that of the Grecian Satyr. The Urisk seems not to have inherited, with the form, the petulance of the sylvan deity of the classics: his occupation, on the contrary, resembled those of Milton's Lubbar Fiend, or of the Scottish Brownie, though he differed from both in name and appearance. The Urisks,' says Dr. Graham, were a set of lubberly supernaturals, who, like the Brownies, could be gained over by kind attention, to perform the drudgery of the farm, and it was believed that many of the families in the Highlands had one of the order attached to it. They were supposed to be dispersed over the Highlands, each in his own wild recess, but the solemn stated meetings of the order were regularly held in this Cave of Benvenue. This current superstition, no doubt, alludes to some circumstance in the ancient history of this country.'-Scenery on the Southern Confines of Perthshire, p. 19, 1806.-It must be owned that the Coir, or Den, does not, in its present state, meet our ideas of a subterraneous grotto, or cave, being only a small and narrow cavity, among huge fragments of rocks rudely piled together. But such a scene is liable to convulsions of nature, which a Lowlander cannot estimate, and which may have choked up what was originally a cavern. At least the name and tradition warrant the author of a fictitious tale to assert its having been such at the remote period in which this scene is laid. NOTE XLII. The wild pass of Beal-nam-bo.-P. 238. Bealach-nam-bo, or the pass of cattle, is a most magnificent glade, overhung with aged birch-trees, a little higher up the mountain than the Coir-nan-Uriskin, treated of in a former note. The whole composes the most sublime piece of scenery that imagination can conceive. NOTE XLIII. A single page, to bear his sword, A Highland chief, being as absolute in his patriarchal authority as any prince, had a corresponding number of officers attached to his person. He had his body-guards, called Luichttach, picked from his clan for strength, activity, and entire devotion to his person. These, according to their deserts, were sure to share abundantly in the rude profusion of his hospitality. It is recorded, for example, by tradition, that Allan MacLean, chief of that clan, happened upon a time to hear one of these favourite retainers observe to his comrade, that their chief grew old. 'Whence do you infer that?' replied the other.-'When was it,' rejoined the first, 'that a soldier of Allan's was obliged, as I am now, not only to eat the flesh from the bone, but even to tear off the inner skin, or filament?' The hint was quite sufficient, and MacLean next morning, to relieve his followers from such dire necessity, undertook an inroad on the mainland, the ravage of which altogether effaced the memory of his former expeditions for the like purpose. Our officer of Engineers, so often quoted, has given us a distinct list of the domestic officers who, independent of Luichttach, or gardes de corps, belonged to the establishment of a Highland Chief. These are, 1. The Henchman. See these notes, p. 287. 2. The Bard. See pp. 280-1. 3. Bladier, or spokesman. 4. Gillie-more, or sword-bearer, alluded to in the text. 5. Gillie-casflue, who carried the chief, if on foot, over the fords. 6. Gillie-comstraine, who leads the chief's horse. 7. Gillie-Trushanarinsh, the baggage man. 8. The piper. 9. The piper' gillie or attendant, who carries the bagpipe 1. Although this appeared, naturally enough, very ridiculous to an English officer, who considered the master of such a retinue as no more than an English gentleman of £500 a-year, yet in the circumstances of the chief, whose strength and importance consisted in the number and attachment of his followers, it was of the last consequence, in point of policy, to have in his gift subordinate offices, which called immediately round his person those who were most devoted to him, and, being of value in their estimation, were also the means of rewarding them. NOTE XLIV. The Taghairm call'd; by which, afar, The Highlanders, like all rude people, had various superstitious modes of inquiring into futurity. One of the most noted was the Taghairm, mentioned in the text. A person was wrapped up in the skin of a newly-slain bullock, and deposited beside a waterfall, or at the bottom of a precipice, or in some other strange, wild, and unusual situation, where the scenery around him suggested nothing but objects of horror. In this situation, he revolved in his mind the question proposed; and whatever was impressed upon him by his exalted imagination, passed for the inspiration of the disembodied spirits, who haunt the desolate recesses. In some of these Hebrides, they attributed the same oracular power to a large black stone by the sea-shore, which they approached with certain solemnities, and considered the first fancy which came into their own minds, after they did so, to be 1 Letters from Scotland, vol. ii. p. 15. the undoubted dictate of the tutelar deity of the stone, and, as such, to be, if possible, punctually complied with. Martin has recorded the following curious modes of Highland augury, in which the Taghairm, and its effects upon the person who was subjected to it, may serve to illustrate the text. It was an ordinary thing among the overcurious to consult an invisible oracle, concerning