The arches are, in general, strictly Saxon; and the pillars which support them, short, strong, and massy. In some places, however, there are pointed windows, which indicate that the building has been repaired at a period long subsequent to the original foundation. The exterior ornaments of the building, being of a light sandy stone, have been wasted, as described in the text. Lindisfarne is not properly an island, but rather, as the Venerable Bede has termed it, a semi-isle; for, although surrounded by the sea at full tide, the ebb leaves the sands dry between it and the opposite coast of Northumberland, from which it is about three miles distant. 13. Three barons bold, etc. The popular account of this curious service, which was proba bly considerably exaggerated, is thus given in A True Account, printed and circulated at Whitby: "In the fifth year of the reign of Henry II., after the conquest of England by William, Duke of Normandy, the Lord of Uglebarnby, then called William de Bruce, the Lord of Smeaton, called Ralph de Percy, with a gentleman and freeholder called Allatson, did, on the 16th of October, 1159, appoint to meet and hunt the wild boar, in a certain wood, or desert place, belonging to the Abbot of Whitby: the place's name was Eskdale-side; and the abbot's name was Sedman. Then, these young gentlemen being met, with their hounds and boarstaves, in the place before mentioned, and there having found a great wild boar, the hounds ran him well near about the chapel and hermitage of Eskdale-side, where was a monk of Whitby, who was an hermit. The boar, being very sorely pursued, and dead-run, took in at the chapel door, there laid him down, and presently died. The hermit shut the hounds out of the chapel, and kept himself within at his meditations and prayers, the hounds standing at bay without. The gentlemen, in the thick of the wood, being put behind their game, followed the cry of their hounds, and so came to the hermitage, calling on the hermit, who opened the door, and came forth; and within they found the boar lying dead: for which the gentlemen, in a very great fury, because the hounds were put from their game, did most violently and cruelly run at the hermit with their boar-staves, whereby he soon after died. Thereupon the gentlemen perceiving and knowing that they were in peril of death, took sanctuary at Scarborough; but at that time the abbot being in very great favor with the king, removed them out of the sanctuary; whereby they came in danger of the law, and not to be privileged, but likely to have the severity of the law, which was death for death. But the hermit being a holy and devout man, and at the point of death, sent for the abbot, and desired him to send for the gentlemen who had wounded him. The abbot so doing, the gentlemen came; and the hermit being very sick and weak, said unto them, 'I am sure to die of those wounds you have given me.' The abbot answered, They shall as surely die for the same.' But the hermit an swered, 'Not so, for I will freely forgive them my death, if they will be content to be enjoined the penance I shall lay on them for the safeguard of their souls.' The gentlemen being present, bade him save their lives. Then said the hermit: 'You and yours shall hold your lands of the Abbot of Whitby, and his successors, in this manner: That, upon Ascensionday, you, or some of you, shall come to the wood of the Strayheads, which is in Eskdaleside, the same day at sun-rising, and there shall the abbot's officer blow his horn, to the intent that you may know where to find him; and he shall deliver unto you, William de Bruce, ten stakes, eleven strout stowers, and eleven yethers, to be cut by you, or some for you, with a knife of one penny price; and you, Ralph de Percy, shall take twenty-one of each sort, to be cut in the same manner; and you, Allatson, shall take nine of each sort, to be cut as aforesaid; and to be taken on your backs, and carried to the town of Whitby, and to be there before nine of the clock the same day before mentioned. At the same hour of nine of the clock, if it be full sea, your labor and service shall cease; and, if low water, each of you shall set your stakes to the brim, each stake one yard from the other, and so yether them on each side with your yethers; and so stake on each side with your strout stowers, that they may stand three tides, without removing by the force thereof. Each of you shall do, make, and execute the said service, at that very hour, every year, except it be full sea at that hour; but when it shall so fall out, this service shall cease. You shall faithfully do this, in remembrance that you did most cruelly slay me; and that you may the better call to God for mercy, repent unfeignedly of your sins, and do good works." 