousands of years before the time of the Trojan war.

Assuredly, in ancient times, faith in the effects of magical charms, amulets, talismans, etc., seems to have prevailed among all those ancient races of whom history has left any adequate account. In modern times a belief in their efficiency and power is still extensively entertained amongst most of the nations of Asia and Africa. In some European kingdoms, also, as in Turkey, Italy, and Spain, belief in them still exists to a marked extent. In our own country, the magical practices and superstitions of the older and darker ages persist only as forms and varieties, so to speak, of archæological relics,--for they remain at the present day in comparatively a very sparse and limited degree. They are now chiefly to be found among the uneducated, and in outlying districts of the kingdom. But still, some practices, which primarily sprung up in a belief in magic, are carried on, even by the middle and higher classes of society, as diligently as they were thousands of years ago, and without their magical origin being dreamed of by those who follow them. The coral is often yet suspended as an ornament around the neck of the Scottish child, without the potent and protective magical and medicinal qualities long ago attached to it by Dioscorides and Pliny being thought of by those who place it there. Is not the egg, after being emptied of its edible contents, still, in many hands, as assiduously pierced by the spoon of the eater as if he had weighing upon his mind the strong superstition of the ancient Roman, that--if he omitted to perforate the empty shell--he incurred the risk of becoming spell-bound, etc.? Marriages seem at the present day as much dreaded in the month of May as they were in the days of Ovid, when it was a proverbial saying at Rome that

"Mense malas Maio nubere vulgus ait."

And, in the marriage ceremony itself, the finger-ring still holds among us as prominent a place as it did among the superstitious marriage-rites of the ancient pagan world. Among the endless magical and medical properties that were formerly supposed to be possessed by human saliva, one is almost universally credited by the Scottish schoolboy up to the present hour; for few of them ever assume the temporary character of pugilists without duly spitting into their hands ere they close their fists; as if they retained a full reliance on the magical power of the saliva to increase the strength of the impending blow--if not to avert any feeling of malice produced by it--as was enunciated, eighteen centuries ago, by one of the most laborious and esteemed writers of that age, in a division of his work which he gravely prefaces with the assertion that in this special division he has made it his "object (as he declares) to state no facts but such as are established by nearly uniform testimony."

In a separate chapter (chap. iv.) in his 30th Book, Pliny alludes to the prevalence of magical beliefs and superstitious practices in the ancient Celtic provinces of France and Britain. "The Gaelic provinces," says he, "were pervaded by the magical art, and that even down to a period within memory; for it was the Emperor Tiberius who put down the Druids and all that tribe of wizards and physicians." We know, however, from the ancient history of France posterior to Pliny's time, that the Druids survived as a powerful class in that country for a long time afterwards. Writing towards the end of the first century, Pliny goes on to remark;--"At the present day, struck with fascination, Britannia still cultivates this art, and that with ceremonials so august, that she might almost seem to have been the first to communicate them to the people of Persia." "To such a degree," adds this old Roman philosopher, "are nations throughout the whole world, totally different as they are, and quite unknown to one another, in accord upon this one point."

Some supposed vestiges of a most interesting kind, of very ancient Gallic or Celtic word-charms, have recently been brought before archæologists by the celebrated German philologist Grimm, and by Pictet of Geneva. Marcellus, the private physician of the Roman Emperor Theodosius, was a Gaul born in Aquitane, and hence, it is believed, was intimately acquainted with the Gaulish or Celtic language of that province. He left a work on quack medicines (De Medicamentis Empiricis), written probably near the end of the fourth century. This work contains, amongst other things, a number of word-charms, or superstitious cure-formulas, that were, till lately, regarded--like Cato's word-cure for fractures of the bones--as mere unmeaning gibberish. Joseph Grimm and M. Pictet, however, think that they have found in these word-charms of Marcellus, specimens of the Gaulish or Celtic language several centuries older than any that were previously known to exist--none of the earliest glosses used by Zeuss, in his famous Grammatica Celtica, being probably earlier than the eighth or ninth centuries. If the labours of Grimm and Pictet prove successful in this curious field of labour, they will add another proof to the prevalence of magical charms among the Celtic nations of antiquity, and afford us additional confirmation of the ancient prevalence, as described by Pliny, of a belief in the magical art among the Gaelic inhabitants of France and Britain.

