GLENFINLAS; OR LORD RONALD'S CORONACH. For them the viewless forms of air obey, They know what spirit brews the stormful day, THE tradition upon which the following stanzas are founded runs thus: While two highland hunters were passing the night in a solitary bathy (a hut built for the purpose of hunting,) and making merry over their venison and whisky, one of them expressed a wish, that they had pretty lasses to complete their party. The words were scarcely uttered, when two beautiful young women, habited in green, entered the hut, dancing and singing. One of the hunters was seduced by the syren, who attached herself particularly to him, to leave the hut: the other remained, and, suspicious of the fair seducers, continued to play upon a trump, or Jew's harp, some strain consecrated to the virgin Mary. Day at length came, and the temptress vanished. Searching in the forest, he found the bones of his unfortunate friend, who had been torn to pieces and devoured by the fiend, into whose toils he had fallen. The place was from thence called, the Glen of the Green Women. Glenfinlas is a tract of forest ground, lying in the highlands of Perthshire, not far from Callender, in Menteith. It was formerly a royal forest, and now belongs to the earl of Moray. This country, as well as the adjacent district of Balquidder, was, in times of yore, chiefly inhabited by the Macgregors. To the west of the forest of Glenfinlas lies Loch Katrine, and its romantic avenue called the Trosachs. Benledi, Benmore, and Benvoirlich, are mountains in the same district, and at no great distance from Glenfinlas. The river Teith passes Callender and the castle of Doune, and joins the Forth near Stirling. The pass of Lenny is immediately above Callender, and is the principal access to the highlands from that town. Glenartney is a forest near Benvoirlich. The whole forms a sublime tract of Alpine scenery. O HONE a rie'! O hone a rie'!† The pride of Albyn's line is o'er, How, on the Teith's resounding shore, As down from Lenny's pass you bore. How blazed lord Ronald's beltane tree;2 Coronach is the lamentation for a deceased warrior, sung by the aged of the clan. to hone a rie' signifles-“ Alas for the prince, or chief." But now the loud lament we swell, The joys of Ronald's hall to find, Was never meant for mortal ear. That shall the future corpse enfold. To rouse the red deer from their den, The chiefs have ta'en their distant way, And scoured the deep Glenfinlas' glen. No vassals wait, their sports to aid, To watch their safety, deck their board: Their simple dress, the highland plaid; Their trusty guard, the highland sword. Three summer days, through brake and dell, Their whistling shafts successful flew; And still, when dewy evening fell, The quarry to their hut they drew. In gray Glenfinlas' deepest nook The solitary cabin stood, Fast by Moneira's sullen brook, Which murmurs through that lonely wood Soft fell the night, the sky was calm, When three successive days had flown; Steeped heathy bank and mossy stone. Their sylvan fare the chiefs enjoy; The daughters of the proud Glengyle. Beneath the sister's watchful eye. And find it hard to guard her own. "Touch but thy harp, thou soon shalt see The lovely Flora of Glengyle, Unmindful of her charge and me, "Or, if she choose a melting tale, All underneath the green-wood bough, Stern huntsman of the rigid brow?" Or yielding kiss, or melting eyes. "The bark thou saw'st, yon summer morn, Thou saw'st, with pride, the gallant's power, As down Benvoirlich's side they wound, He poured his clan's resistless roar. The corpse-lights dance-they're gone, and now-- "Alone enjoy thy dreary dreams, Clangillian's chieftain ne'er shall fear; My Mary's buskins brush the dew." But called his dogs and gay withdrew. Then closely couched beside the seer. He fed the watch-fire's quivering gleams. Tartans, the full highland dress, made of the chequered stuff so termed. + Pibroch, a piece of martial music, adapted to the highLand bagpipe. And sudden cease their moaning howl; As light a footstep pressed the floor. All dropping wet her robes of green. She wrung the moisture from her hair Far on the wind his tartans flow?" "To chase the dun Glenfinlas deer, Our woodland course this morn we bore, And haply met, while wandering here, The son of great Macgillianore. "O aid me, then, to seek the pair, Whom, loitering in the woods, 1 lost; Guide a lone wanderer on her way! And thrice a pater-noster say; So shall we safely wind our way." Which best befits thy sullen vow. "And thou! when by the blazing oak Or sail'd ye on the midnight wind? Thy sire, the monarch of the mine." He mutter'd thrice St. Oran's rhyme, And thrice St. Fillan's powerful prayer;5 Then turned him to the eastern clime, And sternly shook his coal-black hair. His wildest witch-notes on the wind; Was waved by wind, or wet by dew. Loud bursts of ghastly laughter rise; High o'er the minstrel's head they sail, And die amid the northern skies. The voice of thunder shook the wood, As ceased the more than mortal yell; And, spattering foul, a shower of blood Upon the hissing firebrands fell. Next, dropped from high a mangled arm; The fingers strained a half-drawn blade; Wo to Glenfinlas' dreary glen! The pride of Albyn's line is o'er, NOTES. 