13. Edelfled. She was the daughter of King Oswy, who, in gratitude to Heaven for the great victory which he won in 655, against Penda, the pagan King of Mercia, dedicated Edelfleda, then but a year old, to the service of God, in the monastery of Whitby, of which Saint Hilda was then abbess. She afterwards adorned the place of her education with great magnificence. 13. And how of thousand snakes, etc. These two miracles are much insisted upon by all ancient writers, who have occasion to mention either Whitby or Saint Hilda. The reliques of the snakes which infested the precincts of the convent, and were, at the abbess's prayer, not only beheaded, but petrified, are still found about the rocks, and are termed by Protestant fossilists Ammonita. The other miracle is thus mentioned by Camden: "It is also ascribed to the power of her sanctity, that these wild geese, which, in the winter, fly in great flocks to the lakes and rivers unfrozen in the southern parts, to the great amazement of every one, fall down suddenly upon the ground, when they are in their flight over certain neighboring fields hereabouts: a relation I should not have made, if I had not received it from several credible men. But those who are less inclined to heed supersti tion, attribute it to some occult quality in the ground, and to somewhat of antipathy between it and the geese, such as they say is between wolves and scylla-roots. For that such hidden tendencies and aversions, as we call sympathies and antipathies, are implanted in many things by provident nature for the preservation of them, is a thing so evident that everybody grants it." 14. His body's resting-place, etc. Saint Cuthbert was, in the choice of his sepulchre, one of the most mutable and unreasonable saints in the Calendar. He died A. D. 688, in a hermitage upon the Farne Islands, having resigned the bishopric of Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, about two years before. His body was brought to Lindisfarne, where it remained until a descent of the Danes, about 793, when the monastery was nearly destroyed. The monks fled to Scotland, with what they deemed their chief treasure, the relics of Saint Cuthbert. The saint was, however, a most capricious fellow-traveller; which was the more intolerable, as, like Sinbad's Old Man of the Sea, he journeyed upon the shoulders of his companions. They paraded him through Scotland for several years, and came as far west as Whithern, in Galloway, whence they attempted to sail for Ireland, but were driven back by tempests. He at length made a halt at Norham; from thence he went to Melrose, where he remained stationary for a short time, and then caused himself to be launched upon the Tweed in a stone coffin, which landed him at Tilmouth, in Northumberland. This At boat is finely shaped, ten feet long, three feet and a half in diameter, and only four inches thick; so that, with very little assistance, it might certainly have swam. It still lies, or at least did so a few years ago, in two pieces, beside the ruined chapel of Tilmouth. From Tilmouth, Cuthbert wandered into Yorkshire; and at length made a long stay at Chester-le-Street, to which the bishop's see was transferred. length, the Danes continuing to infest the country, the monks removed to Ripon for a season; and it was in returning from thence to Chesterle-Street, that, passing through a forest called Dunholme, the saint and his carriage became immovable at a place named Wardlaw, or Wardilaw. Here the saint chose his place of residence; and all who have seen Durham must admit that, if difficult in his choice, he evinced taste in at length fixing it. 15. Even Scotland's dauntless king, etc. Every one has heard that when David I, with his son Henry, invaded Northumberland in 1136, the English host marched against them under the holy banner of Saint Cuthbert; to the efficacy of which was imputed the great victory which they obtained in the bloody battle of Northallerton, or Cuton-moor. 15. 