One of the most remarkable curiosities connected with family superstitions is what is commonly known as “The Coalstoun Pear,” the strange antecedent history of which is thus given in a work entitled, “The Picture of Scotland”:  “Within sight of the House of Lethington, in Haddingtonshire, stands the mansions of Coalstoun, the seat of the ancient family of Coalstoun, whose estate passed by a series of heirs of line into the possession of the Countess of Dalhousie.  This place is chiefly worthy of attention here, on account of a strange heirloom, with which the welfare of the family was formerly supposed to be connected.

“One of the Barons of Coalstoun, about three hundred years ago, married Jean Hay, daughter of John, third Lord Yester, with whom he obtained a dowry, not consisting of such base materials as houses or land, but neither more nor less than a pear.  ’Sure such a pear was never seen,’ however, as this of Coalstoun, which a remote ancestor of the young lady, famed for his necromantic power, was supposed to have invested with some enchantment that rendered it perfectly invaluable.  Lord Yester, in giving away his daughter, informed his son-in-law that, good as the lass might be, her dowry was much better, because, while she could only have value in her own generation, the pear, so long as it was continued in his family, would be attended with unfailing prosperity, and thus might cause the family to flourish to the end of time.  Accordingly, the pear was preserved as a sacred palladium, both by the laird who first obtained it, and by all his descendants; till one of their ladies, taking a longing for the forbidden fruit while pregnant, inflicted upon it a deadly bite:  in consequence of which, it is said, several of the best farms on the estate very speedily came to the market.”

The pear, tradition goes on to tell us, became stone hard immediately after the lady had bit it, and in this condition it remains till this day, with the marks of Lady Broun’s teeth indelibly imprinted on it.  Whether it be really thus fortified against all further attacks of the kind or not, it is certain that it is now disposed in some secure part of the house—­or as we have been informed in a chest, the key of which is kept secure by the Earl of Dalhousie—­so as to be out of all danger whatsoever.  The “Coalstowne pear,” it is added, without regard to the superstition attached to it, must be considered a very great curiosity in its way, “having, in all probability, existed five hundred years—­a greater age than, perhaps, has ever been reached by any other such production of nature.”

Another strange heirloom—­an antique crystal goblet—­is said to have been for a long time in the possession of Colonel Wilks, the proprietor of the estate of Ballafletcher, four or five miles from Douglas, Isle of Man.  It is described as larger than a common bell-shaped tumbler, “uncommonly light and chaste in appearance, and ornamented with floral scrolls, having between the designs on two