I noticed many odd features, common to most old Scottish towns, especially those with markets, during my numerous rambles in the valley of the Tay. Each had of old for its equipment, suiting the needs of the times, the cross, with the “jougs” attached, and the “tron,” or weighing-machine used for securing honest weight of oatmeal and other produce brought to the market for sale. The canny Scot, like other human beings, has that proverbial “touch of nature,” which scale and measures serve partly to correct. There was also a penfold for impounding stray animals. A joug, as one might guess, from the Latin “jugum,” was an instrument for the punishment of those who were already stiff-necked offenders. It is probably the original of our slang word “jug,” meaning a prison. An iron collar enclosing the neck of the criminal, which was fastened to a wall, tree, or cross, by an iron chain, was the chief feature and implement. This piece of public jewelry went out of use, some time after the Reformation. Often the old town crosses, when broken, dilapidated, or removed, are rebuilt as public ornaments or memorials of the past. Even dragons had their lairs in Scotland, where the behavior of these monsters seems to have been the same as that noticed in their kind all over the world. Their appetites, for example, showed a similar eagerness for plump maidens. The Japanese and Korean stories of these creatures, which are conceived of as cosmic forces--an encyclopædia of all the powers of offence and destruction with which nature has furnished animals--intimate that their digestion was much improved by a diet of lovely girls. Now at Kinnoul Hill, not far from Dundee, in the face of the precipice, is a small cave popularly called “The Dragon’s Hole.” Here in early times--dragons always lived in ancient times only--dwelt a scaly monster, who kept the country in continual terror, because neither fish nor cattle, nor old women, nor indigestible males, but only tender virgins suited his alimentary canal. It was when they were young and pretty that the damsels were particularly desirable and digestible. Dragging them off to his den, the monster enjoyed his meals with the leisure of a gentleman. Yet, however pure and spiritually minded, the young women themselves could not break the spell of the destroyer. Only holy monks had such desirable power. One shaveling monk made a specialty of prayer and charms, and after a terrible conflict slew the dragon--much to the relief of parents who had charming daughters.