English Romantic Poets 
 
 J— — i*""*^— — I —M— — »»iii I 11 1 II 1 1 Ill II 1— — — — »ni m iii» III! Ill u 
 
 Sir Walter Scott 

 
 L!BRAr<Y 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 SAN oiEeo
 

 
 Ritglish Romantic Poets 
 
 Selections 
 from the Poems of 
 
 Sir Walter Scott
 
 CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 C. F. CLAY, Manager 
 LONDON : FETTER LANE, E.C.4 
 
 NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN CO. 
 
 BOMBAY ") 
 
 CALCUTTA)- MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD. 
 
 MADRAS j 
 
 TORONTO : THE MACMILLAN CO. OF 
 
 CANADA, LTD. 
 TOKYO : MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
 
 Selections from the Poems of 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT 
 
 Edited by A. Hamilton Thompson, m.a., f.s.a. 
 
 Cambridge 
 
 at the University Press 
 
 1922
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THE publication of this volume, which concludes the 
 series of Selections from English Romantic Poets, has 
 been somewhat delayed for various causes, although the 
 greater part of it was completed as long ago as 1918. The 
 principle of selection has been that which has guided 
 previous volumes, to exhibit the characteristic genius of 
 the author through passages which, so far as possible, are 
 complete in themselves, and may be read independently 
 of the context for the sake of their own merits. In the 
 case of Scott, owing to the narrative form of his verse and 
 the close sequence of incidents as parts of a plot woven by 
 a prince of story-tellers, such an attempt can hardly be 
 entirely successful ; and somewhat detailed summaries of 
 the contents of the longer poems are given in the notes, so 
 that the circumstances of narrative passages may be 
 clearly understood. While it may be conceded that, in 
 depth of thought and perfection of craftsmanship, Scott 
 is surpassed by his great contemporaries, no EngUsh poet, 
 perhaps, has revealed to so many readers the true charm 
 of poetry or the magic of local association; and, if the 
 pieces here printed serve to indicate the causes which 
 made that achievement possible, the purpose of the 
 editor is accomplished. 
 
 A. H. T. 
 
 Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 
 August 1 92 1.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Principal Dates in the Life of Scott 
 Introduction ..... 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ix 
 
 XV 
 
 Selections : 
 
 
 The Gray Brother . . . . . 
 
 I 
 
 V From The Lay of the Last Minstrel : 
 
 
 I. Branksome Hall 
 
 6 
 
 IL Melrose by Moonlight 
 
 9 
 
 III. TheBale-Fire . 
 
 II 
 
 IV. Caledonia .... 
 
 12 
 
 V. The Song of Albert Graeme 
 
 14 
 
 VI. Harold's Song . 
 
 15 
 
 VI I. Hymn for the Dead . 
 
 17 
 
 From Marmion : 
 
 
 I. Norham Castle . 
 
 18 
 
 II. 'The lordly strand of Northum 
 
 berland ' . 19 
 
 III. The Saint of Holy Island . 
 
 21 
 
 IV. Fitz-Eustace's Song . 
 
 23 
 
 V. Edinburgh from Blackford Hill 
 
 24 
 
 VI. Lochinvar 
 
 25 
 
 VII. Douglas and Marmion 
 
 27 
 
 VIII. The Enghsh Advance at Flodde 
 
 n . . 31 
 
 IX. The Death of Marmion 
 
 33 
 
 From The Lady of the Lake : 
 
 
 I. Invocation 
 
 37 
 
 II. The Trossachs . 
 
 . . . 38 
 
 III. EUen's Song 
 
 42 
 
 IV. Boat Song 
 
 43 
 
 V. The Fiery Cross 
 
 45
 
 viii CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 
 From The Lady of the Lake (cont.) : page 
 
 VL The Ambuscade ..... 48 
 
 VI L The Ride to StirUng . 
 