the fate of families and battles, &c. This was performed three different ways: the first was by a company of men, one of whom, being detached by lot, was afterwards carried to a river, which was the boundary between two villages; four of the company laid hold on him, and, having shut his eyes, they took him by the legs and arms, and then, tossing him to and again, struck his hips with force against the bank. One of them cried out, What is it you have got here? another answers, A log of birch-wood. The other cries again, Let his invisible friends appear from all quarters, and let them relieve him by giving an answer to our present demands: and in a few minutes after, a number of little creatures came from the sea, who answered the question, and disappeared suddenly. The man was then set at liberty, and they all returned home, to take their ineasures according to the prediction of their false prophets; but the poor deluded fools were abused, for their answer was still ambiguous. This was always practised in the night, and may literally be called the works of darkness. 'I had an account from the most intelligent and judicious men in the Isle of Skie, that about sixty-two years ago, the oracle was thus consulted only once, and that was in the parish of Kilmartin, on the east side, by a wicked and mischievous race of people, who are now extinguished, both root and branch. 'The second way of consulting the oracle was by a party of men, who first retired to solitary places, remote from any house, and there they singled out one of their number, and wrapt him in a big cow's hide, which they folded about him; his whole body was covered with it, except his head, and so left in this posture all night, until his invisible friends relieved him, by giving a proper answer to the question in hand; which he received, as he fancied, from several persons that he found about him all that time. His consorts returned to him at the break of day, and then he communicated his news to them; which often proved fatal to those concerned in such unwarrantable enquiries. 'There was a third way of consulting, which was a confirmation of the second above mentioned. The same company who put the man into the hide, took a live cat, and put him on a spit; one of the number was employed to turn the spit, and one of his consorts enquired of him, What are you doing? he answered, I roast this cat, until his friends answer the question; which must be the same that was proposed by the man shut up in the hide. And afterwards, a very big cat comes, attended by a number of lesser cats, desiring to relieve the cat turned upon the spit, and then answers the question. If this answer proved the same that was given to the man in the hide, then it was taken as a confirmation of the other, which, in this case, was believed infallible. 'Mr. Alexander Cooper, present minister of North-Vist, told me, that one John Erach, in the Isle of Lewis, assured him, it was his fate to have been led by his curiosity with some who consulted this oracle, and that he was a night within the hide, as above mentioned; during which time he felt and heard such terrible things, that he could not express them; the impression it made on him was such as could never go off, and he said, for a thousand worlds he would never again be concerned in the like performance, for this had disordered him to a high degree. He confessed it ingenuously, and with an air of great remorse, and seemed to be very penitent under a just sense of so great a crime he declared this about five years since, and is still living in the Lewis for any thing I know.'-Description of the Western Isles, p. 110. See also PENNANT'S Scottish Tour, vol. ii. p. 361. NOTE XLV. The choicest of the prey we had, I know not if it be worth observing, that this passage is taken almost literally from the mouth of an old Highland Kern or Ketteran, as they were called. He used to narrate the merry doings of the good old time when he was follower of Rob Roy MacGregor. This leader, on one occasion, thought proper to make a descent upon the lower part of the Loch Lomond district, and summoned all the heritors and farmers to meet at the Kirk of Drymen, to pay him black-mail, i. e. tribute for forbearance and protection. As this invitation was supported by a band of thirty or forty stout fellows, only one gentleman-an ancestor, if I mistake not, of the present Mr. Grahame of Gartmore-ventured to decline compliance. Rob Roy instantly swept his land of all he could drive away, and among the spoil was a bull of the old Scottish wild breed, whose ferocity occasioned great plague to the Ketterans. 'But ere we had reached the Row of Dennan,' said the old man, 'a child ་ Broke-quartered. Everything belonging to the chase was matter of solemnity among our ancestors; but nothing was more so than the mode of cutting up, or, as it was technically called, breaking, the slaughtered stag. The forester had his allotted portion; the hounds had a certain allowance; and, to make the division as general as possible, the very birds had their share also. 