The same reciter mentioned another case, in which the operator was her mother. A calf became ill, and the owners were in doubts what to do with it. “My mother, remembering my grandfather’s cow, put spring water in a luggie (it must be spring water) and a silver and a copper coin and a darning needle. She forced some of the water down the calf’s throat, and sprinkled the rest over it. The calf recovered, and the farmer’s wife was so pleased and said to my mother, ‘Well, well, Mrs. S., I never saw the like of you, you can do anything.’”
No detailed description was given of the stones used, but as clach-na-sùil, the stone (apple) of the eye, is common Gaelic, they were doubtless of a sort more or less representative of eyes.
From Kintyre, the following information in the words of the reciter gives us some indication. “They used tae hae a bunch o’ sea-shore stanes wi’ holes in them hanging up at the door tae keep awa‘ witches.” The collector had seen such stones in a house in Kintyre, but at the time did not know their purpose. They were of the honeycombed sort that may be found on shores where there are quantities of shingle. There were six or seven tied on a string hung above the inside of the inner door; they were of different sizes, guessed at from fourteen to sixteen ounces in weight.
From the island of Lewis we have another indication. There, there is a considerable amount of superstition connected with what is called a’ chlach nathrach (the serpent’s stone). The reciter, who had seen several of them, said they were usually round with one hole through them, though there may be two in some cases. The popular account of the information given was as follows: A number of serpents congregating at certain times form themselves into a knot and move round and round on the stone until a hole is worn. They then pass and repass after each other through the hole, leaving a coating of slime round the hole, which by-and-by becomes hard. It is this slime that gives to the stone the healing properties it is supposed to possess. The principal use of the stone was as a cure for the Evil Eye. Water is poured on the stone, and the person or beast affected is caused to drink the water, or has it sprinkled on them; sometimes the application is both external and internal. These stones are much prized by their possessors, who are very unwilling to part with them, and would not even willingly show them, or even acknowledge that they possessed them.
Stories of the knot of serpents being seen are still told. A very old man, a labourer, without English, and who can neither read nor write, gives the following account:—
“All the serpents in the country round about gather together to one place on one day every year, where they have a day’s play. The play consists in rolling in a lump on a stone and running through a hole on the stone one after another. One time Georsa Cailean’s wife (the wife of George, the son of Colin) was going home to her father, and when she was just beside a beautiful green spot near Beinn Tartbheil (Islay), she noticed that it was covered with serpents as thick as they could lie on the top of one another. They had gathered there that year for their play. She got a fright and ran, but if she had gone among them she would have got the serpent’s stone.”
A strong endeavour was made to acquire one of these stones, said to have been found in a serpent’s den, but negotiations came to nothing, as the owners believing that it was good as a cure, especially for serpents’ bite, refused to part with it.
It is not necessary here to discuss St. Fillan, but it is a well-known fact that the three stones, supposed to have been in his possession and kept in the meal mill at Killin, were supposed to impart healing efficacy to water in which they were steeped, and which recently, at any rate, was given to diseased cattle as a curative.
The stones principally used then are stones with an eye or eyes in them—compare usual description of the hole in the top of a needle, the eye of the needle. The stones of St. Fillan seem the nearest symbolical equivalent we have to the protruded fingers of southern Europe, which again is nearly identical with the one-eyed Fachan—the Direach glinn Eiti (Straight of the downy glen?) of I. F. Campbell,[13] and with which we may connect the protruded forefinger which was not to touch the yarn, mentioned on page 145.
[13] “West Highland Tales,” iv. 326.