1. Well can the Saxon widows tell.-P. 400. The term Sassenach, or Saxon, is applied by the highlanders to their low-country neighbours. 2. How blazed lord Ronald's beltane tree.-P. 400. The fires lighted by the highlanders on the first of May, in compliance with a custom derived from the pagan times, are termed, the Beltane Tree. It is a festival celebrated with various su perstitious rites, both in the north of Scotland and in Wales. 3. The seer's prophetic spirit found, &c.-P. 400. I can only describe the second sight, by adopting Dr. Johnson's definition, who calls it "an impression, either by the mind upon the eye, or by the eye upon the mind, by which things distant and future are perceived and seen as if they were present." To which I would only add, that the speetral appearances, thus presented, usually presage misfortune; that the faculty is painful to those who suppose they possess it; and that they usually acquire it, while themselves under the pressure of melancholy. Ac 4. Will good St. Oran's rule prevail.-P. 401. St. Oran was a friend and follower of St. Columba, and was buried in lcolmkill. His pretensions to be a saint were rather dubious. cording to the legend, he consented to be buried alive, in order to propitiate certain demons of the soil, who obstructed the attempts of Columba to build a chapel. Columba caused the body of his friend to be dug up, after three days had elapsed, when Oran, to the horror and scandal of the assistants, declared, that there was neither a God a judgment, nor a future state! He had no time to make further discoveries, for Columba caused the earth once more to be shovelled over him with the utmost despatch. The chapel, however, and the cemetery, was called Reilig Ouran; and, in memory of his rigid celibacy, no female was permitted to pay her devotions, or be buried, in that place. This is the rule alluded to in the poem. 5. And thrice St. Fillan's powerful prayer.-P. 402. St. Fillan has given his name to many chapels, holy fountains, &c. in Scotland. He was, according to Camerarius, an abbot of Pittenweem, ia Fife, from which situation he retired, and died a hermit in the wilds of Glenurchy, A. D. 649. While engaged in transcribing the Scriptures, his left hand was observed to send forth such a splendour, as to afford light to that with which he wrote; a miracle which saved many candles to the convent, as St. Fillan used to spend whole nights in that exercise. The 9th of January was dedicated to this saint, who gave his name to Kilfillan, in Renfrew, and St. Phillans, or Forgend, in Fife. Lesley, lib. 7, tells us, that Robert the Bruce was possessed of Fillan's miraculous and luminous arm, which he inclosed in a silver shrine, and had it carried at the head of his army. Previous to the battle of Bannockburn, the king's chaplain, a man of little faith, abstracted the relic, and deposited it in some place of security, lest it should fall into the hands of the English. But, lo! while Robert was addressing his prayers to the empty casket, it was observed to open and shut suddenly; and, on inspection, the saint was found to have himself deposited his arm in the shrine, as an assurance of victory. Such is the tale of Lesley. But though Bruce little needed that the arm of St. Fillan should assist his own, he dedicated to him, in gratitude, a priory at Killin, upon Loch Tay. In the Scots Magazine for July, 1802 (a national periodical publication, which has lately revived with considerable energy,) there is a copy of a very curious crown-grant, dated 11th July, 1487, by which James III confirms to Malice Doire, an inhabitant of Strathfillan, in Perthshire, the peace. able exercise and enjoyment of a relic of St. Fillan, called the Quegrich, which he, and his pre decessors, are said to have possessed since the days of Robert Bruce. As the quegrich was used to cure diseases, this document is, probably, the most ancient patent ever granted for a quack medicine. The ingenious correspondent, by whom it is furnished, further observes, that additional particulars concerning St. Fillan are to be found in Bullenden's Boece, book 4, folio ccxiii, and in Pennant's Tour in Scotland, 1772, pp. 11, 15. THE EVE OF ST. JOHN. SMAYLHO'ME, or Smallholm Tower, the scene of the following ballad, is situated on the northern boundary of Roxburghshire, among a cluster of wild rocks, called Sandiknow Crags, the property of Hugh Scott, Esq., of Harden. The tower is a high square building, surrounded by an outer wall, now ruinous. The circuit of the outer court, being defended, on three sides, by a precipice and morass, is accessible only from the west, by a steep and rocky path. The apartments, as is usual in a border-keep, or