 
 50 
 
 VIII. AUan-Bane's Lament 
 
 
 51 
 
 IX. Lay of the Imprisoned Huntsman 
 
 
 52 
 
 X. Farewell ..... 
 
 
 53 
 
 From Rokeby: 
 
 I. Dawn and Sunrise 55 
 
 II. Edmund's Songs ..... 57 
 
 III. ThorsgiU 62 
 
 IV. Evening 64 
 
 From The Bridal of Triermain : 
 
 I. The Magic Castle 66 
 
 II. The Enchanted Goblet 
 
 68 
 
 III. The Defenceless Border 
 
 70 
 
 From The Lord of the Isles : 
 
 
 I. Autumn on Tweedside 
 
 71 
 
 II. The Brooch of Lorn . 
 
 
 
 73 
 
 III. Loch Coruisk 
 
 
 
 75 
 
 IV. The Voyage to Arran 
 
 
 
 80 
 
 V. The Death of Argentine 
 
 
 
 82 
 
 HeUvelljm ..... 
 
 
 
 84 
 
 The Palmer 
 
 
 
 86 
 
 Hunting Song .... 
 
 
 
 88 
 
 The Spindle Song .... 
 
 
 
 89 
 
 On the Massacre of Glencoe, 1692 
 
 
 
 90 
 
 Jock of Hazeldean 
 
 
 
 92 
 
 Pibroch of Donuil Dhu 
 
 
 
 93 
 
 Rebecca's Hymn .... 
 
 
 
 95 
 
 County Guy .... 
 
 
 
 96 
 
 Notes ...... 
 
 
 
 97 
 
 Index to Notes .... 
 
 
 
 183
 
 PRINCIPAL DATES IN THE LIFE 
 OF SCOTT 
 
 1 77 1, 15 Aug. Born in College Wynd, Edinburgh. 
 
 1778, Oct.-i783. At the Edinburgh High School. 
 
 1783, 1784. Visits to Kelso, and beginning of ac- 
 
 quaintance with James Ballantyne. 
 
 1783, Nov. -1785. At Edinburgh University. 
 
 1786, 15 May. Bound apprentice to his father, a writer 
 to the signet. 
 
 1 786-1 792. Studies for the bar. Friendship with 
 
 Wilham Clerk of Eldin. 
 
 1792, July. Called to the bar. Begins to practise in 
 
 Nov. 
 
 1 796. Publication of Scott's imitation of Biirger 's 
 
 Lenore {William and Helen). 
 
 1796, 24 Dec. Marries Charlotte Margaret Carpenter at 
 
 St Mary's, Carlisle. 
 
 1798. Beginning of residence at Lasswade, Mid- 
 lothian. 
 
 1799, Feb. Publication of Scott's translation of 
 
 Goethe's Gotz von Berlichingen. 
 
 1799, April. Death of Scott's father. 
 
 1799, autumn. Metrical Ballads printed by Ballantyne. 
 
 1799, 16 Dec. Appointed sheriff- depute of Selkirkshire. 
 
 1802, Jan. Publication of vols, i and 11 of Minstrelsy 
 
 of the Scottish Border, the result of Scott's 
 holiday wanderings in Liddesdale and the 
 country round Kelso. Vol. iii published 
 in the spring of 1803. 
 
 T. s. 6
 
 X PRINCIPAL DATES IN THE LIFE OF SCOTT 
 
 1803, 17 Sept. 
 
 1804, 
 
 May. 
 
 1804, 
 
 July- 
 
 1805. 
 
 Jan. 
 
 1805. 
 
 
 • 1805, 
 
 summer 
 
 • 1806. 
 
 spring. 
 
 • 1808, 
 
 Feb. 
 
 1808, 
 
 April. 
 
 1809. 
 
 
 - 1809, March. 
 
 • 1810, May. 
 
 1810, July. 
 
 1811, July. 
 1811, summer. 
 
 ' 1812, May. 
 
 1813, Jan. 
 
 1813, Sept. 
 
 Visit of Wordsworth and his sister to Scott 
 at Lasswade. Scott joins the Wordsworths 
 at Melrose, 19 Sept., parting from them 
 near Hawick, 22 Sept. 
 
 Publication of Sir Tristrem. 
 
 Removes from Lasswade to Ashestiel, 
 near Selkirk. 
 
 Publication of The Lay of the Last Minstrel. 
 
