434 THE aUIORICH. 



qui a puericie primordiis tanta discipline regiditate carnem afflixit ut 

 posterum sensualitatis et viciorum refrenendi motus preberet exem- 

 plum. Sucli also are some of the many traces of the uneradicated 

 veneration for saints, holy bells and other sacred relics, in Presby- 

 terian Scotland, upwards of two centuries after their solemn denun- 

 ciation in the first National Covenant. 



But other associations than such curious psychological phenomena, 

 pertain to the Quigrich of St. Eillan, now transferred with its here- 

 ditary custodiers to Canada ; though it too had its healing virtues and 

 potent charms, long known and reverenced in the privileged districts 

 of the Saint. It has its historical associations also, and these of a 

 nature so singularly interesting for Scotland, that it seems to lose 

 much of its value by being transferred to Canadian soil ; and thus 

 divorced from all those national and local feelings which confer on it 

 so peculiar a charm. When endeavouring to recover traces of this 

 Scottish relic, in 1850, I was favoured with a letter from the Eev. 

 iEneas McDonell Dawson, whose own immediate ancestors were for 

 a time the guardians of St. Fillan's Crozier, in which he remarked : 

 " The celebrated Crook of St. Eillan is still in Canada, and in the 

 keeping of the very family to whose ancestor it was confided on the 

 field of Bannockburn, when the King, displeased with the abbot for 

 having abstracted from it the relics of St. Eillan previously to the 

 battle, from want of confidence, it is alleged, in the Scottish cause, 

 deprived him of the guardianship."* 



In this form of family tradition is preserved the recollection of an 

 incident of the field of Bannockburn, thus referred to in Borland's 

 'Acta Sanctorum."t "Daring the niglit when Egbert, anxiously 

 bent on his afiairs, enjoyed not a moment's rest, and revolving all 

 things in his mind, was at length engaged with some of his friends in 

 earnest devotion and prayer to God and St. Kllan (whose arm 

 inclosed in silver he believed was with him in the army,) that they 

 might be propitious to his victory, suddenly the silver arm, in which 

 the real one was inclosed, appeared open, and in the twinkling of an 

 eye was shut without any person touching or approaching it. This 

 miracle being observed, the priest approached the altar to inspect it, 

 when he saw the real arm within in, and exclaiming that the Divinity 

 was certainly present, he confessed to the King that when he had 



* Vide Prehistoric Annals, p. 665. 



t Borland's Acta Sanctorum. Venice, 1734. De S. Eillano sine Philano. 



