Within the last half-century there lived in Stonehaven an old woman, who was regarded with considerable awe by the sea-faring population. Before a voyage it was usual to propitiate her by the gift of a bag of coals. On one occasion, two brothers, owners of a coasting smack, after setting sail, had to return to port through stress of weather, the storm being due, it was believed, to the fact that one of the brothers had omitted to secure the woman's good offices in the usual way. The brother who was captain of the smack seems to have been a firm believer in wind-charms, for it is related of him that during a more than usually high wind he was in the habit of throwing up his cap into the air with the exclamation, "She maun hae something." She, in this case, was the wind, and not the witch: and the cap was meant as a gift to propitiate the storm. Dr. Charles Rogers, in his "Social Life in Scotland," tells us that "the seamen of Shetland, in tempestuous weather, throw a piece of money into the window of a ruinous chapel dedicated to St. Ronald in the belief that the saint will allay the vehemence of the storm." According to the same writer, "Shetland boatmen still purchase favourable winds from elderly women, who pretend to rule or to modify the storms." "There are now in Lerwick," Dr. Rogers continues, "several old women who in this fashion earn a subsistence. Many of the survivors of the great storm of the 20th of July, 1881--so fatal on northern coasts--assert that their preservation was due to warnings which they received through a supernatural agency." Human skulls have their folklore. The lifting of them from their usual resting-places has, in popular belief, been connected with certain mysterious occurrences. According to a story told by Mr. Wirt Sikes, in his "British Goblins," a man who removed a skull from a church to prove to his companions that he was free from superstition was overtaken by a terrible whirlwind, the result, it was thought, of his rash act. In some Highland districts it used to be reckoned unlucky to allow a corpse to remain unburied. If from any cause, human bones came to the surface, care was taken to lay them below ground again, as otherwise disastrous storms would ensue.