'Twas he, etc. Cuthbert, we have seen, had no great reason to spare the Danes, when opportunity offered. Accordingly, I find in Simeon of Durham, that the saint appeared in a vision to Alfred, when lurking in the marshes of Glastonbury, and promised him assistance and victory over his heathen enemies: a con solation which, as was reasonable, Alfred, after the victory of Ashendown, rewarded by a royal offering at the shrine of the saint. As to William the Conqueror, the terror spread before his army, when he marched to punish the revolt of the Northumbrians, in 1096, had forced the monks to fly once more to Holy Island with the body of the saint. It was, however, replaced before William left the North; and, to balance accounts, the Conqueror having intimated an indiscreet curiosity to view the saint's body, he was, while in the act of commanding the shrine to be opened, seized with heat and sickness, accompanied with such a panic terror that, notwithstanding there was a sumptuous dinner prepared for him, he fled without eating a morsel (which the monkish historian seems to have thought no small part both of the miracle and the penance), and never drew his bridle till he got to the river Tees. 16. Saint Cuthbert sits, etc. Although we do not learn that Cuthbert was, during his life, such an artificer as Dunstan, his brother in sanctity, yet since his death he has acquired the reputation of forging those Entrochi which are found among the rocks of Holy Island, and pass there by the name of Saint Cuthbert's Beads. While at this task, he is supposed to sit during the night upon a certain rock, and use another as his anvil. 17. Old Colwulf, etc. Ceolwulf, or Colwulf, King of Northumberland, flourished in the eighth century. He was a man of some learning; for the Venerable Bede dedicates to him his Ecclesiastical History. He abdicated the throne about 738, and retired to Holy Island, where he died in the odor of sanctity. Saint as Colwulf was, however, I fear the foundation of the penance-vault does not correspond with his character; for it is recorded among his memorabilia, that, finding the air of the island raw and cold, he indulged the monks, whose rule had hitherto confined them to milk or water, with the comfortable privilege of using wine or ale. If any rigid antiquary insists on this objection, he is welcome to suppose the penance-vault was intended, by the founder, for the more genial purposes of a cellar. 19. Tynemouth's haughty prioress. That there was an ancient priory at Tynemouth is certain. Its ruins are situated on a high rocky point; and, doubtless, many a vow was made at the shrine by the distressed mariners, who drove towards the iron-bound coast of Northumberland in stormy weather. It was anciently a nunnery; for Virca, Abbess of Tynemouth, presented Saint Cuthbert (yet alive) with a rare winding-sheet, in emulation of a holy lady called Tuda, who had sent him a coffin. But, as in the case of Whitby, and of Holy Island, the introduction of nuns at Tynemouth, in the reign of Henry VIII., is an anachronism. The nunnery at Holy Island is altogether fictitious. Indeed, Saint Cuthbert was unlikely to permit such an establishment; for, notwithstanding his accepting the mortuary gifts above mentioned, and his carrying on a visiting acquaintance with the Abbess of Coldingham, he certainly hated the whole female sex; and, in revenge of a slippery trick played to him by an Irish princess, he, after death, inflicted severe penances on such as presumed to approach within a certain distance of his shrine. A 25. Alive within the tomb, etc. It is well known that the religious who broke their vows of chastity were subjected to the same penalty as the Roman vestals in a similar case. small niche, sufficient to enclose their bodies, was made in the massive wall of the convent; a slender pittance of food and water was deposited in it, and the awful words, Vade in pacem, were the signal for immuring the criminal. It is not likely that, in latter times, this punishment was often resorted to; but, among the ruins of the abbey of Coldingham, were some years ago discovered the remains of a female skeleton, which, from the shape of the niche and position of the figure, seemed to be that of an immured nun. CANTO THIRD. 2. The village inn. The accommodations of a Scottish hostelrie, or inn, in the sixteenth century, may be collected from Dunbar's admirable tale of The Friars of Berwick. Simon Lawder, "the gay ostlier," seems to have lived very comfortably; and his wife decorated her person with a scarlet kirtle, and a belt of silk and silver, and rings upon her fingers; and feasted her paramour with rabbits, capons, partridges, and Bourdeaux wine. At least, if the Scottish inns were not good, it was not for want of encouragement from the Legislature; who, so early as the reign of James I., not only enacted that in all boroughs and fairs there be hostellaries, having stables and chambers, and provision for man and horse, but by another statute, ordained that no man, travelling on horse or foot, should presume to lodge anywhere except in these hostellaries; and that no person, save innkeepers, should receive such travellers, under the penalty of forty shillings, for exercising such hospitality. 