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RELICS OF PAGANISM

Various memorials of Paganism may be recognised, to some of which further reference will be made in a later chapter. Of these memorials, the numerous standing stones are the most conspicuous, whether as single monoliths, marking the grave of some forgotten hero or dedicated to some unknown divinity, or as groups erected doubtless for religious purposes, like the great assemblage at Callernish in the Lewis. Besides these stones, many burial mounds, resting-places of the pagan dead, have yielded relics of the Stone and Bronze Ages. In some respects more impressive even than these relics, are the superstitious customs which still survive amongst us, and have probably descended uninterruptedly from pagan times; such, for instance, as the practice of walking around wells and other places three times from east to west, as the sun moves, and the practice of leaving offerings at the springs which are resorted to for curative purposes. Some of these customs were continued by the early Celtic Church, persisted afterwards through the Roman Catholic period, and even now, in spite of all the efforts of Protestant zeal, they have not been wholly extirpated.