a procession round it, as I am informed, nine times; after this, they in like manner go round the temple." Gallstack Well, at Drumlanrig, in Dumfriesshire, is near a group of standing stones. From examples like the above, we may infer that some mysterious connection was supposed to exist between standing stones and their adjacent wells. In the Tullie Beltane instance indeed, stones and well were associated together in the same superstitious rite. A striking instance of Christianity borrowing from paganism is to be seen in the reverence paid to the well of Innis Maree, in Loch Maree, in Ross-shire. This well has been famous from an unknown past. It is dedicated to St. Maelrubha, after whom both loch and island are named. Maelrubha belonged to the monastery of Bangor, in Ireland. In the year 673, at the age of thirty-one, he settled at Applecrossan, now Applecross, in Ross-shire, and there founded a church as the nucleus of a conventual establishment. Over this monastery he presided for fifty-one years, and died a natural death in 722. A legend, disregarding historical probabilities, relates that he was slain by a band of pagan Norse rovers, and that his body was left in the forest to be devoured by wild beasts. His grave is still pointed out in Applecross churchyard, the spot being marked by a pillar slab with an antique cross carved on it. For centuries after his death he was regarded as the patron saint, not only of Applecross, but of a wide district around. Pennant, who visited Innis Maree in 1772, thus describes its appearance: "The shores are neat and gravelly; the whole surface covered thickly with a beautiful grove of oak, ash, willow, wicken, birch, fir, hazel, and enormous hollies. In the midst is a circular dike of stones, with a regular narrow entrance, the inner part has been used for ages as a burial-place, and is still in use. I suspect the dyke to have been originally Druidical, and that the ancient superstition of Paganism had been taken up by the saint, as the readiest method of making a conquest over the minds of the inhabitants. A stump of a tree is shown as an altar, probably the memorial of one of stone; but the curiosity of the place is the well of the saint; of power unspeakable in cases of lunacy." Whatever Pennant meant by Druidical, there is reason to believe that the spot was the scene of pre-Christian rites. In the popular imagination the outlines of Maelrubha's character seem to have become mixed up with those of the heathen divinity worshipped in the district. Two circumstances point to this. Firstly, as Sir Arthur Mitchell remarks in the fourth volume of the "Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland," "The people of the place speak often of the God Mourie instead of St. Mourie, which may have resulted from his having supplanted the old god." Secondly, as the same writer shows, by reference to old kirk session records, it was customary in the parish to sacrifice a bull to St. Mourie.