fortress, are placed one above another, and communicate by a narrow stair; on the roof are two bartizans, or platforms, for defence or pleasure. The inner door of the tower is wood, the outer an iron grate; the distance between them being nine feet, the thickness, namely, of the wall. From the elevated situation of Smaylho'me Tower, it is seen many miles in every direction. Among the crags by which it is surrounded, one, more eminent, is called The Watchfold; and is said to have been the station of a beacon, in the times of war with England. Without the tower-court is a ruined chapel. Brotherstone is a heath, in the neighbourhood of Smaylho'me Tower. And he whistled thrice for his little foot-page, "Come, tell me all that thou hast seen, Since I from Smaylho'me tower have been, 66 My lady, each night, sought the lonely light, "I watched her steps, and silent came "The second night I kept her in sight, And, by Mary's might! an armed knight "And many a word that warlike lord This ancient fortress and its vicinity formed the THE baron of Smaylho'me rose with day, Without stop or stay, down the rocky way, He went not with the bold Buccleuch, He went not 'gainst the English yew Yet his plate-jack* was braced, and his helmet And his vaunt-brace of proof he wore; At his saddle-gerthe was a good steel sperthe, The baron returned in three days' space, And weary was his courser's pace, He came not from where Ancram Moor! Where the Douglas true, and the bold Buccleuch, Yet was his helmet hacked and hewed, His acton pierced and tore; His axe and his dagger with blood embrued, He held him close and still; The plate-jack is coat-armour; the vaunt-brace, or wambrace, armour for the body; the sperthe, a battle-axe. And I heard her name the midnight hour, And say, Come this night to thy lady's bower: "He lifts his spear with the bold Buccleuch; The door she'll undo to her knight so true, "I cannot come; I must not come, 1 dare not come to thee; On the eve of St. John I must wander alone; "Now, out on thee, faint-hearted knight! "And I'll chain the blood-hound, and the warder shall not sound, And rushes shall be strewed on the stair, "Though the blood-hound be mute, and the rush And the warder his bugle should not blow, east, And my footstep he would know.' "O fear not the priest, who sleepeth to the east! For to Dryburght the way he has ta'en; The black rood of Melrose was a crucifix of black marble, and of superior sanctity, +Dryburgh abbeyisbeautifully situated on the banks of the Tweed. After its dissolution, it became the property For, by Mary, he shall die!" "The Ancram Moor is red with gore, And Buccleuch has charged us, evermore, The lady blushed red, but nothing she said: Then she stepp'd down the stair to her chamber fair, And so did her moody lord. In sleep the lady mourned, and the baron tossed and turned, And oft to himself he said, "The worms around him creep, and his bloody grave is deep It cannot give up the dead!" It was near the ringing of matin bell, "His arms shone full bright in the beacon's red When a heavy sleep on that baron fell, light, His plume it was scarlet and blue; On his shield was a hound, in a silver leash bound, And his crest was a branch of the yew." "Thou liest, thou liest, thou little foot-page, Loud dost thou lie to me! For that knight is cold, and low laid in the mould, All under the Eildon tree."* "Yet hear but my word, my noble lord! For I heard her name his name; The bold baron's brow then changed, I trow, "The grave is deep and dark, and the corpse is stiff and stark, So I may not trust thy tale. "Where fair Tweed flows round holy Melrose, "The varying light deceived thy sight, And the wild winds drowned the name; For the Dryburgh bells ring, and the white monks do sing, For sir Richard of Coldinghame!" On the eve of good St. John. The lady looked through the chamber fair, And she was aware of a knight stood there, "Alas! away, away!" she cried, "For the holy Virgin's sake!" "Lady, I know who sleeps by thy side; But, lady, he will not awake. "By Eildon tree, for long nights three, In bloody grave have I lain; The mass and the death prayer are said for me, But, lady, they are said in vain. "By the baron's brand, near Tweed's fair strand, Most foully slain I fell; And my restless sprite on the beacon's height, "At our trysting-place, for a certain space, But I had not had power to come to thy bower, Hadst thou not conjured me so." Love mastered fear; her brow she crossed; And art thou saved, or art thou lost?" He passed the court gate, and he op'd the tower "Who spilleth life shall forfeit life; grate, And he mounted the narrow stair, To the bartizan seat, where, with maids that on So bid thy lord believe: This awful sign receive." He laid his left palm on an oaken beam; The lady shrunk, and, fainting, sunk, The sable score of fingers four, There is a nun in Dryburgh bower,2 That nun, who ne'er beholds the day, That monk the bold baron. * Trysting-place, a place of rendezvous. |