13. Seemed in my ear, etc. Among other omens to which faithful credit is given among the Scottish peasantry, is what is called the "dead-bell," explained by my friend James Hogg to be that tinkling in the ear which the country people regard as the secret intelligence of some friend's decease. 19. The Goblin-Hall. A vaulted hall under the ancient castle of Gifford, or Yester (for it bears either name indifferently), the construction of which has, from a very remote period, been ascribed to magic. 20. Haco's banner, etc. In 1263, Haco, King of Norway, came into the Firth of Clyde with a powerful armament, and made a descent at Largs, in Ayrshire. Here he was encountered and defeated, on the 2d October, by Alexander III. Haco retreated to Orkney, where he died soon after this disgrace to his arms. There are still existing, near the place of battle, many barrows, some of which, having been opened, were found, as usual, to contain bones and urns. 20. Wizard habit strange. Scott quotes Reg. inald Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, ed. 1665; Magicians, as is well known, were very curi ous in the choice and form of their vestments. Their caps are oval, or like pyramids, with lappets on each side, and fur within. Their gowns are long, and furred with fox-skins, under which they have a linen garment reaching to the knee. Their girdles are three inches broad, and have many cabalistical names, with crosses, trines, and circles inscribed on them. Their shoes should be of new russet leather, with a cross cut upon them. Their knives are daggerfashion; and their swords have neither guard nor scabbard.” 20. A pentacle. Scott again cites Reginald Scot: "A pentacle is a piece of fine linen, folded with five corners, according to the five senses, and suitably inscribed with characters. This the magician extends towards the spirits which he invokes, when they are stubborn and rebellious, and refuse to be conformable unto the ceremonies and rites of magic." 22. Born upon that blessed night, etc. It is a popular article of faith, that those who are born on Christmas or Good-Friday have the power of seeing spirits, and even of commanding them. The Spaniards imputed the haggard and downcast looks of their Philip II. to the disagreeable visions to which this privilege subjected him. 25. The Elfin Warrior, etc. Gervase of Tilbury relates the following popular story concerning a fairy knight: Osbert, a bold and powerful baron, visited a noble family in the vicinity of Wandlebury, in the bishopric of Ely. Among other stories related in the social circle of his friends, who, according to custom, amused each other by repeating ancient tales and traditions, he was informed that if any knight, unattended, entered an adjacent plain by moonlight, and challenged an adversary to appear, he would be immediately encountered by a spirit in the form of a knight. Osbert resolved to make the experiment, and set et attended by a single squire, whom he ordered to remain without the limits of the plain, which was surrounded by an ancient entrenchment On repeating the challenge he was instantly assailed by an adversary, whom he quickly unhorsed, and seized the reins of his steed. Dur ing this operation his ghostly opponent sprung up, and, darting his spear, like a javelin, at U bert, wounded him in the thigh Osbert re turned in triumph with the horse, which b committed to the care of his servants. The horse was of a sable color, as well as his whole accoutrements, and apparently of great beauty and vigor. He remained with his keeper til cockcrowing, when, with eyes flashing fire, be reared, spurned the ground, and vanished On disarming himself, Osbert perceived that he was wounded, and that one of his steel-boots was full of blood." Gervase adds, that, as long as he lived, the scar of his wound opened afresh on the anniversary of the eve on which he encountered the spirit. INTRODUCTION TO CANTO FOURTH. The morn may find the stiffened swain. I cannot help here mentioning, that, on the night in which these lines were written, suggested, as they were, by a sudden fall of snow, beginning after sunset, an unfortunate man perished exactly in the manner here described, and his body was next morning found close to his own house. The accident happened within five miles of the farm of Ashestiel. Lamented Forbes. Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, Baronet; unequalled, perhaps, in the degree of individual affection entertained for him by his friends, as well as in the general respect and esteem of Scotland at large. His Life of Beattie, whom he befriended and patronized in life, as well as celebrated after his decease, was not long published, before the benevolent and affectionate biographer was called to follow the subject of his narrative. This melancholy event very shortly succeeded the marriage of the friend to whom this introduction is addressed, with one of Sir William's daughters. CANTO FOURTH. 