3. The Cat Stane. │8. Was the Roman │ Army provided with │ Medical Officers? 4. Magical Charm-Stones. │9. Roman Medicine │ Stamps, etc. etc. 5. Pyramid of Gizeh. │ [Illustration: ANCIENT ORATORY IN THE ISLAND OF INCHOLM.] _EDINBURGH: DAVID DOUGLAS._ _SPECIMEN PAGE._ SCOTTISH CHARM-STONES. 211 "The (then) chief, journeying with his clan to join Brace’s army before Bannockburn, observed, on his standard being lifted one morning, a glittering something in a clod of earth hanging to the flagstaff. It was this stone. He showed it to his followers, and told [Illustration: Fig. 17. Clach-na-Bratach.] them he felt sure its brilliant lights were a good omen and foretold a victory—and victory was won on the hard-fought field of Bannockburn. "From this time, whenever the clan was ‘out,’ the Clach-na-Bratach accompanied it, carried on the person of the chief, and its varying hues were consulted by him as to the fate of battle. On the eve of Sheriffmuir (13th November 1715), of sad memory, on Struan consulting the stone as to the fate of the morrow, the large internal flaw was first observed. The Stuarts were lost—and Clan Donnachaidh has been declining in influence ever since. “The virtues of the Clach-na-Bratach are not altogether of a martial nature, for it cures all manner of diseases in cattle and horses, and formerly in human beings also, if they drink the water in which this charmed stone has been thrice dipped by the hands of Struan.” The Clach-na-Bratach is a transparent, globular mass of rock-crystal, of the size of a small apple. (See accompanying woodcut, Fig. 17.) Its surface has been artificially polished. Several specimens of round rock-crystal, of the same description and size, and similarly [Illustration: =ANCIENT CELTIC SCOTLAND.=] ------- WORKS BY WILLIAM F. SKENE HISTORIOGRAPHER-ROYAL FOR SCOTLAND. I. THE FOUR ANCIENT BOOKS OF WALES CONTAINING THE CYMRIC POEMS ATTRIBUTED TO THE BARDS OF THE SIXTH CENTURY, BY WILLIAM F. SKENE. _With Maps and Facsimiles, Two Vols. 8vo, 36s._ II. CELTIC SCOTLAND A HISTORY OF ANCIENT ALBAN. _In Three Vols. 45s., Illustrated with Maps._ I.—HISTORY AND ETHNOLOGY. II.—CHURCH AND CULTURE. III.—LAND AND PEOPLE.