Folklore of Scottish Lochs and Springs

by James M. Mackinlay

CHAPTER V.

Stone Blocks and Saints’ Springs.

Stone Beds and Chairs—Cave Life—Dwarfie Stone—Stone Boats—Balthere—His Corpse—His Well and Cradle—Marnan—His Influence on Topography—His Head—St. Marnan’s Chair and Well—Muchricha—Cathair Donan—St. Donan’s Well—Patrick—His Wells—St. Patrick’s Vat—Quarry at Portpatrick—Columbanus—Mark of his Hand—Kentigern’s Chair and Bed—His connection with Aberdeenshire—The Lady’s Bed—Thenew—Columba’s Bed and Pillow—Holy Island—Traces of Molio—St. Blane’s Chapel—Kilmun—Inan—St. Innian’s Well—Tenant’s Day—St. Inan’s Chair and Springs—Kevin—Print of Virgin’s Knee—Traces of Columba at Keil—St. Cuthbert’s Stane—St. Madron’s Bed—Mean-an-Tol—Morwenna—St. Fillan’s Chair—St. Fillan’s Spring—Water for Sore Eyes—The Two Fillans—Their Dedications—Queen Margaret’s Seat—St. Bonnet’s Spring—The Fairies’ Cradle—The Pot o’ Pittenyoul—Church of Invergowrie—Greystane—Cadger’s Bridge—Wallace’s Seat and Well.

Beds and Chairs of stone are connected with various early saints, and as such relics are often associated with holy wells, some notice of these may not be without interest. We have already seen that cave life was rather popular among these early missionaries. Anything of a rocky nature was therefore quite in line with their ascetic ways. Hoy, one of the Orkney Islands, famous for its wild scenery, and specially for the pillar of rock popularly styled The Old Man, contains a curious monument of antiquity in the shape of a large block of sandstone called The Dwarfie Stone, hollowed out long ago by some unknown hand. The chamber, thus excavated, contains two beds hewn out of the stone, one of them having a pillow of the same hard material. On the floor of the chamber is a hearth where a fire had evidently burned, and in the roof is a hole for the escape of the smoke. Legend reports that a giant and his wife abode within; but the hollow space was more probably the retreat of some hermit—perhaps, of more than one, seeing there are two couches; though, possibly, one of the supposed couches may have been a table and the other a bed. Perhaps the anchorite had his spring whither he wandered daily to slake his thirst; but, as far as we know, there is no tradition regarding any holy well in the neighbourhood.

Martin, in connection with his visit to Orkney, refers to a stone in the chapel of Ladykirk, in South Ronaldshay, called St. Magnus’s Boat. The stone was four feet in length, and tapered away at both ends; but its special feature was the print of two human feet on the upper surface. A local tradition affirmed that when St. Magnus wanted on one occasion to cross the Pentland Firth to Caithness he used this stone as his boat, and that he afterwards carried it to Ladykirk. According to another tradition, the stone served in pre-Reformation times for the punishment of delinquents, who were obliged to stand barefooted upon it by way of penance. There is a St. Magnus’s Well, not in South Ronaldshay, however, but at Birsay, in the mainland of Orkney. When Conval crossed from Ireland to Scotland, in the seventh century, he, too, made a block of stone do duty as a boat. It found a resting-place beside the river Cart, near Renfrew, and was known as Currus Sancti Convalli. By its means miraculous cures were wrought on man and beast. A rock at the mouth of Aldham Bay, in Haddingtonshire, is known as St. Baudron’s Boat, and tradition says that he crossed on it from the Bass, where he had a cell. This saint—called also Balthere and Baldred—founded the monastery of Tyningham, and died early in the seventh century. He must have been popular in the district, for, if we can believe an old legend, the parishioners of the churches of Aldham, Tyningham, and Prestonkirk tried to get possession of his relics. To satisfy their demands his body was miraculously multiplied by three, and each church was thus provided with one. Near Tantallon Castle is St. Baldred’s Well, and a fissure in the cliff at Whitberry, not far from the mouth of the Tyne, is known as St. Baldred’s Bed or Cradle.