1. Lantern-led by Friar Rush. The name of Friar Rush was due to an old story that the elf once got admittance into a monastery as a scullion, and played the monks many tricks. 7. Sir David Lindesay, etc. I am uncertain if I abuse poetical license by introducing Sir David Lindesay in the character of Lion-Herald sixteen years before he obtained that office. At any rate, I am not the first who has been guilty of the anachronism; for the author of Flodden Field despatches Dallamount, which can mean nobody but Sir David de la Mont, to France, on the message of defiance from James IV. to Henry VIII. It was often an office imposed on the Lion King-at-arms, to receive foreign embassadors; and Lindesay himself did this honor to Sir Ralph Sadler in 1539-1540. Indeed, the oath of the Lion, in its first article, bears reference to his frequent employment upon royal messages and embassies. 10. Crichtoun Castle. A large ruinous castle on the banks of the Tyne, about seven miles from Edinburgh. As indicated in the text, it was built at different times and with a very differing regard to splendor and accommodation. The oldest part of the building is a narrow keep, or tower, such as formed the mansion of a lesser Scottish baron; but so many addi tions have been made to it that there is now a large court-yard, surrounded by buildings of different ages. The eastern front of the court "Then on the Scottish part, right proud, His fatal fine in conflict found," etc. 14. For that a messenger from heaven, etc. This story is told by Pitscottie with characteristic simplicity: "The king, seeing that France could get no support of him for that time, made a proclamation, full hastily, through all the realm of Scotland, both east and west, south and north, as well in the Isles as in the firm land, to all manner of man betwixt sixty and sixteen years, that they should be ready, within twenty days, to pass with him, with forty days victual, and to meet at the Burrow-muir of Edinburgh, and there to pass forward where he pleased. His proclamations were hastily obeyed, contrary the Council of Scotland's will; but every man loved his prince so well, that they would on no ways disobey him; but every man caused make his proclamation so hastily, conform to the charge of the king's proclamation. "The king came to Lithgow, where he happened to be for the time at the council, very sad and dolorous, making his devotion to God, to send him good chance and fortune in his voyage. In this mean time, there came a man clad in a blue gown in at the kirk-door, and belted about him in a roll of linen cloth; a pair of brotikings on his feet, to the great of his legs; with all other hose and clothes conform thereto but he had nothing on his head, but sydered yellow hair behind, and on his haffets, which wan down to his shoulders; but his forehead was bald and bare. He seemed to be a man of two-and-fifty years, with a great pikestaff in his hand, and came first forward among the lords, crying and speiring for the king, saying, he desired to speak with him. While, at the last, he came where the king was sitting in the desk at his prayers; but when he saw the king, he made him little reverence or salutation, but leaned down grofling on the desk before him, and said to him in this manner, as after follows: 'Sir king, my mother hath sent me to you, desiring you not to pass, at this time, where thou art purposed; for if thou does, thou wilt not fare well in thy journey, nor none that passeth with thee. Further, she 2 Long. 3 Cheeks. 1 Buskins. 4 4 Asking. bade thee mell1 with no woman, nor use their counsel, nor let them touch thy body, nor thou theirs; for, if thou do it, thou wilt be confounded and brought to shame.' "By this man had spoken thir words unto the king's grace, the evening song was near done, and the king paused on thir words, studying to give him an answer; but, in the mean time, before the king's eyes, and in the presence of all the lords that were about him for the time, this man vanished away, and could no ways be seen nor comprehended, but vanished away as he had been a blink of the sun, or a whip of the whirlwind, and could no more be seen. I heard say, Sir David Lindesay, lyonherauld, and John Inglis the marshal, who were, at that time, young men, and special servants to the king's grace, were standing presently beside the king, who thought to