FILLAN, St. The accounts given by various writers of this saint, in so far as they supply any details, are, as in many similar cases, purely legendary and conjectural. That such an ecclesiastic existed, that he was of Irish origin, and that he was venerated in Glendochart and Strathfillan in Perthshire as early as the 8th or 9th century, may be held as certain. There was an ancient monastery in that district dedicated to St Fillan, which, like most of the religious houses of early times, was afterwards secularized. The lay-abbot, who was its superior in the reign of William the Lion, held high rank in the Scottish kingdom. This monastery was restored in the reign of Robert Bruce, and became a cell of the abbey of canons-regular at Inchaffray. The new foundation received a grant from King Robert, in gratitude for the aid which he was supposed to have obtained from a relic of the saint on the eve of the great victory of Bannockburn. Another relic was the saint’s staff or crozier, which became known as the coygerach or quigrich, and was long in the possession of a family of the name of Jore or Dewar, who were its hereditary guardians. They certainly had it in their custody in the year 1428, and their right was formally recognized by King James III. in 1487. The head of the crozier, which is of silver-gilt with a smaller crozier of bronze inclosed within it, is now deposited in the National Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. It was secured for them through the exertions of Dr Daniel Wilson, author of the Prehistoric Annals of Scotland. This crozier has attracted much attention among Scottish antiquaries, and its history has been minutely investigated....