denounced to the disobedient by the bloody and burnt y Richard Fox, Bishop of Durham, tempore Henrici marks upon this warlike signal. During the civil war of VIII. « We have further understood, that there are 1745-6, the fiery cross often made its circuit; and up- many chaplains in the said territories of Tynedale and on one occasion.it passed through the whole district of Redesdale, who are public and open maintainers of conBreadalbane, a tract of thirty-two miles, in three hours. cubinage, irregular, suspended, excommunicated, and inThe late Alexander Stewart, Esq. of Invernahyle, de- terdicted persons, and withal so utterly ignorant of letscribed to me his having sent round the fiery cross ters, that it has been found by those who objected this through the district of Appine, during the same com- to them, that there were some who, having celebrated motion. The coast was threatened by a descent from mass for ten years, were still unable to read the sacratwo English frigates, and the flower of the young men mental service. We have also understood there are were with the army of Prince Charles Edward, then in persons among them who, although not ordained, do England yet the summons was so effectual, that even take upon them the offices of priesthood; and, in conold age and childhood obeyed it; and a force was col-tempt of God, celebrate the divine and sacred rites, and lected in a few hours, so numerous and so enthusiastic, administer the sacraments, not only in sacred and dethat all attempt at the intended diversion upon the dicated places, but in those which are prophane and country of the absent warriors was in prudence aban-interdicted, and most wretchedly ruinous; they themdoned, as desperate. selves being attired in ragged, torn, and most filthy

This practice, like some others, is common to the vestments, altogether unfit to be used in divine or even Highlanders with the ancient Scandinavians, as will ap-in temporal offices. The which said chaplains do admipear by the following extract from Olaus Magnus: nister sacraments and sacramental rites to the aforesaid manifest and infamous thieves, robbers, depredators, receivers of stolen goods, and plunderers, and that without restitution, or intention to restore, as evinced by the fact; and do also openly admit them to the rites of ecclesiastical sepulchre, without exacting security for restitution, although they are prohibited from doing so by the sacred canons as well as by the institutes of the saints and fathers. All which infers the heavy peril of their own souls, and is a pernicious example to the other believers in Christ, as well as no slight, but an aggravated injury to the numbers despoiled and plundered of their goods, gear, herds, and chattels.'»

To this lively and picturesque description of the confessors and churchmen of predatory tribes, there may be added some curious particulars respecting the priests attached to the several septs of native Irish, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. These friars had indeed to

« When the enemy is upon the sea-coast, or within the limits of northern kingdomes, then presently, by the command of the principal governours, with the counsel and consent of the old soldiers, who are notably skilled in such like business, a staff of three hands length, in the common sight of them all, is carried, by the speedy running of some active young man, unto that village or city, with this command, -that on the 3, 4, or 8, day, one, two, or three, or else every man in particular, from fifteen years old, shall come with his arms, and expences for ten or twelve days, upon pain that his or their houses shall be burnt (which is intimated by the burning of the staff), or else the master to be hanged (which is signified by the cord tied to it), to appear speedily on such a bank, or field, or valley, to hear the cause he is called, and to hear orders from the said provincial governours what he shall do. Wherefore that messenger, swifter than any post or waggon, hav-plead, that the incursions, which they not only pardoning done his commission, comes slowly back again, bringing a token with him that he hath done all legally; and every moment one or another runs to every village, and tells those places what they must do,>> «The messengers, therefore, or the footmen, that are to give warning to the people to meet for the battail, run fiercely and swiftly; for no snow, or rain, nor heat can stop them, nor night hold them; but they will soon run the race they undertake. The first messenger tells it to the next village, and that to the next; and so the hubbub runs all over till they all know it in that stift or territory, where, when, and wherefore they must meet.»OLAUS MAGNUS History of the Goths, englished by J. S. London, 1658, book iv, chap. 3, 4.

Note 2. Stanza iv.