'There is a little gristle,' says Turberville, which is upon the spoone of the brisket, which we call the raven's bone;. and I have seen in some places a raven so wont and accustomed to it, that she would never fail to croak and cry for it all the time you were in breaking up of the deer, and would not depart till she had it.' In the very ancient metrical romance of Sir Tristrem, that peerless knight, who is said to have been the very deviser of all rules of chase, did not omit the ceremony : The rauen he yaue his yiftes Sat on the fourched tre.' Sir Tristrem. The raven might also challenge his rights by the Book of St. Albans; for thus says Dame Juliana Berners : 'Slitteth anon 1 This anecdote was, in former editions, inaccurately ascribed to Gregor Macgregor of Glengyle, called Ghlune Dhu, or Black-knee, a relation of Rob Roy, but, as I have been assured, not addicted to his predatory excesses.-Note to Third Edition. Which spills the foremost foeman's life, That party conquers in the strife.'-P. 241. Though this be in the text described as a response of the Taghairm, or Oracle of the Hide, it was of itself an augury frequently attended to. The fate of the battle was often anticipated in the imagination of the combatants, by observing which party first shed blood. It is said that the Highlanders under Montrose were so deeply imbued with this notion, that, on the morning of the battle of Tippermoor, they murdered a defenceless herdsman, whom they found in the fields, merely to secure an advantage of so much consequence to their party. NOTE XLIX. Alice Brand.-P. 243. This little fairy tale is founded upon a very curious Danish ballad, which occurs in the Kæmpe Viser, a collection of heroic songs, first published in 1591, and reprinted in 1695, inscribed by Anders Sofrensen, the collector and editor, to Sophia Queen of Denmark. I have been favoured with a literal translation of the original, by my learned friend Mr. Robert Jamieson, whose deep knowledge of Scandinavian antiquities will, I hope, one day be displayed in illustration of the history of Scottish Ballad and Song, for which no man possesses more ample materials. The story will remind the readers of the Border Minstrelsy of the tale of Young Tamlane. But this is only a solitary and not very marked instance of coincidence, whereas several of the other ballads in the same collection find exact counterparts in the Kæmpe Viser. Which may have been the originals, will be a question for future antiquaries. Mr. Jamieson, to secure the power of literal translation, has adopted the old Scottish idiom, which approaches so near to that of the Danish, as almost to give word for word, as well as line for line, and indeed in many verses the orthography alone is altered. As Wester Haf, mentioned in the first stanzas of the ballad, means the West Sea, in opposition to the Baltic, or East Sea, Mr. Jamieson inclines to be of opinion, that the scene of the disenchantment is laid in one of the Orkney, or Hebride Islands. To each verse in the original is added a burden, having a kind of meaning of its own, but not applicable, at least not uniformly applicable, to the sense of the stanza to which it is subjoined this is very common both in Danish and Scottish song. THE ELFIN GRAY. TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH KÆMPE VISER, p. 143, AND FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1591. Der ligger en vold i Vester Haf, Og agter der om vinteren at ligge. (DE VILDE DIUR OG DIURENE UDI SKOFVEN.) 1. There liggs a wold in Wester Haf, There a husbande means to bigg, (The wild deer and daes i the shaw out.) 2. He taks wi' him baith hound and cock, The wild deer in the shaws that are (The wild deer, &c.) 3. He's hew'd the beech, and he's fell'd the aik, Sae has he the poplar gray; And grim in mood was the grewsome elf, 4. He hew'd him kipples, he hew'd him bawks, Wi' mickle moil and haste, Syne speer'd the Elfi' the knock that bade, 5. Syne up and spak the weiest Elf, 'It's here is come a Christian man ;- 6. It's up syne started the firsten Elf, 'It's we'll awa' to the husbande's house, 7. 'Here hews he down baith skugg and shaw His huswife he sall gie to me ;- 8. The Elfen a' i' the knock that were, They nighed near the husband's house, 9. The hound he yowls i' the yard, The herd toots in his horn; 10. The Elfen were five score and seven, And they the husbande's guests maun be, 11. The husbande, out o' Villenshaw, At his winnock the Elves can see : 12. In every nook a cross he coost, 13. And some flew east, and some flew west, And some to the norwart flew; And some they flew to the deep dale down, 14. It was then the weiest Elf, In at the door braids he; 15. The huswife she was a canny wife, 16. Hear thou, Gudeman o' Villenshaw, Wha bade thee bigg within our bounds, 17. But, an' thou in our bounds will bigg, 18. Up spak the luckless husbande then, 19. Till the Elf he answer'd as he couth: And tak whate'er, o' gude or gear, 20. Then I'll thy Eline tak and thee, And hide thy goud and white monie 21. The husbande and his househald a' Far better that she be now forfairn, 22. Up, will of rede, the husbande stoed, And he has gien his huswife Eline 23. Then blyth grew he, and sprang about: The rud it left her comely cheek; 24. A waefu' woman then she was ane, 25. My fay I plight to the fairest wight 26. He minted ance-he minted twice, 27. When he the thirden time can mint 28. This fell under a linden green, That again his shape he found; 29. O dearest Eline, hear thou this, And a' the goud in merry England 33. 