their stock of food was exhausted, and that there was no more to be got in the district. The priest left the house, went to the well, and cried to St. Machar for help. On his return he told the servant to go to the well the next morning at sunrise, walk three times round it, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, without looking into it, and draw from it a draught of water for him. She carried out the request. On stooping down to draw the water, she saw three fine salmon swimming in the well. They were caught, and served the two as food, till supply came to the famine-stricken district from other quarters." According to a Herefordshire tradition, a fish with a golden chain round it was caught in the river Dore, and was afterwards kept in the spring whence the river flows. At Peterchurch, in that county, is a sculptured stone bearing a rude representation of the fish in question. Sometimes the guardian spirit of a loch or well was thought of in the vaguest possible way. In that case the genius loci had neither name nor shape of any kind, the leaving of an offering being the only recognition of his existence. Occasionally the presiding spirit was pictured in the popular imagination in the guise of a demon, commonly with a hazy personality. Callow Pit, in Norfolk, was believed to contain a treasure-chest guarded by such a being. On one occasion an attempt to raise the chest was made, and was on the verge of being successful, when one of the treasure-hunters defied the devil to get his own again. Suddenly the chest was snatched down into the pit, and the ring, attached to the lid, alone remained to tell its tale. This ring was afterwards fixed to the door of Southwood Church. At Wavertree, in Lancashire, once stood a monastery and beside it was a well. When pilgrims arrived, the occupants of the monastery received their alms. If nothing was given, a demon, chained to the bottom of the well, was said to laugh. This notion was either originated or perpetuated by a fifteenth century Latin inscription to this effect, "Qui non dat quad habet. Daemon infra ridet." When wells were dedicated to Christian saints, the latter were usually considered the guardians of the sacred water. This was natural enough. If, for instance, St. Michael was supposed to watch over a spring, why should not his aid have been sought in connection with any wished-for cure? It is interesting, however, to note that this was not so in every instance. In many cases the favourite, because favourable time for visiting a sacred spring, was not the festival of the saint to whom it was dedicated, but, as we shall see hereafter, a day quite distinct from such festival. Petitions, too, were frequently addressed not to the saint of the well, but to some being with a character possessing fewer Christian attributes. All this points to the fact that the origin of well-worship is to be sought, not in the legends of mediæval Christianity, but in the crude fancies of an earlier paganism.