That monk, of savage form and face. The state of religion in the middle ages afforded considerable facilities for those whose mode of life excluded them from regular worship, to secure, nevertheless, the ghostly assistance of confessors, perfectly willing to adapt the nature of their doctrine to the necessities and peculiar circumstances of their flock. Robin Hood, it is well known, had his celebrated domestic chaplain, Friar Tuck. And that same curtal friar was probably matched in manners and appearance by the ghostly fathers of the Tynedale robbers, who are thus described in an excommunication fulminated against their patrons

ed, but even encouraged, were made upon those hostile to them, as well in religion as from national antipathy. But by protestant writers they are uniformly alleged to be the chief instruments of Irish insurrection, the very well-spring of all rebellion towards the English government. Lithgow, the Scottish traveller, declares, the Irish wood-kerne, or predatory tribes, to be but the hounds of their hunting priests, who directed their incursions by their pleasure, partly for sustenance, partly to gratify animosity, partly to, foment general division, and always for the better security and easier domination of the friars. Derrick, the liveliness and minuteness of whose descriptions may frequently apologize for his doggrel verses, after describing an Irish feast, and the encouragement given, by the songs of the bards, to its termination in an incursion upon the parts of the country more immediately under the dominion of the English, records the no less powerful arguments used by the friar to excite their animosity:

And more t'augment the flame,
and rancour of their harte,
The friar, of his counsells vile,
to rebelles doth imparte,

The Monition against the Robbers of Tynedale and Redesdale, with which I was favoured by my friend Mr Surtees, of Mainsfort, may be found in the original Latin, in the Appendix to the Introduction to the Border Minstrelsy, No. VII. fourth edition. Lithgow's Travels, first edit. p. 431.

As the Irish tribes, and those of the Scottish Highlands, are much more intimately allied, by language, manners, dress, and customs, than the antiquaries of either country have been willing to admit, I flatter myself I have here produced a strong warrant for the character sketched in the text. The following picture,

This curious Picture of Ireland was inserted by the author in the republication of Somers' Tracts, vol. I, in which the plates have been also inserted, from the only impressions known to exist, belonging to the copy in the Advocates' Library. See Somers Tracts, vol. I, pp. 591, 594.

though of a different kind, serves to establish the existence of ascetic religionists, to a comparatively late period, in the Highlands and Western Isles. There is a great deal of simplicity in the description, for which, as for much similar information, I am obliged to Dr John Martin, who visited the Hebrides at the suggestion of Sir Robert Sibbald, a Scottish antiquarian of eminence, and early in the eighteenth century published a description of them, which procured him admission into the Royal Society. He died in London about 1719. His work is a strange mixture of learning, observation, gross credulity.

ane church builded upon ane hill, which was above this church, which doeth now stand in this toune; and ancient men doeth say, that there was a battel foughten on ane little hill not the tenth part of a myle from this church, be certaine men which they did not know what they were. And long tyme thereafter, certain herds of that toune, and of the next toune, called Unnatt, both wenches and youthes, did on a time conveen with others. on that hill; and the day being somewhat cold, did gather the bones of the dead men that were slayne long time before in that place, and did make a fire to warm them. At last they did all remove from the fire, except one maid or wench, which was verie cold, and she did remain there for a space. She being quyetlie her alone, without any other companie, took up her clothes above her knees, or thereby, to warm her; a wind did come and caste the ashes upon her, and she was conceived of ane man-child. Several tymes thereafter she was verie sick, and at last she was knowne to be with chyld. And then her parents did ask at her the matter heiroff, which the wench could not weel answer which way to satisfie them. At last she resolved them with ane answer. As fortune fell upon her concerning this marvellous miracle, the chyld being borne, his name was called Gili-doir Maghrevolich; that is to say, the Black Child, Son to the Bones. So called, his grandfather sent him to school, ånd so he was a good schollar, and godlie. He did build this church which doeth now stand in Lochyeld, called Kilmalie.»-MACFARLANE, ut supra, II, 188.

Note 4. Stanza v.

Yet ne'er again to braid her hair

The virgin snood did Alice wear.

The

so eager to have believed. It was a natural attribute of
such a character as the supposed hermit, that he should
credit the numerous superstitions with which the minds
of ordinary Highlanders are almost always embued. A
few of these are slightly alluded to in this stanza.
River Demon, or River-horse, for it is that form which
he commonly assumes, is the Kelpy of the Lowlands,
an evil and malicious spirit, delighting to forebode and
to witness calamity. He frequents most Highland lakes
and rivers; and one of his most memorable exploits
was performed upon the banks of Loch Vennachar, in
the very district which forms the scene of our action:
it consisted in the destruction of a funeral procession,
with all its attendants. The «noontide hag,» called in
Gaelic Glas-lich, a tall, emaciated, gigantic female figure,
is supposed in particular to haunt the district of Knoid-
art. A goblin dressed in antique armour, and having
one hand covered with blood, called, from that circum-
stance, Lham-dearg, or Red-hand, is a tenant of the
forests of Glenmore and Rothiemurcus. Other spirits
of the desert, all frightful in shape and malignant in
disposition, are believed to frequent different mountains
and glens of the Highlands, where any unusual appear-
ance, produced by mist, or the strange lights that are
sometimes thrown upon particular objects, never fails
to present an apparition to the imagination of the soli-
tary and melancholy mountaineer.