The long catalogue of the medical superstitions and magical practices originally pertaining to our Celtic forefathers, was no doubt from time to time increased and swelled out in Britain by the addition of the analogous medical superstitions and practices of the successive Roman and Teutonic invaders and conquerors of our island. A careful analysis would yet perhaps enable the archæologist to separate some of these classes of magical beliefs from each other; but many of them had, perhaps, a common and long anterior origin. We know further that, in its earlier centuries among us, the teachers of Christianity added greatly to the number of existing medical superstitions, by maintaining the efficacy, for example, of a visit to the cross of King Edwin of Northumberland, for the cure of agues, etc.,--the marvellous alleged recoveries worked by visiting the grave of St. Ninian at Whitehorn, or the cross of St. Mungo in the Cathedral churchyard at Glasgow; the sovereign virtues of the waters of wells used by various anchorets, and dedicated to various saints throughout the country; the curative powers of holy robes, bells, bones, relics, etc.

Numerous forms of medical superstitions, charms, amulets, incantations, etc., derived from the preceding channels, and possibly also from other sources, seem to have been known and practised among our forefathers, and for the cure of almost all varieties of human maladies, whether of the mind or body. Our old Scottish hagiologies, witch trials, ecclesiastical records, etc., abound with notices of them. Nor have some of the oldest and most marked medical superstitions of ancient times been very long obliterated and forgotten. I know, for example, of two localities in the Lowlands, one near Biggar in Lanarkshire, the other near Torphichen in West Lothian, where, within the memory of the present and past generation, living cows have been sacrificed for curative purposes, or under the hope of arresting the progress of the murrain in other members of the flock. In both these instances the cow was sacrificed by being buried alive. The sacrifice of other living animals, as of the cat, cock, mole, etc., for the cure of disease, and especially of fits, epilepsy, and insanity, continues to be occasionally practised in some parts of the Highlands up to the present day. And in the city of Edinburgh itself, every physician knows the fact that, in the chamber of death, usually the face of the mirror is most carefully covered over, and often a plate with salt in it is placed upon the chest of the corpse.

The Museum of the Society contains a few medicinal charms and amulets, principally in the form of amber beads (which were held potent in the cure of blindness), perforated stones, and old distaff whorls, whose original use seems to have been forgotten, and new and magical properties assigned to them. But the most important medicinal relic in the collection is the famous "Barbreck's bone," a slice or tablet of ivory, about seven inches long, four broad, and half-an-inch in thickness. It was long in the possession of the ancient family of Barbreck in Argyleshire, and over the Western Highlands had the reputation of curing all forms and degrees of insanity. It was formerly reckoned so valuable that a bond of £100 was required to be deposited for the loan of it.

But the main object of the present communication is, through the kind permission of Struan Robertson, Lady Lockhart of Lee, and others, to show to the Society two or three of the principal curing-stones of Scotland.

Several of these curing-stones long retained their notoriety, but they have now almost all fallen entirely into disuse, at least for the cure of human diseases. In some districts, however, they are still employed in the treatment of the diseases of domestic animals.

A very ancient example of the use of a "curing-stone" in this country is detailed in what may be regarded as the first or oldest historical work which has been left us in reference to Scotland, namely, in Adamnan's Life of St. Columba. This biography of the founder of Iona was probably written in the last years of the seventh century, Adamnan having died in A.D. 705. He was elected to the Abbacy of Iona A.D. 679, and had there the most favourable opportunities of becoming acquainted with all the existing traditions and records regarding St. Columba. About the year 563 of the Christian era, Columba visited Brude, King of the Picts, in his royal fort on the Ness, and found the Pictish sovereign attended by a court or council, and with Brochan as his chief Druid or Magus. Brochan retained an Irish female, and consequently a countrywoman of Columba's, as a slave. The 33d chapter of the second book of Adamnan's work is entitled, "Concerning the Illness with which the Druid (Magus) Brochan was visited for refusing to liberate a Female Captive, and his Cure when he restored her to Liberty." The story told by Adamnan, under this head, is as follows:--

Curing-Stone of St. Columba.