have laid hands on this man, that they might have speired further tidings at him. But all for nought; they could not touch him; for he vanished away betwixt them, and was no more seen." 15. The wild buck bells. I am glad of an opportunity to describe the cry of the deer by another word than braying, although the latter has been sanctified by the use of the Scottish metrical translation of the Psalms. Bell seems to be an abbreviation of bellow. This sylvan sound conveyed great delight to our ancestors, chiefly, I suppose, from association. A gentle knight in the reign of Henry VIII., Sir Thomas Wortley, built Wantley Lodge, in Wancliffe Forest, for the pleasure (as an ancient inscription testifies) of "listening to the hart's bell." 15. June saw his father's overthrow. The rebellion against James III. was signalized by the cruel circumstance of his son's presence in the hostile army. When the king saw his own banner displayed against him, and his son in the faction of his enemies, he lost the little courage he ever possessed, fled out of the field, fell from his horse, as it started at a woman and water-pitcher, and was slain, it is not well understood by whom. James IV., after the battle, passed to Stirling, and hearing the monks of the chapel royal deploring the death of his father, their founder, he was seized with deep remorse, which manifested itself in severe penances. The battle of Sauchie-burn, in which James III. fell, was fought 18th June, 1488. 25. The Borough-moor. The Borough, or common Moor of Edinburgh, was of very great extent, reaching from the southern walls of the city to the bottom of Braid Hills. It was anciently a forest; and, in that state, was so great a nuisance, that the inhabitants of Edinburgh had permission granted to them of building wooden galleries, projecting over the street, in order to encourage them to consume the timber; which they seem to have done very effectually. When James IV. mustered the array of the kingdom there, in 1513, the Borough-moor was, according to Hawthornden, "a field spacious, and delightful by the shade of many stately and aged oaks." Upon that, and similar 1 Meddle. occasions, the royal standard is traditionally said to have been displayed from the Hare Stone, a high stone, now built into the wall, on the left hand of the highway leading towards Braid, not far from the head of Bruntsfield-links. The Hare Stone probably derives its name from the British word Har, signifying an army. 27. Borthwick's Sisters Seven. Seven culverins, so called, cast by one Borthwick. 28. Scroll, pennon, etc. Each of these feudal ensigns intimated the different rank of those entitled to display them. INTRODUCTION TO CANTO FIFTH. Caledonia's Queen, etc. The Old Town of Edinburgh was secured on the north side by a lake, now drained, and on the south by a wall, which there was some attempt to make defensible even so late as 1745The gates, and the greater part of the wall, have been pulled down, in the course of the late extensive and beautiful enlargement of the city. To Henry meek she gave repose. Henry VI, with his queen, his heir, and the chiefs of his family, fled to Scotland after the fatal battle of Towton. Great Bourbon's relics, etc. In January, 1796, the exiled Count d'Artois, afterwards Charles X. of France, took up his residence in Holyrood, where he remained until August, 1799. When again driven from his country by the Revolution of July, 1830, the same unfortunate prince, with all the immediate members of his family, sought refuge once more in the ancient palace of the Stuarts, and remained there until 18th September, 1832. CANTO FIFTH. 1. The cloth-yard arrows, etc. This is no poetical exaggeration. In some of the counties of England, distinguished for archery, shafts of this extraordinary length were actually used. Thus, at the battle of Blackheath, between the troops of Henry VII. and the Cornish insurgents, in 1496, the bridge of Dartford was defended by a picked band of archers from the rebel army, "whose arrows," says Holinshed, were in length a full cloth yard." The Scot tish, according to Ascham, had a proverb, that every English archer carried under his belt twenty-four Scots, in allusion to his bundle of unerring shafts. 66 2. The hardy burghers. The Scottish burgesses were, like yeomen, appointed to be armed with bows and sheaves, sword, buckler, knife, spear, or a good axe instead of a bow, if worth 100; their armor to be of white or bright harness. They wore white hats; that is, bright steel caps, without crest or visor. By an act of James IV., their weapon-schawings are appointed to be held four times a year, under the aldermen or bailiffs. |