The Church of St. Vigeans, in Forfarshire, is well known to
antiquaries in connection with its interesting sculptured stones. An
old tradition relates that the materials for the building were
carried by a water-kelpie, and that the foundations were laid on
large bars of iron. Underneath the structure was said to be a deep
lake. The tradition further relates that the kelpie prophesied that
an incumbent of the church would commit suicide, and that, on the
occasion of the first communion after, the church would sink into the
lake. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the minister of the
parish did commit suicide, and so strong was the superstition that
the sacramental rite was not observed till 1736. In connection with
the event several hundred people took up a position on a neighbouring
rising ground to watch what would happen. These spectators have passed
away, but the church remains.
St. Tredwell's Loch in Papa-Westray, Orkney, was at one time very
famous, partly from its habit of turning red whenever anything
striking was about to happen to a member of the Royal Family, and
partly from its power to work cures. On a small headland on the east
of the loch are still to be seen the ruins of St. Tredwell's Chapel,
measuring twenty-nine feet by twenty-two, with walls fully four feet
in thickness. On the floor-level about thirty copper coins were found
some years ago, the majority of them being of the reign of Charles the
Second. At the door of the chapel there was at one time a large heap
of stones, made up of contributions from those who came to pay their
vows there. Mr. R. M. Fergusson, in his "Rambles in the Far North,"
gives the following particulars about the loch:--"In olden times the
diseased and infirm people of the North Isles were wont to flock to
this place and get themselves cured by washing in its waters. Many
of them walked round the shore two or three times before entering the
loch itself to perfect by so doing the expected cure. When a person was
engaged in this perambulation nothing would induce him to utter a word,
for, if he spoke, the waters of this holy loch would lave his diseased
body in vain. After the necessary ablutions were performed they never
departed without leaving behind them some piece of cloth or bread as
a gift to the presiding genius of the place. In the beginning of the
eighteenth century popular belief in this water was as strong as ever."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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