Note 6. Stanza vii.

The fatal Ben-Shie's boding scream.

Most great families in the Highlands were supposed to have a tutelar, or rather a domestic spirit, attached to them, who took an interest in their prosperity, and intimated, by its wailings, any approaching disaster. The snood, or ribbon, with which a Scottish lass That of Grant of Grant was called May Moullach, and braided her hair, had an emblematical signification, and appeared in the form of a girl, who had her arm coapplied to her maiden character. It was exchanged for vered with hair. Grant of Rothiemurcus had an attendthe curch, toy, or coif, when she passed, by marriage,ant called Bodach-an-dun, or the Ghost of the hill: into the matron state. But if the damsel was so unfor- and many other examples might be mentioned. The tunate as to lose pretensions to the name of maiden, Ban-Schie implies the female fairy, whose lamentwithout gaining a right to that of matron, she was nei-ations were often supposed to precede the death of a ther permitted to use the snood, nor advanced to the graver dignity of the curch. In old Scottish songs there occur many sly allusions to such misfortune, as in the old words to the popular tune of & Ower the muir amang the heather.»>

Down amang the broom, the broom,

Down amang the broom, my dearie,
The lassie lost her silken suood,

That gurd her greet till she was wearie.

Note 5. Stanza vii.

The desert gave him visions wild,

Such as might suit the spectre's child.

In adopting the legend concerning the birth of the Founder of the Church of Kilmalie, the author has endeavoured to trace the effects which such a belief was likely to produce, in a barbarous age, on the person to whom it related. It seems likely that he must have become a fanatic or an impostor, or that mixture of both which forms a more frequent character than either of them, as existing separately. In truth, mad persons are frequently more anxious to impress upon others a faith in their visions, than they are themselves confirm ed in their reality: as, on the other hand, it is difficult for the most cool-headed impostor long to personate an enthusiast, without in some degree believing what he is

chieftain of particular families. When she is visible, it is in the form of an old woman, with a blue mantle and streaming hair. A superstition of the same kind is, I believe, universally received by the inferior ranks of the native Irish.

The death of the head of a Highland family is also sometimes supposed to be announced by a chain of lights of different colours, called Dr'eug, or death of the Druid. The direction which it takes marks the place of the funeral.

Note 7. Stanza vii.

Sounds, too, had come in midnight blast,
Of charging steeds, careering fast
Along Benharrow's shingly side,

Where mortal horseman ne'er might ride.

A presage of the kind alluded to in the text is still believed to announce death to the ancient Highland family of M'Lean of Lochbuy. The spirit of an ancestor slain in battle is heard, to gallop along a stony bank, and then to ride thrice around the family residence, ringing his fairy bridle, and thus intimating the approaching calamity. How easily the eye as well as

In the first edition, this was erroneously explained as equivalent 10 Ben Schichian, or the head of the Fairies."

Note 8. Stanza yiii.

Whose parents in Inch-Cailliach wave

Their shadows o'er Clan-Alpine's grave.

the ear may be deceived upon such occasions, is evident from the stories of armies in the air, and other spectral phenomena with which history abounds. Such an apparition is said to have been witnessed upon the side Inch Cailliach, the Isle of Nuns, or of Old Women, is of Southfell mountain, between Penrith and Keswick, a most beautiful island at the lower extremity of Loch upon the 23d June, 1744, by two persons, William Lomond. The church belonging to the former nunLancaster of Blakehills, and Daniel Stricket his servant,nery was long used as the place of worship for the whose attestation to the fact, with a full account of the apparition, dated the 21st July, 1785, is printed in Clarke's Survey of the Lakes. The apparition consisted of several troops of horse moving in regular order, with a steady rapid motion, making a curved sweep around the fell, and seeming to the spectators to disappear over the ridge of the mountain. Many persons witnessed this phenomenon, and observed the last, or last but one, of the supposed troop, occasionally leave his rank, and pass at a gallop to the front, when he resumed the same steady pace. This curious appear-« ance, making the necessary allowance for imagination, the deepest and most solemn imprecations which they may be perhaps sufficiently accounted for by optical used against an enemy. deception. Survey of the Lakes, p. 25.

parish of Buchanan, but scarce any vestiges of it now remain. The burial ground continues to be used, and contains the family places of sepulture of several neighbouring clans. The monuments of the lairds of Macgregor, and of other families, claiming a descent from the old Scottish King Alpine, are most remarkable. The Highlanders are as jealous of their rights of sepulture, as may be expected from a people whose whole laws and government, if clanship can be called so, turned upon the single principle of family descent. May his ashes be scattered on the water,» was one of

Note 9. Stanza xiii.
the dun deer's hide

On fleeter foot was never tied.