"About the same time the venerable man, from motives of humanity, besought Brochan the Druid to liberate a certain Irish female captive, a request which Brochan harshly and obstinately refused to grant. The Saint then spoke to him as follows:--'Know, O Brochan, know, that if you refuse to set this captive free, as I desire you, you shall die before I return from this province.' Having said this in presence of Brude the king, he departed from the royal palace and proceeded to the river Nesa, from which he took a white pebble, and showing it to his companions, said to them:--'Behold this white pebble, by which God will effect the cure of many diseases.' Having thus spoken, he added, 'Brochan is punished grievously at this moment, for an angel sent from heaven, striking him severely, has broken in pieces the glass cup which he held in his hands, and from which he was in the act of drinking, and he himself is left half dead. Let us await here, for a short time, two of the king's messengers, who have been sent after us in haste, to request us to return quickly and relieve the dying Brochan, who, now that he is thus terribly punished, consents to set his captive free.'

"While the saint was yet speaking, behold, there arrived as he had predicted, two horsemen, who were sent by the king, and who related all that had occurred, according to the prediction of the saint--the breaking of the drinking goblet, the punishment of the Druid, and his willingness to set his captive at liberty. They then added:--'The king and his councillors have sent us to you to request that you would cure his foster father, Brochan, who lies in a dying state.'

"Having heard these words of the messengers, Saint Columba sent two of his companions to the king, with the pebble which he had blessed, and said to them; 'If Brochan shall first promise to free his captive, immerse this little stone in water and let him drink from it, but if he refuse to liberate her, he will that instant die.'

"The two persons sent by the saint proceeded to the palace and announced the words of the holy man to the king and to Brochan, an announcement which filled them with such fear, that he immediately liberated the captive and delivered her to the saint's messengers."

The stone was then immersed in water, and in a wonderful manner, and contrary to the laws of nature, it floated on the water like a nut or an apple, nor could it be submerged. Brochan drank from the stone as it floated on the water, and instantly recovered his perfect health and soundness of body.

"This little pebble (adds Adamnan) was afterwards preserved among the treasures of the king, retained its miraculous property of floating in water, and through the mercy of God effected the cure of sundry diseases. And, what is very wonderful, when it was sought for by those sick persons whose term of life had arrived it could not be found. An instance of this occurred the very day king Brude died, when the stone, though sought for with great diligence, could not be found in the place where it had been previously left."

In the Highlands of Scotland there have been transmitted down, for many generations, various curing or charm-stones, used in the same manner as that of Columba, and reckoned capable, like his, of imparting to the water in which they were immersed wondrous medicinal powers. One of the most celebrated of these curing-stones belongs to Struan Robertson, the chief of the Clan Donnachie. I am indebted to the kindness of Mrs. Robertson, for the following notes regarding the curing-stone, of which her family are the hereditary proprietors. Its local name is

Clach-na-Bratach, or Stone of the Standard.

"This stone has been in possession of the Chiefs of Clan Donnachaidh since 1315.

"It is said to have been acquired in this wise.

"The (then) chief, journeying with his clan to join Bruce's army before Bannockburn, observed, on his standard being lifted one morning, a glittering something in a clod of earth hanging to the flagstaff. It was this stone. He showed it to his followers, and told them he felt sure its brilliant lights were a good omen and foretold a victory--and victory was won on the hard-fought field of Bannockburn.

"From this time, whenever the clan was 'out,' the Clach-na-Bratach accompanied it, carried on the person of the chief, and its varying hues were consulted by him as to the fate of battle. On the eve of Sheriffmuir (13th November 1715), of sad memory, on Struan consulting the stone as to the fate of the morrow, the large internal flaw was first observed. The Stuarts were lost--and Clan Donnachaidh has been declining in influence ever since.

"The virtues of the Clach-na-Bratach are not altogether of a martial nature, for it cures all manner of diseases in cattle and horses, and formerly in human beings also, if they drink the water in which this charmed stone has been thrice dipped by the hands of Struan."