According to my Calendar of Forgotten English, which reminds
me that "mad-doctor" is an early term for an alienist, now called
psychiatrist, today is the feast day of St Fillan. Other calendars disagree,
but I want to recollect this Irish-Scots priest who operated a
healing sanctuary centered on a sacred pool in Perthshire.
There were healing
stones, resembling major organs, where the sick hoped to secure relief from
symptoms afflicting those organs.
Fillan's Pool was used for cleansing and purification. It
became famous for rituals to cure the insane. They were dunked in the water
after sunset and told to bring three stones from the bottom. They had to place
these on cairns in a ritual fashion. They were then conducted to a ruined
chapel where they were laid out like corpses on a stone slab - Fillan's Bed - and
bound tight with ropes. If they had managed to get loose from the ropes by
sunrise, they were pronounced sane and well.
I found an interesting 1863 essay on these practices by
Professor J.Y Simpson in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of
Scotland, quoting a man who was dunked in Fillan's pool and swore he only got
free from the bonds because a dead relative turned up to help him.
Fillan, by the way, means Little Wolf in Gaelic. His left
arm was supposed to glow in the dark and was brought to Robert the Bruce, at
his demand, as a charm on the eve of his victory at Bannockburn.
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