At the Bay of Nigg, near Aberdeen, was a well dedicated to St Fiacre, and commonly called St Fittich’s Well, which was long held in the greatest veneration for its efficacy in disease. On the 28th of November 1630, Margaret Davidson, a married woman, residing in Aberdeen, was adjudged in an unlaw of five pounds by the kirk-session, ‘for directing her nurse with her bairn to St Fiack’s Well, and washing her bairn therein for recovery of her health ... and for leaving an offering in the well.’ The prevalence of this custom is indicated by the decree of the session on the same day, threatening heavy censure and punishment to all who should be ‘found going to Sanct Fiack’s Well, for seeking health to themselves or bairns.’ This Fiack was a Scottish saint--believed to be a son of Eugenius IV., king of Scotland--and it is curious to be assured, as we are, that ‘the name _fiacre_ was first given to hackney-coaches, because hired carriages were first made use of for the convenience of pilgrims who went from Paris to visit the shrine of this saint.’[249] When we consider that sanative effects are attributed in our own time, by a great number of practitioners, to pure water, we may be the more disposed to believe that there was some natural ground for the faith which the simple people of old entertained regarding saints’ wells, the saintly connection being assumed of course as indifferent in the case. It is remarkable, moreover, how long this faith continued to be maintained even in its most superstitious form. We are told in the _New Statistical Account of Scotland_, that a well dedicated to the Virgin Mary, at Sigget in Aberdeenshire, continued, till within the memory of living persons, to be resorted to on Pasch Sunday, the votaries always taking care to leave money or some other article beside the venerated lymph on departing. In Easter Ross, there are wells which are still resorted to by some of the more ignorant portion of the rustic classes. Charms for the healing of sores and gunshot wounds were in great vogue. In May 1631, Laurence Boak and his wife were before the kirk-session of Perth, accused of using such charms, and they admitted that the following was the formula employed for sores: ‘Thir sairs are risen through God’s wark, And must be laid through God’s help; The mother Mary, and her dear son, Lay thir sairs that are begun.’