(M287) However, our British peasants, it must be confessed, have not always acted up to the strict logical theory which seems to call for death by fire as the proper treatment both of bewitched animals and of witches. Sometimes, perhaps in moments of weakness, they have merely buried the bewitched animals alive instead of burning them. For example, in the year 1643, “many cattle having died, John Brughe and Neane Nikclerith, also one of the initiated, conjoined their mutual skill for the safety of the herd. The surviving animals were drove past a tub of water containing two enchanted stones: and each was sprinkled from the liquid contents in its course. One, however, being unable to walk, ‘was by force drawin out at the byre dure; and the said Johnne with Nikclerith smelling the nois thereof said it wald not leive, caused ane hoill to be maid in Maw Greane, quhilk was put quick in the hole and maid all the rest of the cattell theireftir to go over that place: and in that devillische maner, be charmeing,’ they were cured.”(791) Again, during the prevalence of a murrain about the year 1629, certain persons proposed to stay the plague with the help of a celebrated “cureing stane” of which the laird of Lee was the fortunate owner. But from this they were dissuaded by one who “had sene bestiall curet be taking ane quik seik ox, and making ane deip pitt, and bureing him therin, and be calling the oxin and bestiall over that place.” Indeed Issobell Young, the mother of these persons, had herself endeavoured to check the progress of the distemper by taking “ane quik ox with ane catt, and ane grit quantitie of salt,” and proceeding “to burie the ox and catt quik with the salt, in ane deip hoill in the grund, as ane sacrifice to the devill, that the rest of the guidis might be fred of the seiknes or diseases.”(792) Writing towards the end of the eighteenth century, John Ramsay of Ochtertyre tells us that “the violent death even of a brute is in some cases held to be of great avail. There is a disease called the _black spauld_, which sometimes rages like a pestilence among black cattle, the symptoms of which are a mortification in the legs and a corruption of the mass of blood. Among the other engines of superstition that are directed against this fatal malady, the first cow seized with it is commonly buried alive, and the other cattle are forced to pass backwards and forwards over the pit. At other times the heart is taken out of the beast alive, and then the carcass is buried. It is remarkable that the leg affected is cut off, and hung up in some part of the house or byre, where it remains suspended, notwithstanding the seeming danger of infection. There is hardly a house in Mull where these may not be seen. This practice seems to have taken its rise antecedent to Christianity, as it reminds us of the pagan custom of hanging up offerings in their temples. In Breadalbane, when a cow is observed to have symptoms of