With this class may also be reckoned the Scottish querne, unquestionably an invention of the remotest antiquity, though it has continued in use down almost to our own day in some of the western isles and other rarely visited Highland districts. A curious allusion to it occurs in the Life of St. Columba, illustrative of its daily use for the preparation of grain for bread. When the Saint studied under St. Finnian, every night on which it fell to his share to grind the corn with the querne he did it so expeditiously that his companions alleged he had always the assistance of an angel in turning the stone, and envied him accordingly.[189] At that period, that is in the early part of the sixth century, there can be little doubt that it was the only mill in use. Even so early as the thirteenth century legal means were employed to compel the people to abandon it for the large water-mills then introduced. In 1284, in the reign of Alexander III., it was provided that "na man sall presume to grind quheit, maishlock, or rye with hands mylne, except he be compelled be storm, or be lack of mills, quhilk sould grind the samen. And in this case, gif a man grinds at hand mylnes, he sall gif the threttein measure as multer; and gif anie man contraveins this our prohibition, he sall tine his hand mylnes perpetuallie." The prevalence of these simple domestic utensils in the remoter districts of Scotland till the close of the last century proves how ineffectual this law had been in superseding the querne by the public mill. The commonest form consists simply of two thin circular flat stones, the upper one of which is pierced in the centre, and revolves on a wooden or metal pin inserted in the under one. The upper stone is also occasionally decorated with various ornaments, incised or in relief. In using the querne the grinder dropped the grain into the central hole with one hand, while with the other he made the upper stone revolve by means of a stick inserted in a small hole near the edge. The extreme simplicity of this indispensable piece of household furniture justifies its reference to remote antiquity. It has been already observed that it frequently occurs among the contents of the Scottish weems, or cyclopean underground dwellings of a very primitive state of society. It has also been dug up under a variety of circumstances, all furnishing probable evidence of great antiquity. One upper stone of a querne, now preserved in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, was discovered in 1825, along with the remains of an iron sword, in digging on the summit of a hill called the Camp, near Pitlour House, Fifeshire. Another in the same collection, of still ruder form, was found built into the masonry of an ancient wall of Edinburgh Castle, demolished in 1828.