left, far less to have carried it off. A child, or one who did not know, was most carefully instructed why such things were left in and around the well, and strict charge was laid not to touch or carry any of them off. Whoever carried off one of such relics contracted the disease of the one who left it." The notion that disease can be transferred lies at the root of various folk-cures. Dalyell, in his "Darker Superstitions," remarks, "It is said that, in the Highlands, a cat is washed in the water which has served for the ablution of an invalid, as if the disease absorbed from one living creature could be received by another, instead of being let free." In some parts of the Highlands, a common cure for an ailing cow was to make the animal swallow a live trout, so that the disease might pass from the one creature to the other. This was done not long ago, at a farm near Golspie, in Sutherland. In Norfolk, as a remedy for whooping-cough, a spider was caught, tied up in a piece of muslin, and pinned over the mantelpiece. The cough disappeared when the spider died. In Gloucestershire, ague was cured in the following way:--A living snail was worn in a bag round the neck for nine days. The snail was then thrown upon the fire when it was believed to shake as if with ague, and the patient recovered. Many more illustrations of this principle might be given, but the above are sufficient to show how it was applied. Symson records an instance in Galloway of swift vengeance following the theft of certain votive offerings. He says, "Hereabout, i.e., near Larg, in Minnigaff parish, is a well called the Gout Well of Larg, of which they tell this story--how that a piper stole away the offering left at this well, but when he was drinking of ale, which he intended to pay with the money he had taken away, the gout, as they say, seized on him, of which he could not be cured, but at that well, having first restored to it the money he had formerly taken away." Accident, rather than disease, sometimes resulted from such sacrilegious acts. The offerings were the property of the guardian spirit who was quick to resent their removal and to punish the doer of the deed. In the district of Ardnamurchan is a cave, associated with Columba, who there baptised some freebooters. The water used for the purpose lay in a hollow of the rock, and, in after times, votive gifts were left beside it. On one occasion, a young man stole some of these, but he did not remain long unpunished, for before reaching home he fell and broke his leg. Tobar-fuar-Mòrie, i.e., The big cold Well, situated at the foot of a steep hill in the parish of Corgarff, Aberdeenshire, consists of three springs about a yard distant from each other. Each spring formerly cured a separate disease--one, blindness; the other, deafness; and the third, lameness. The guardian spirit of the springs lived under a large stone called the kettle stone, because below it was a kettle where she stored her votive offerings.