Eggs have often been found built into foundations. The egg had, of course life in it--but undeveloped life, so that by its use the old belief in the efficacy of a living sacrifice was fully maintained without any shock to the feelings of people in days when they were beginning to revolt against the practices of the early ages. Sir Walter Scott speaks of the tradition that the foundation stones of Pictish raths were bathed in human blood. In the ballad of the "Cout of Keeldar" it is said: "And here beside the mountain flood A massy castle frowned; Since first the Pictish race, in blood, The haunted pile did found." From Thorpe's "Northern Mythology" we learn that in Denmark, in former days, before any human being was buried in a churchyard, a living horse was first interred. This horse is supposed to re-appear, and is known by the name of the "Hel-horse." It has only three legs, and if anyone meets it it forebodes death. Hence is derived the saying when anyone has survived a dangerous illness: "He gave death a peck of oats" (as an offering or bribe). Hel is identical with death, and in times of pestilence is supposed to ride about on a three-legged horse and strangle people. The belief still lingers in Germany that good weather may be secured by building a live cock into a wall, and it is thought that cattle may be prevented from straying by burying a living blind dog under the threshold of a stable. Amongst the French peasantry a new farmhouse is not entered upon until a cock has been killed and its blood sprinkled in the rooms.[5] [Footnote 5: "Strange Survivals," Baring Gould.] It is probable that sacrificial foundations had their origin in the idea of a propitiary offering to the Goddess Earth. However this may be, it is certain that for centuries, through times of heathenism, and well into even advanced Christianity, the people so thoroughly associated the foundation of buildings with a sacrifice that in some form or other it has lingered on to the present century. Now in our own day the laying the foundation of any important building is always attended with a ceremony--the form remains, the sacrifice is no longer offered. For ecclesiastical buildings, or those having some charitable object, a religious ceremony is provided, while for those purely secular the event is marked by rejoicings. We cannot bring ourselves to pass over without notice the foundation laying of our great buildings, and who shall venture to say that superstition is altogether dead, and that we are free from the lingering remains of what was once the pagan belief? The Building of the English Cathedrals. By the Rev. Geo. S. Tyack, B.A.