25th).  Libations of milk were also poured out on the hills, ruined chapels were perambulated, wells and stones worshipped, and divination practised.  These rites, occurring in the seventeenth century, were condemned by the Presbytery of Dingwall, but with little effect, and some of them still survive.[841] In all these cases the saint has succeeded to the ritual of an earlier god.  Mr. Cook surmises that S. Maelrubha was the successor of a divine king connected with an oak and sacred well, the god or spirit of which was incarnate in him.  These divine kings may at one time have been slain, or a bull, similarly incarnating the god or spirit, may have been killed as a surrogate.  This slaying was at a later time regarded as a sacrifice and connected with the cure of madness.[842] The rite would thus be on a parallel with the slaying of the oxen at the mistletoe gathering, as already interpreted.  Eilean Maree (Maelrubha), where the tree and well still exist, was once known as Eilean mo righ ("the island of my king"), or Eilean a Mhor Righ ("of the great king"), the king having been worshipped as a god.  This piece of corroborative evidence was given by the oldest inhabitant to Sir Arthur Mitchell.[843] The people also spoke of the god Mourie.

Other survivals of animal sacrifice are found in cases of cattle-plague, as in Morayshire sixty years ago, in Wales, Devon, and the Isle of Man.  The victim was burned and its ashes sprinkled on the herd, or it was thrown into the sea or over a precipice.[844] Perhaps it was both a propitiatory sacrifice and a scape-animal, carrying away the disease, though the rite may be connected with the former slaying of a divine animal whose death benefited all the cattle of the district.  In the Hebrides the spirits of earth and air were propitiated every quarter by throwing outside the door a cock, hen, duck, or cat, which was supposed to be seized by them.  If the rite was neglected, misfortune was sure to follow.  The animal carried away evils from the house, and was also a propitiatory sacrifice.

The blood of victims was sprinkled on altars, images, and trees, or, as among the Boii, it was placed in a skull adorned with gold.[845] Other libations are known mainly from folk-survivals.  Thus Breton fishermen salute reefs and jutting promontories, say prayers, and pour a glass of wine or throw a biscuit or an old garment into the sea.[846] In the Hebrides a curious rite was performed on Maundy Thursday.  After midnight a man walked into the sea, and poured ale or gruel on the waters, at the same time singing: 

  “O God of the sea,
   Put weed in the drawing wave,
   To enrich the ground,
   To shower on us food.”