Tl% Mr. Hardy on the Wolf in Scotland. 



all their distortions of incidents, afford testimony to the state 

 of the country, and the prevalent customs and beliefs of the 

 age in which they were composed. St. Kentigern, alias St. 

 Mungo, the patron saint of Glasgow, died in the year 601,* 

 and his life has been related by Jocelin a Cistercian monk of 

 the house of Fourness, in Lancashire. He settled " at the 

 place called Mellindonor," (MoUendinar burn) near Glasgow. 

 The whole of that district at this period, except near the 

 river, was a forest of wood and bush-land. On one occasion, 

 says his biographer, compassionating some individuals de- 

 prived of the oxen with which they laboured their land, he 

 commanded a herd of deer to perform the office ; which they 

 willingly did, and in the evening weie restored to freedom. 

 One of the tractable creatures, however, was devoured by a 

 wolf, which so enraged the saint, that stretching out his 

 hand towards the wood, where the ferocious beast lurked, he 

 called on him to appear. Laying hold of him, he yoked him 

 along with the companion of the slaughtered deer ; caused 

 them by their united strength to plough a field of nine acres, 

 and after this salutary discipline dismissed him.f The me- 

 morials of the wolf in the west of Scotland, are in other 

 respects, but scanty. Wolfclyde, a part of the barony of 

 Cultei- in Lanarkshire, was granted to the convent of Melrose 

 in 1431 ', and the name survived the Reformation. J "Woolf- 

 hole-Craig," a noted resort of Kenwick and his followers in 

 the times of the persecution, also points to facts that have 

 *' left behind no other record." || St. Fillan, better known as 

 the patron of several miraculous wells in Perthshire, than as 

 the individual who converted the Caledonians to Christianity, 

 once resolved to build a church '' at a place called Siracht, 

 in the upper part of Glendeochquhy." The region lay in all 

 its ^natural wildness ; for a wolf, so little restrained by the 

 sounds of peaceful toil, devoured an ox that was yoked in 

 one of the carts conveying stones to the work. A favour- 

 able juncture was thus afforded for a display of the holy 

 man's abilities, which were fully approved by the result. 

 Compelled by some overawing influence, the wolf from that 

 time forward, made its appearance regularly at the hours of 

 matin prayers, to which it appeared to pay particular atten- 



* Keith's Scottish Bishops, p. 231. 



t Jocelin in Vita Kentigerni, c. 20, Pinkerton Vitae Sanctorum, p. 287. 

 Cunningham's Church Hist, of Scotland, i. pp. 62, 126. 

 \ Morton's Monastic Annals of Teviotdale, p. 276. 

 II Life of Mr, James Renwick, by the Rev. Alexander Shields, p. 6.5. 



