I may give here a curious illustration of insanity being induced, not cured, by superstition in Scotland. John Law's servant "rane wode" when John Knox had retreated to St. Andrews during the civil contentions of his later years. The story is thus quaintly told in Bannatyne's "Journal" (p. 309). John Law of that city, being in Edinburgh Castle in January, 1572, "the ladie Home wald neidis thraip in his face that he was banist the said toune because that, in the yarde reasit (rose) sum sanctis, among whome cam up the devill with hornis, which when his servant Ritchart saw, rane wode, and so deit."[35]
But I must not dwell longer on the treatment of lunatics by the Highlanders, or the superstitions of Scotland in this connection, and will now say a few words in reference to Ireland.
It would be easy to narrate the stories which in Ireland connect popular superstition with the treatment of the insane, but I will only refer to one. The reader may have heard of the "Valley of the Lunatics," or Glen-na-galt, in that country. It is situated in Kerry, near Tralee. It was believed, not only in that county, but in Ireland generally, that all lunatics would ultimately, if left to themselves, find their way to this glen to be cured.[36] In the valley are two wells, called the "Lunatic's Wells," or Tober-na-galt, to which the lunatics resort, crossing a stream flowing through the glen, at a point called the "Madman's Ford," or Ahagaltaun, and passing by the "Standing Stone of the Lunatics" (Cloghnagalt). Of these waters they drink, and eat the cresses growing on the margin; the firm belief being that the healing water, and the cresses, and the mysterious virtue of the glen will effectually restore the madman to mental health.
Dr. Oscar Woods, the medical superintendent of the District Lunatic Asylum, Kilkenny, informs me that the superstition has nearly died out since this asylum was opened, about thirty years ago. Dr. Woods gives a different etymology, namely, _bright_, for _galt_; the valley in that case deriving its name in contradistinction to that on the other side of the hill, Emaloghue, on which the sun scarcely ever shines. He thinks the superstition arose from persons labouring under melancholy going from the sunless to the bright valley. "Why this place," wrote Dr. C. Smith in 1756,[37] "rather than any other should be frequented by lunatics, nobody can pretend to ascertain any rational cause, and yet no one truth is more firmly credited here by the common people than this impertinent fable." He, however, says that having regard to the awful appearance of these desolate glens and mountains, none but madmen would enter them! Recurring to the meaning of the word _galt_, a gentleman in Ireland, a professor of Irish, states that _geilt_ is a mad person, one living in the woods, and that _gealt_ is the genitive plural. It is interesting to find, also, from the same source, that the Irish word for the moon is _gealach_, indicating a probable etymological connection.