Whittier has expressed in verse the virtues of the well of St. Maree, as Scott those of St. Fillan:-- "And whoso bathes therein his brow, With care or madness burning, Feels once again his healthful thought And sense of peace returning. "O restless heart and fevered brain, Unquiet and unstable, That holy well of Loch Máree Is more than idle fable." Of another place, the island of Melista, in the Hebrides, it is stated that, according to tradition, no one was ever born there who was not from birth insane, or who did not become so before death. "In the last generation, three persons had the misfortune for the first time to see the light of day on this unlucky spot, and all three were mad. Of one of them, who is remembered by the name of Wild Murdoch, many strange stories are told. It is said that his friends used to tie a rope round his body, make it fast to the stern of the boat, and then pull out to sea, taking the wretched man in tow. The story goes that he was so buoyant he could not sink; that they 'tried to press him down into the water;' that he could swim with a stone fastened to him; that when carried to the rocky holms of Melista or Greinan, round which the open Atlantic surges, and left there alone, he took to the water and ran ashore; and that when bound hand and foot, and left in a kiln, by a miracle of strength he broke his bonds and escaped. It is thus they are said to have treated him during his fits of maniacal excitement; and there are many still alive who saw it all, and gave a helping hand.... The further story of Wild Murdoch will astonish no one. He murdered his sister, was taken south, and died in an asylum, or, as the people say and believe, in the cell of a gloomy prison, under which the sea-wave came and went for ever."[30] Curious ancient superstitions besides those connected with wells still survive in the "land o' cakes." The same observant writer says that in the north of Scotland they literally sacrifice a cock to a nameless but secretly acknowledged power, whose propitiation is sought in the cure of epilepsy. On the spot where the patient falls a black cock is buried alive, along with a lock of the patient's hair, and some parings of his nails. Let it not be supposed that this was done in some outlandish part of the world. Dr. Mitchell assures us that this sacrifice was openly offered recently in an improving town to which the railway now conveys the traveller, and which has six churches and ten schools for a population of about four thousand. If such things are done in the green tree, what must have been done in the dry? We may safely read the past in the present. In fact, Dalyell[31] states that in 1597 the "earding of ane quik cok in the grund" was regarded as a cure of madness.