cinal and effective, the stone, during the process, required to be
held in the hand of the Laird. The Bairds of Auchmeddan possessed
another of these celebrated northern amulets. The Auchmeddan Stone is a
ball of black-coloured flint, mounted with four strips of silver. A
legend engraved on this silver setting--in letters probably of the last
century--states that this "Amulet or charm belonged to the family of
Baird of Auchmeddan from the year 1174." In the middle of the last
century, this amulet passed as a family relic to the Frasers of
Findrack, when an intermarriage with the Bairds occurred.

Curing-stones seem to have formerly been by no means rare in this
country, to the south also of the Highland Borders. In a letter written
by the distinguished Welsh archaeologist Edward Lhwyd, and dated
Linlithgow, December 17, 1699, he states that betwixt Wales and the
Highlands he had seen at least fifty different forms of the
party-coloured glass bead or amulet known under the name of Adder-beads
or Snake stones.[226] In Scotland he found various materials used as
healing amulets, particularly some pebbles of remarkable shape and
colour, and hollow balls and rings of coloured glass. "They have also,"
he says, "the _Ombriae pellucidae_, which are crystal balls or
hemispheres, or depressed ovals, in great esteem for curing of cattle;
and some on May-day put them into a tub of water, and besprinkle all
their cattle with that water, to prevent being elf-struck, bewitched,
etc."

In the Lowlands, the curing-stone of greatest celebrity, and the one
which has longest retained its repute, is

_The Lee Penny._

In the present century this ancient medical charm-stone has acquired a
world-wide reputation as the original of the _Talisman_ of Sir Walter
Scott, though latterly its therapeutic reputation has greatly declined,
and almost entirely ceased.[227] The enchanted stone has long been in
the possession of the knightly family of the Lockharts of Lee, in
Lanarkshire. According to a mythical tradition, it was, in the
fourteenth century, brought by Sir Simon Lockhart from the Holy Land,
where it had been used as a medical amulet, for the arrestment of
haemorrhage, fever, etc. It is a small dark-red stone, of a somewhat
triangular or heart shape, as represented in the adjoining woodcut (Fig.
19). It is set in the reverse of a groat of Edward IV., of the London
Mint.[228]

[Illustration: Fig. 19. The Lee Penny.]

When the Lee Pe