Grampian Club > Scotland, social and domestic

General Folklore. 215
flittings, the salt-box was always first removed, and
placed in the new dwelling. It was sometimes scat-
tered about for good luck. When a child met with an
accident, a table-spoonful of water mixed with salt was
applied to its brow and poured into its mouth ; when
an adult complained, and the cause of his ailment was
unknown, an old sixpence was borrowed from a neigh-
bour, its intended use being kept secret. As much salt
as could be raised on the coin was then placed in a
table-spoonful of water and melted. The sixpence was
next put into the solution, and the soles of the pa-
tient's feet and the palms of his hands were moistened
three times with the liquid. The patient was made to
taste the mixture thrice. His brow was stroked with
the solution. The liquid which remained in the spoon
was thrown over the lire, with these words, " Lord, pre-
serve us frae a' skaith." The cure was then held to be
complete.
There were superstitious rites connected with mono-
liths and memorial stones. Lovers pledged themselves
to mutual fidelity by joining hands through the perfo-
rated Stone of Odin, near Loch Stennis, in Orkney.
Even the elders of the Church recognized the sacredness
of the vow.* The married women of Strathearn passed
their hands through the holes of the Bore stone of Gask,
to obtain children. A child, passed through the hole of
the stone at Stennis, was believed to be free from palsy
* Principal Gordon, of the Scots College, Paris, who visited Orkney
in 1781, relates that, about twenty years previously, the elders of the
Kirk-session of Sandwich were particularly severe on a young man,
brought before them for seduction, on account of his having broken
"the promise of Odin." — " "Wilson's Archaeology." Edinburgh, 1851.
8vo. Pp. 100, 101.