The present brogue of the Highlanders is made of half-dried leather, with holes to admit and let out the

Supernatural intimations of approaching fate are not, I believe, confined to Highland families. Howell mentions having seen at a lapidary's, in 1632, a monumental stone, prepared for four persons of the name of Oxenham, before the death of each of whom, the inscription stated a white bird to have appeared and flut-water; for walking the moors dry-shod is a matter tered around the bed, while the patient was in the last altogether out of question. The ancient buskiu was agony.—Familiar Letters, edit. 1726, 247. Glanville still ruder, being made of undressed deer's hide, with the hair outwards, a circumstance which procured the mentions one family, the members of which received Highlanders the well-known epithet of Red-shanks. this solemn sign by music, the sound of which floated The process is very accurately described by one Elder from the family residence, and seemed to die in a neighbouring wood; another, that of Captain Wood of himself a Highlander), in the project for a union beBampton, to whom the signal was given by knocking.tween England and Scotland, addressed to Henry VIII. « We go a hunting; and after that we have slain reddeer, we flay off the skin by and by, and setting of our bare-foot on the inside thereof, for want of cunning shoe-makers, by your grace's pardon, we play the coblers, compassing and measuring so much thereof as shall reach up to our ancles, pricking the upper part thereof with holes, that the water may repass where it enters, and stretching it up with a strong thong of the same above our said ancles. So, and please your noble grace, we make our shoes. Therefore, we using such manner of shoes, the rough hairy side outwards, in your Grace's dominions of England, we be called Rough footed Scots.»-PINKERTON'S History, vol. II, p. 397.

But the most remarkable instance of the kind occurs in

the MS. Memoirs of Lady Fanshaw, so exemplary for her conjugal affection. Her husband, Sir Richard, and she, chanced, during their abode in Ireland, to visit friend, the head of a sept, who resided in his ancient

a

baronial castle, surrounded with a moat. At midnight, she was awakened by a ghastly and supernatural scream, and, looking out of bed, behield, by the moonlight, a female face and part of the form, hovering at the window. The distance from the ground, as well as the circumstance of the moat, excluded the possibility that what she beheld was of this world. The face was that of a young and rather handsome woman, but pale, and the hair, which was reddish, loose, and dishevelled. The dress, which Lady Fanshaw's terror did not prevent her remarking accurately, was that of the ancient Irish. This apparition continued to exhibit itself for some time, and then vanished with two shrieks similar to that which had first excited Lady Fanshaw's attention. In the morning, with infinite terror, she communicated to her host what she had witnessed, and found him prepared not only to credit but to account for the apparition. «A near relation of my family,>> said he, «<expired last night in this castle. We disguised our certain expectation of the event from you, lest it should throw a cloud over the cheerful reception which was your due. Now, before such an event happens in this family and castle, the female spectre whom you have seen always is visible. She is believed to be the spirit of a woman of inferior rank, whom one of my ancestors degraded himself by marrying, and whom afterwards, to expiate the dishonour done his family, he caused to be drowned in the castle moat.»>

Note 10. Stanza xv.

The dismal coronach."

The coronach of the Highlanders, like the ululatus of the Romans, and the ululoo of the Irish, was a wild expression of lamentation, poured forth by the mourners over the body of a departed friend. When the words of it were articulate, they expressed the praises of the deceased, and the loss the clan would sustain by his death. The following is a lamentation of this kind, literally translated from the Gaelic, to some of the ideas of which the text stands indebted. The tune is so popular, that it has since become the war-marchi, or gathering of the clan.

Coronach on Sir Lauchlan, Chief of Maclean.
Which of all the Senachies

Can trace thy line from the root, up to Paradise,
But Macvuirib, the son of Fergus?

No sooner had thine ancient stately tree
Taken firm root in Albion,