Marnan or Marnoch, besides giving name to the town of Kilmarnock, in Ayrshire, and to the Island of Inchmarnoch, off Bute, is remembered in the name of the Banffshire parish of Marnoch, where he laboured as a missionary in the seventh century. His head was kept as a revered relic in the church of Aberchirder, and solemn oaths were sworn by it. Use was also made of it for therapeutic purposes. It was periodically washed, and the water was given to the sick for the restoration of their health. This was not an isolated case. Bede tells us, that after Cuthbert’s death, some of the water in which his body was washed, was given to an epileptic boy along with some consecrated earth, and brought about a cure. A stone, called St. Marnan’s Chair, is, or was till lately, to be seen at Aberchirder; and a spring, near the parish manse, bears the saint’s name. About a mile and a half from the church of Aboyne, in Aberdeenshire, is St. Muchricha’s Well, and beside it is a stone marked with a cross. At one time, this stone was removed. According to a local tradition, it was brought back by Muchricha, the guardian of the well, who seemed unwilling to lose sight of the lost property. In the parish of Kildonan, Sutherland, two or three blocks of stone, placed in the form of a seat, went by the name of Cathair Donan, i.e., Donan’s Chair. In his cille or church, Donan taught the truths of Christianity; and, seated in his cathair, he administered justice to the people of the district. There is a St. Donan’s Well in Eigg, the island where the saint and his companion clerics were murdered by the natives early in the seventh century.

Patrick, the well-known missionary of Ireland, was reverenced also in Scotland. There is a well dedicated to him in the parish of Muthill, Perthshire, and close to it once stood a chapel, believed to have borne his name. From the article on Muthill parish, in the “New Statistical Account of Scotland,” we learn that in former times the inhabitants of the district held the saint’s memory “in such veneration that, on his day, neither the clap of the mill was heard nor the plough seen to move in the furrow.” There is a well dedicated to him in Dalziel parish, Lanarkshire. About sixty yards from St. Patrick’s temple, in the island of Tyree, is a rock, with a hollow on the top, two feet across and four feet deep, known to the islanders as St. Patrick’s Vat. At any rate it was so named at the end of last century. In a quarry at Portpatrick, Wigtownshire, used in connection with the harbour works, once flowed a spring dedicated to the saint. On the rock below were formerly to be seen certain marks, said, by tradition, to be the impression made by his knees and left hand.

Columban or Columbanus, belonged, like Columba, to the sixth century. Ireland was also his native land. When he left it he travelled, not north like Columba, but south, and sought the sunny lands of France and Italy. In the latter country he founded the monastery of Bobbio among the Apennines. A writer in the “Antiquary” for 1891 remarks, in connection with a recent visit to this monastery, “I was taken to see a rock on the summit of a mountain called La Spanna, near the cave to which the saint is said to have retired for prayer and meditation. The impression of the saint’s left hand is still shown upon the face of this rock. The healing power of the patron’s hand is believed by the peasantry of the surrounding country to linger still in the hollow marking, and many sufferers, climbing to this spot, have found relief from laying their hand within its palm.”

In addition to his well beside the Molendinar, at Glasgow, Kentigern had a chair and bed, both of stone. Concerning the latter, Bishop Forbes, in his “Kalendars of Scottish Saints,” says, “Kentigern’s couch was rather a sepulchre than a bed, and was of rock, with a stone for a pillow, like Jacob. He rose in the night and sang psalms and hymns till the second cock-crowing. Then he rushed into the cold stream, and with eyes fixed on heaven he recited the whole psalter. Then, coming out of the water he dried his limbs on a stone on the mountain called Galath, and went forth for his day’s work.” Kentigern’s work took him beyond the limits of Strathclyde. He seems to have visited the uplands of Aberdeenshire. The church of Glengairn, a parish now incorporated with Tullich and Glenmuick, was probably founded by him. At any rate, it was dedicated to him. A tradition of his untiring zeal survived in Aberdeenshire down to the beginning of last century. According to a proverb then current, systematic beneficence was said to be “like St. Mungo’s work, which was never done.” The Isle of May, in the Firth of Forth, has, on one of its rocky sides, a small cave called The Lady’s Bed, containing a pool in its floor. As Mr. Muir points out in his “Ecclesiological Notes,” it is traditionally associated with Thenew, Kentigern’s mother, “who,” according to the legend, “after being cast into the sea at Aberlady, was miraculously floated to the May, and thence, in the same manner, to Culross, where she was stranded and gave birth to the saint.” Columba, when in Iona, had a stone slab as a bed, and a block of stone as a pillow. Adamnan mentions that, after the saint’s death, this pillow stone was placed as a monument over his grave.

Guarding Lamlash Bay, where Haco gathered his shattered fleet after the battle of Largs, in 1263, is Holy Island, known to the Norsemen as Melansay. In this island is a cave, at one time inhabited by the hermit Molio, and below it, near the beach, is his Holy Well, for centuries reckoned efficacious in the cure of disease. A large block of sandstone, flat on the top, with a series of recesses like seats cut round its margin, constitutes the saint’s chair and table combined. Molio was educated in Bute by his uncle Blane, to whom the now ruined St. Blane’s Chapel was dedicated. He afterwards went to Ireland, and was placed under Munna, who is still remembered in the name of Kilmun, on Holy Loch, in the Firth of Clyde.