 Scott enters into partnership with James 
 Ballantyne, taking a third share in the 
 printing business. ^ 
 
 Visit to Wordsworth at Grasmere. 
 
 Appointed one of the principal clerks of 
 the court of session. 
 
 Publication of Marniion. 
 
 Publication of Scott's edition of Dryden. 
 
 Formation of the publishing firm of John 
 Ballantyne and Co., with Scott as a 
 partner. Scott quits his connexion with 
 his publisher. Constable, and with The 
 Edinburgh Review. 
 
 First appearance of The Quarterly Review, 
 with three articles by Scott. 
 
 Publication of The Lady of the Lake. 
 Visit to the Hebrides. 
 Publication of The Vision of Don Roderick. 
 Purchase of the site of Abbotsford. 
 
 Removal from Ashestiel to Abbotsford 
 
 (the house not completed till 1824). 
 
 Publication of Rokeby, followed within 
 
 two months by the anonymous Bridal of 
 
 Triermain. 
 
 Declines the offer of the poet laureateship.
 
 PRINCIPAL DATES IN THE LIFE OF SCOTT xi 
 
 1813. Beginning of the renewal of Scott's as- 
 sociation with Constable, owing to the 
 commercial difficulties of Ballantyne and 
 Co. 
 
 1 814, I July. Publication of Scott's edition of Swift. 
 
 18 14, 7 July. Anonymous publication of Waver ley, the 
 
 completion of a romance begun in 1805. 
 
 1 814, July, Aug. Voyage to the Shetland isles and western 
 
 Highlands. 
 
 1815, Jan. Publication of The Lord of the Isles. 
 
 1815, Feb. Publication of Guy Mannering (Scott's 
 
 anonymity preserved). 
 
 1815, Aug. Visit to Waterloo and Paris. The Field of 
 
 Waterloo published in Oct. 
 
 1816. Publication of Paul's Letters to his Kins- 
 folk (Jan.), The Antiquary (May), and the 
 first series of Tales of my Landlord {The 
 Black Dwarf axid. Old Mortality, Dec). 
 
 1817. Publication of Harold the Dauntless (Jan.) 
 and Rob Roy (Dec). 
 
 1818, June. Publication of The Heart of Midlothian 
 
 (second series of Tales of my Landlord). 
 
 1 818. Dec. Scott accepts a baronetcy. 
 
 1819. Publication of The Bride of Lammermoor 
 and The Legend of Montrose (third series 
 of Tales of my Landlord, June), and of 
 Ivanhoe (Dec). 
 
 1820. Publication of The Monastery (March) and 
 The Abbot (Sept.). 
 
 1820, 29 April. Marriage of Sophia, Scott's eldest 
 
 daughter, to John Gibson Lockhart. 
 
 182 1, Publication of Kenilworth (Jan.) and The 
 Pirate (Sept.). 
 
 1822, May. Publication of Peveril of the Peak. 
 
 62
 
 xil PRINCIPAL DATES IN THE LIFE OF SCOTT 
 
 1823, Publication of Quentin Durward (June) 
 and St Ronan's Well (Dec). 
 
 1824, June. Publication of Redgauntlet. 
 
 1825, June. Publication of The Betrothed and The 
 
 Talisman ( Tales of the Crusaders) . 
 
 1826, Feb. Failure of the publishing firms of Hurst 
 
 and Robinson, Constable, and Ballantyne. 
 Scott determines to pay his creditors in 
 full. Gives up his house in Edinburgh 
 (39 Castle Street) in March. 
 
 1826, 15 May. Death of lady Scott. 
 
 1826. June. Publication of Woodstock. 
 
 1827. Publication of Life of Napoleon Buona- 
 parte (June), the first series of Chronicles 
 of the Canongate {The Two Drovers, The 
 Highland Widow and The Surgeon's 
 Daughter, Oct.), and of the first series of 
 Tales of a Grandfather (Dec). 
 
 1828. Publication of The Fair Maid of Perth 
 (April) and the second series of Tales of 
 a Grandfather (Dec). 
 
 1829. Beginning of the collected and annotated 
 edition of The Waver ley Novels. Publica- 
 tion of Anne of Geier stein (May), the third 
 series of Tales of a Grandfather (Dec.) and 
 of vol. I of History of Scotland (Dec). 
 
