ct in some Highland
districts. In old Pagan and Mithraic times we know that the sacrifice of
the ox was common. I have myself often listened to the account given by
one near and dear to me, who was in early life personally engaged in the
offering up and burying of a poor live cow as a sacrifice to the Spirit
of the Murrain. This occurred within twenty miles of the metropolis of
Scotland. In the same district a relative of mine bought a farm not very
many years ago. Among his first acts, after taking possession, was the
inclosing a small triangular corner of one of the fields within a stone
wall. The corner cut off--and which still remains cut off--was the
"Goodman's Croft"--an offering to the Spirit of Evil, in order that he
might abstain from ever blighting or damaging the rest of the farm. The
clergyman of the parish, in lately telling me the circumstance, added,
that my kinsman had been, he feared, far from acting honestly with
Lucifer, after all, as the corner which he had cut off for the
"Goodman's" share was perhaps the most worthless and sterile spot on the
whole property. Some may look upon such superstitions and superstitious
practices as matters utterly vulgar and valueless in themselves; but in
the eyes of the archaeologist they become interesting and important when
we remember that the popular superstitions of Scotland, as of other
countries, are for the most part true antiquarian vestiges of the pagan
creeds and customs of our earlier ancestors; our present Folk-lore being
merely in general a degenerated and debased form of the highest
mythological and medical lore of very distant times. A collection of the
popular superstitions and practices of the different districts of
Scotland now, ere (like fairy and goblin forms vanishing before the
break of day) they melt and disappear totally before the light and the
pride of modern knowledge, would yet perhaps afford important materials
for regaining much lost antiquarian knowledge. For as the palaeontologist
can sometimes reconstruct in full the types of extinct animals from a
few preserved fragments of bones, possibly some future archaeological
Cuvier may one day be able to reconstruct from these mythological
fragments, and from other sources, far more distinct figures and forms
than we at present possess of the heathen faith and rites of our
forefathers.

Perhaps a more important matter still would be the collection, from
every district and parish of Scotland, o