BEDS, SACRED. It has been pointed out by Professor Elliot Smith (Mi.) that it is a familiar scene in ancient Egyptian pictures to find the mummy borne upon a bed, and that in a proto-dynastic cemetery, on a site excavated by Flinders Petrie at Tarkhan, corpses have been found lying upon beds. It may well be assumed that such beds, or some of them, came to be regarded as sacred. In the sanctuary of Men, the chief god of Antioch in Pisidia, Sir William Ramsay in his excavations found " three of the feet of the holy bed ' used for the mystic marriage ceremony between the god and his goddess—in which ser vice, according to immemorial tradition, Anatolian ladies, even those of highest rank, were expected to take part " (Cobern). In Ireland, as noted by W. G. Wood-Martin, there are a number of sacred spots known as Saints' Beds or Priests' Beds, to which devout persons, especially women, used to resort. St. Molaise's bed is near his house in the Island of Devenish. It is " a stone trough
(coffin) sunk level with the surface of the ground, six feet in length and fifteen inches wide, in which people lie down and repeat some prayers, in hope of relief from any pains with which they may be affected." According to Lady Wilde, there is a stone receptacle called " The Bed of the Holy Ghost " in one of the wild desolate islands off the Western coast of Ireland. If one passed a night in it, it would heal all diseases, and to a woman would bring the blessing of children. In a depression or cavity of a slab of rock on Inishmore, now called Church Island, in Lough Gill, county Sligo, was a bed called " Our Lady's Bed." Women who desired children lay in it, turned thrice round, and repeated certain prayers. It is said that to " St. Patrick's Bed " on Croagh Patrick only barren women resorted. Here, after going round the bed seven times, they lay in it and turned round seven times.