 1830. 15 Feb. Scott seized with paralysis, but continues 
 
 work. 
 
 1830. Publication of History of Scotland, vol. 11 
 
 (May), Letters on Demonology and Witch- 
 craft and of the collected edition of 
 Poetical Works. 
 
 1830, July. Scott retires from clerkship of session. 
 
 1 83 1, April. Second paralytic stroke.
 
 PRINCIPAL DATES IN THE LIFE OF SCOTT Xlll 
 
 1 83 1, Sept. Visit of Wordsworth to Scott, the occasion 
 
 of Wordsworth's Yarrow Revisited and 
 sonnet 'A trouble, not of clouds, or 
 weeping rain.' 
 
 1831, Nov. Publication of Count Robert of Paris and 
 
 Castle Dangerous (Tales of my Landlord, 
 fourth series). 
 
 1831, Sept.-i832, June. Continental tour: at Malta in Nov. 
 
 and Dec. 1831, and at Naples, Dec. 1831- 
 April, 1832. 
 
 1832, 9 July. Scott returns to Abbotsford. 
 1832, 21 Sept. Death of Scott. 
 
 1832, 26 Sept. Burial of Scott at Dry burgh abbey.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 SCOTT'S poetry sounded the note which re-awakened 
 popular interest in the Hfe of the middle ages. A 
 feeHng for chivalrous romance had never wholly died out 
 among scholars and men of culture. Even during the 
 period in which the rules of Nature were most closely iden- 
 tified with the laws of poetic common sense, there were 
 many who were ready, like Sir Philip Sidney in an earlier 
 age, to ' confess their own barbarousness ' and admit that 
 ' I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas, that 
 I found not mine heart moved more than with a trumpet.' 
 Throughout the eighteenth century, the poetry of Spenser, 
 who wedded the traditions of medieval chivalry to the 
 classical and philosophical enthusiasm of the Reformation 
 period, retained its influence and bore fruit in frequent 
 imitations which, if they caught its outer form rather 
 than its spirit, bear witness to the fascination of its de- 
 scriptive and allegorical qualities and archaic style. In 
 the 'sixties of the eighteenth century Chatterton's for- 
 geries and the so-called Ossianic poems of Macpherson 
 were received with an uncritical applause, symptomatic 
 of the readiness of the pubHc to be interested in a by- 
 gone era whose manners were ill understood, even by 
 professed antiquaries; while Percy's Reliques furnished an 
 invaluable guide to the treasures of ballad-poetry. A few
 
 XVI INTRODUCTION 
 
 years later, Warton's History of English Poetry and 
 Tyrwhitt's edition of The Canterbury Tales marked the 
 spread of scholarly study of our older literature. Dilettanti 
 like Horace Waipole evolved a 'Gothic taste' out of a 
 natural liking for history and romance freely coloured by 
 their own imaginings. Walpole's Castle of Otranto gave 
 birth to a type of novel of which the stock-in-trade was 
 an ancient castle peopled by spectral wonders and under- 
 mined by chains of vaults and subterranean passages. 
 Weak as these romances were, their popularity is an 
 indication of the revolt against the decaying classical 
 tradition, and they lead naturally to the new and more 
 enlightened medievalism of Scott which took the world 
 by storm. 
 
 Scott himself was the natural product of a country, 
 'meet nurse for a poetic child,' upon which medieval 
 traditions had a more abiding hold than upon England. 
 In the district which he knew best and made his home, 
 feudal customs had never been wholly superseded. The 
 union of the Scottish and English crowns had done little 
 to affect the individuality of Scottish life, and the High- 
 land chieftains and clansmen who rallied to the Stewarts 
 in 1715 and 1745 differed Httle, if at all, from their an- 
 cestors who had fought against England under Wallace 
 and Bruce. To Englishmen as a whole Scotland was an 
 unknown and untra veiled country: visits such as John- 
 son's famous tour to the Hebrides were greatly-daring 
 adventures which few were hardy enough to undertake, 
 in regions as vague and misty as the heroes who peopled
 
