St Fillan’s Pool

St Fillan, whose day is 9 January, retired to Strathfillan in Perthshire, where a deep pool called the Holy Pool was used to cure people thought insane. After sunset on the first day of the quarter, old style, they were dipped in the pool, took three stones from its bottom and walked three times round each of three cairns on the bank, throwing a stone on each. Then they were laid on their backs and tied in a corner of the ruined chapel called St Fillan’s bed, and if they were found loose in the morning the cure was held to be perfect. The saint’s bell lay loose on a gravestone for use in the ceremony, and people believed it would always return if carried off, until an English traveller took it away.