Bridget or Bride, an Irish saint, was popular in Scotland. She received baptism from Patrick, and died in 525 after a life of great sanctity. She was celebrated as a worker of miracles. She made a cow supply an enormous quantity of milk to satisfy the wants of three thirsty bishops who came to visit her. She also cured diseases. On one occasion two men suffering from leprosy came to her to be healed. She made the sign of the cross over water, and told them to wash in it. One of the two did so and was instantly restored to health; but, refusing to help the other, he at once became leprous again, while his companion was as suddenly made whole. On another occasion she used the sign of the cross to stay a company bent on the capture of a maiden who had sought refuge in the saint's nunnery. Perhaps her most wonderful miracle was the hanging of her gown on a sunbeam, a somewhat unusual cloak-peg, and one that, from the nature of the case, had not to be sought in a dark press. Her principal monastery was at Kildare, so named after the oak (dair) under whose shade her cell was built. Adjoining St. Bride's Churchyard in London is a spring dedicated to the saint, and popularly styled Bride's Well. The palace built in the immediate neighbourhood went by the name of Bridewell. It was handed over by Edward VI. to the city of London as a workhouse and place of correction. At a later date the name became associated with other houses used for a similar purpose. "Hence it has arisen," remarks Chambers in his "Book of Days," "that the pure and innocent Bridget, the first of Irish nuns, is now inextricably connected in our ordinary national parlance with a class of beings of the most opposite description." There are fully a dozen wells in Scotland bearing her name. These are chiefly to be found in the counties of Wigtown, Dumfries, Peebles, Lanark, Renfrew, Dumbarton, Perth, Fife, and Aberdeen. A monastery was founded in Bridget's honour at Abernethy, in Perthshire, probably in the eighth century, and she had churches on the mainland and among the Western Islands. A curious superstition connected with Bridget has survived to the present time, at least in one of these islands. It has to do with a certain magical flower styled torranain, that must be plucked during the influx of the tide, and is of virtue to protect cows from the evil eye, and to make them give a plentiful supply of milk. The Rev. Dr. Stewart, in his "'Twixt Ben Nevis and Glencoe," quotes the incantation associated with it forwarded to him by a correspondent in Uist. The following is one of the stanzas:-- "Let me pluck thee, Torranain! With all thy blessedness and all thy virtue. The nine blessings came with the nine parts. By the virtue of the Torranain. The hand of St. Bride with me I am now to pluck thee."