 INTRODUCTION XVll 
 
 them in Ossianic romance. Scotland had produced famous 
 men of letters; but hitherto Burns was her only poet of 
 more than secondary rank whose best work had taken 
 a characteristically Scottish form. He, however, had 
 worked in a field of his own which bore no likeness to the 
 material cultivated by Scott, applying personal experience 
 and sentiment to general facts of every-day life with an 
 inimitable mingling of shrewd wit and deep pathos ; and, 
 while his genius was recognised in England, want of 
 famiharity with the life that he knew best and the dialect 
 in which alone his verse moved with spontaneity pre- 
 vented, and still prevents, a really warm appreciation of 
 his work by the ordinary Englishman. 
 
 On the other hand, Scott, with The Lay of the Last 
 Minstrel, touched a note which the public, whether 
 English or Scottish, could appreciate at once. The poem 
 took the acceptable form of a narrative in which the 
 elements dear to the reader of contemporary romance 
 were united with a freshness and vividness entirely novel. 
 Its ringing rhymes and irregular metrical form were a 
 novelty. It dealt with men and women, with war and 
 love, straightforwardly and intelligibly. Its archaic words 
 and phrases were not beyond ordinary comprehension. 
 The action of the story never flagged: its passages of 
 description and sentiment were all part of a general live- 
 liness. The wizard lady and the goblin page, the moon- 
 light visit of Deloraine to Melrose, supplied the popular 
 ingredient of ' Gothic ' mystery and wonder, skilfully com- 
 bined with the semi-historical setting of the tale and
 
 xviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 controlling its incidents. Underl5ang and imparting life 
 to all was Scott's personal passion for the land of his early 
 wanderings, where 'every field has its battle, and every 
 rivulet its song,' an enthusiasm which breathes its fire 
 in every line and communicated itself to an audience 
 hitherto largely ignorant of the charms of moor and 
 mountain. It is not too much to say that the publication 
 of The Lay of the Last Minstrel marks an epoch in the 
 Romantic movement second to none in importance. 
 Lyrical Ballads in 1798, with which the movement reached 
 its historical chmax, as seen from the standpoint of to- 
 day, had fallen upon deaf ears. Wordsworth and Coleridge 
 were conscious revolutionists in advance of their day: 
 the direct relation on which they insisted between thought 
 and diction, their rejection of conventions of poetic 
 phrase, were new doctrines which it required some in- 
 telligence and patience to understand, and a generation 
 which was accustomed to find an outlet for somewhat 
 prosaic thought in a highly artificial and abstract type 
 of language was unready to recognise the merits of poetic 
 imagination presented in a form which deliberately 
 scouted abstractions and generalisations. Scott appeared 
 as the apostle of no poetic theory. He was already known 
 as the author of casual romantic ballads and as the 
 collector and editor of a body of minstrelsy which, un- 
 couth as much of it was, had a singular charm and spirit 
 of its own. His poem was simply an attempt to give the 
 atmosphere of his favourite ballads to a chivalrous story 
 whose scene he knew and loved, to revive their spirit in
 
 INTRODUCTION XIX 
 
 modern verse. His imagination was not like that of 
 Coleridge, wandering at will in phantom barks over un- 
 travelled oceans : it worked most readily upon the familiar 
 haunts of his youth, peopling them with the figures stored 
 in his memory from history and legend. While he chose 
 this concrete foundation for his work, the subject of his 
 story was elevated and romantic. If he had taken Words- 
 worth's course and peopled Liddesdale and Teviotdale 
 with leech-gatherers and simple cottagers, the success of 
 his poem would have been small. His pageant of knights 
 and ladies, monks and freebooters, his picture of a society 
 in which civilisation and barbarism matched the contrast 
 between fertile valleys and barren fells, heightened the 
 attraction of his verse and obtained the applause for the 
 directness and simplicity of its diction which Wordsworth 
 and Coleridge had failed to command for theirs. Thus it 
 was that the popular revolution in poetic taste at which 
 they had aimed was actually achieved by the success of 
 Scott's first long narrative poem. 
 
