4-0 THE HILL-FORTRESS CALLED EGGARDUN. 



wrought cures through the Lord : " Dominus multas aegrotorum 

 perficiet sanitates." 



St. Hecla appeared to Alypius, who was perilously sick, and 

 cured him by the touch of a round stone. 



The Red Stone of St. Columba [Columkille] was brought 

 forth into the world by his mother at the same moment as his 

 own birth. It was a smooth stone of the size of a quince : 

 " Lapillum teretem, mali aurei magnitudine," and was preserved 

 as late as A.D. 1609 in Glencolumkille. It had power over 

 demons. 



The sign of the cross was effectual to endow a pebble with 

 healing virtues : " cum lapide a se benedicto."* 



Maledictive stones were kept on the altar of a church, and 

 were used for cursing. In exsecration the left hand was placed 

 on the stone, which, as the imprecation was pronounced, was 

 thrice rotated in the direction opposite to the sun's course, since 

 the solar path itself was auspicious. 



These stones were sometimes meteoric, sometimes pebbles of 

 unusual aspect, sometimes boulders in which had been worn by 

 nature, or by human hands, hollows ; often three, to denote the 

 Trinity.f 



It is obvious that these practices and beliefs belong to the 

 Pagan-Christian overlap. In an account of the Burial of King 

 Cormac it is well said of the Druids that 



" They loosed their curse against the king, 



They cursed him in his flesh and bones, 

 And daily, in their mystic ring, 

 They turned the maledictive stones. "J 



But, on going behind all this, one comes to the use of totems. 

 The totem was a sacred possession, a credential of alliance with 



* Reeves, Adamnan's Life of St. Columba, pp. 290, 330, 147, 318. 

 f Reeves, Op. cit., p. 461 ; Wakeman, Inismurray, p. 59; Margaret Stokes, 

 Irish Christian Inscriptions 77. , 156. 



J Ferguson, Lays of the Western Gael, p, 54. 



