1906-1907.] Cup-Marked Stones. 417 



was, that the very morning it occurred she had been heard 

 to be bargaining with a man to go on her account for a pay- 

 ment of £5 to Tory Island, off the Donegal coast, where there 

 is a stone which, if it could be turned, and the name of Mr 

 Adair repeated over it, would have been sure to bring about 

 his death within a year. In view of what will be said here- 

 after about cup-marked stones, it would have been interesting 

 if we could have visited Tory Island to have seen this baleful 

 stone ; but there was no direct communication from Gartan, 

 and the island is a considerable distance from the mainland. 



Another experience we had during our short stay at Gartan 

 was our visit to a holy well, about eight miles distant, which 

 at certain times of the year is said to be resorted to by 

 numbers of crippled people, although only two were on their 

 way there on the day we went. But we had the positive 

 evidence of the reputation of the well, and of the benefit 

 derived from a pilgrimage to it, in finding about a dozen or 

 so crutches, not at all old, planted in a semicircle facing the 

 well, and in seeing the bushes growing around covered with 

 strips of rags which had been used by pilgrims for applications 

 of the water. 



I have spoken of Gartan as being held on very reliable 

 records to have been the birthplace of St Columba, and I may 

 further mention that a great celebration was held there in 

 1897, on the 1400th anniversary of his death, similar to that 

 which, it may be remembered, was held at the same time at 

 Zona. 



The family of the saint occupied a princely position, and 

 for four generations, since St Patrick himself had converted 

 and baptised the great-great-grandfather of the saint, the 

 family had been Christian. Their permanent abode or fort 

 was about ten miles from Gartan. But at Gartan there is 

 the " natal stone," as it is called, which is said to be the 

 actual spot where St Columba was born. His mother, the 

 Princess Ethne, so tradition says, had been brought here for 

 the birth. This stone, to my surprise when I visited it, I 

 found to be at one end covered with cup marks. Whatever 

 these marks mean or were made for, there seems to be little 

 doubt that they were connected with some pagan rite or 

 practice ; and the interest attached to this particular stone to 



VOL. V. 2 G 