'Sin' I to thee nae maik can be My dochter may be thine; Lat this be our propine.' 34. I thank thee, Eline, thou wise woman; 35. The husbande biggit now on his öe, 36. Now Eline. the husbande's huswife, has GLOSSARY. Hus Stanza 1. Iold, a wood; woody fastness. bande, from the Dan. hos, with, and bonde, a villain, or bondsman, who was a cultivator of the ground, and could not quit the estate to which he was attached without the permission of his lord. This is the sense of the word in the old Scottish records. In the Scottish Burghe Laws,' translated from the Reg. Majest. (Auchinleck MS. in the Adv. Lib.) it is used indiscriminately with the Dan. and Swed. bonde. Bigg, build. Ligg, lie. Daes, does. 2. Shaw, wood." Sairly, sorely. 3. Aik, oak. Grewsome, terrible. Bald, bold. 4. Kipples (couples), beams joined at the top, for supporting a roof, in building. Bawks, balks; crossbeams. Moil, laborious industry. Speer'd, asked. Knock, hillock. 5. Weiest, smallest. Crean'd, shrunk, diminished; from the Gaelic, crian, very small. Immert, emmet; ant. Christian, used in the Danish ballads, &c. in contradistinction to demoniac, as it is in England in contradistinction to brute; in which sense, a person of the lower class in England would call a few or a Turk a Christian. Fley, frighten. 6. Glowr'd, stared. Hald, hold. 7. Skugg, shade. Skaith, harm. 8. Nighed, approached. 9. Yowls, howls. Toots.-In the Dan. tude is applied both to the howling of a dog, and the sound of a horn. Scraighs, screams. 10. Laidly, loathly; disgustingly ugly. fierce. II. Winnock, window. 12. Coost, cast. most. Ava, of all. Mint, aim at. Grim, Chalmer, chamber. Maist, 13. Norwart, northward, Trow, believe. 14. Braids, strides quickly forward. 15. Canny, adroit. Mony, many. well-chosen. 17. An, if. Wad, would. Weel-waled, Bide, abide. Lemman, mistress. 18. Nae-gate, nowise. 19. Couth, could, knew how to. Lat be, let alone. Gude, goods; property. 20. Aneath, beneath. Dwalling-stead, dwellingplace. 21. Sary, sorrowful. Rede, counsel; consultation. Forfairn, forlorn; lost; gone. Tyne (verb neut.), be lost; perish. 22. Will of rede, bewildered in thought; in the Danish original' vildraadage'; Lat. inops consilii'; Gr. amoрwv. This expression is left among the desiderata in the Glossary to Ritson's Romances, and has never been explained. It is obsolete in the Danish as well as in English. Fare, go. 23. Rud, red of the cheek. Clem'd, in the Danish klemt (which in the north of England is still in use, as the word starved is with us); brought to a dying Harm, state. It is used by our ld comedians. grief; as in the original, and in the old Teutonic, English, and Scottish poetry. 24. Waefu', woeful, Moody, strongly and wilfully passionate. Rew, take ruth; pity. Unseely, unhappy; unblest. Weird, fate. Fa (Isl., Dan., and Swed.), take; get; acquire; procure; have for my lot. This Gothic verb answers, in its direct and secondary significations, exactly to the Latin capio; and Allan Ramsay was right in his definition of it. is quite a different word from fa', an abbreviation of 'fall, or befall; and is the principal root in FANGEN, to fang, take, or lay hold of. It Mat, mote: 25. Fay, faith. Mold, mould; earth. might. Maun, must. Mell, mix. El, an Elf. This term, in the Welsh, signifies what has in itself the power of motion; a moving principle; an intelligence; a spirit; an angel. In the Hebrew it bears the same import. 26. Mined, attempted; meant; showed a mind, or intention to. The original is 'Hand mindte hende forst-og anden gang ;- End blef hand den lediste deif-vel Mand kunde med öyen see. Der hand vilde minde den tredie gang,' &c. Syth, tide, time. Kyth, appear. 28. Stound, hour; time; moment. 29. Merry (old Teut. mere), famous; renowned; answering, in its etymological meaning, exactly to the Latin mactus. Hence merry-men, as the address of a chief to his followers; meaning, not me of mirth, but of renown. The term is found in its original sense in the Gael, mara, and the Welsh mawr, great; and in the oldest Teut. Romances, mar, mer, and mere, have sometimes the same signification. 31. Mends, amends; recompense. 33. Maik, match; peer; equal. gift. Propine, pledge; 35. öe, an island of the second magnitude; an island of the first magnitude being called a land, and one of the third magnitude a holm. 36. Cour'd, recover'd, THE GHAIST'S WARNING. TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH KÆMPE VISER, p. 721. By the permission of Mr. Jamieson, this ballad is added from the same curious Collection. It contains some passages of great pathos. Svend Dyring hand rider sig op under öè, (Varè jeg selver ung) Der faste hand sig saa ven en möè. 1. Child Dyring has ridden him up under öe1, (And O gin I were young!) There wedded he him sae fair 2 a may. (I' the greenwood it lists me to ride.) 1' Under öe.-The original expression has been preserved here and elsewhere, because no other could be found to supply its place. There is just as much meaning in it in the translation as in the original; but it is a standard Danish ballad phrase; and as such, it is hoped, will be allowed to pass. 2 Fair.-The Dan. and Swed. ven, van, or venne, and the Gaël. bân, in the oblique cases dhân (vân), is the origin of the Scottish bonny, which has so much puzzled all the etymologists. |