 For most lovers of poetry Scott continues to perform 
 the work which he accomplished for his own generation. 
 These stirring verse-narratives captivate the ear at once 
 and prepare it for more subtle harmonies: they kindle 
 the imagination before it is capable of responding readily 
 to the call of verse founded upon more abstract themes. 
 In loftiness of thought, in splendour of style, in variety 
 of music, Scott cannot compare with the greatest poets 
 among his contemporaries. His cast of mind was positive, 
 not speculative: it gave poetic form, not to the eternal
 
 XX INTRODUCTION 
 
 problems and aspirations of mankind, but to the anti- 
 quarian and historical traditions of a past age. He wrote 
 in haste, with his thought concentrated upon the objects 
 which he described, choosing the words which came to 
 hand most readily without much care for felicity or per- 
 fection of phrase. The effect of his work depends upon the 
 readiness with which his imagination grasped its object, 
 moving rapidly from detail to detail with untiring curiosity 
 and power of reproduction. His poetry has one subject, the 
 romance of a bygone day : it is set to one tune, the tripping 
 rhymed metre which, employed with some irregularity in 
 The Lay of the Last Minstrel, settled down to uniformity 
 in his later poems. It is not surprising that, in an age so 
 fertile in poetry, his vogue declined after his first successes 
 had accomplished the task of educating his readers for a 
 change of taste. At the same time, he was not merely a 
 temporary influence. A lesser poet might have succeeded 
 as he did and have been forgotten in a few years. Just as 
 we find it difficult now to discover in Bowles' sonnets the 
 inspiration which had so powerful an effect upon Coleridge 
 and Charles Lamb, so we might be wondering to-day at 
 the popularity of tales in verse which to ourselves have 
 neither savour nor salt. But Scott's verse, although in 
 certain important respects it falls short of the highest 
 poetry, has permanent qualities which outweigh its 
 limitations and endow it with perennial freshness. 
 
 What these quahties are has already been implied. 
 First and foremost is the gift of rapid narrative. The 
 poems are frankly tales and nothing but tales. They
 
 INTRODUCTION XXI 
 
 disclaim all pretensions to an epic character: 'metrical 
 romances,' 'romantic tales' are the descriptions given by 
 Scott of his earliest compositions. In the preface to The 
 Bridal of Triermain he writes : ' According to the author's 
 idea of Romantic Poetry, as distinguished from Epic, the 
 former comprehends a fictitious narrative, framed and 
 combined at the pleasure of the writer; beginning and 
 ending as he may judge best; which neither exacts nor 
 refuses the use of supernatural machinery; which is free 
 from the technical rules of the Epee; and is subject only 
 to those which good sense, good taste, and good morals, 
 apply to every species of poetry without exception. The 
 date may be in a remote age, or in the present ; the story 
 may detail the adventures of a prince or of a peasant. 
 In a word, the author is absolute master of his country 
 and its inhabitants, and everything is permitted to him, 
 excepting to be heavy and prosaic, for which, free and 
 unembarrassed as he is, he has no manner of apology.' 
 Scott, in fact, rejected the constraint of the artificial rules 
 of poetry ; and, in proposing for himself the unambitious 
 aim of pleasing his readers with a well-told story, the only 
 conventions by which he was bound were the restrictions 
 imposed by a conservative standard of taste and the 
 chief pitfall which he sought to avoid was a lapse into 
 dulness. 
 
 His faithful adherence to these principles ensured his 
 popularity. He was never dull: he never wrote a line 
 which could shock or perplex a single soul. The second of 
 these merits is not in itself a passport to fame: Byron,
 
 XXll INTRODUCTION 
 
 who quickly succeeded Scott in popular favour, pursued 
 a deliberately opposite course. But, whether a poet 
 chooses to edify or scandalise his public, it is possible that 
 in either case he will be hopelessly dull; and Scott's aim 
 was not to edify, but to please without offending sensitive 
 consciences. On the other hand, his object of pleasing 
 by a constant variation of incident and interest de- 
 veloped his natural gift of qualities which we associate 
 with narrative poetry in its highest form, the epic. 
 Homer, says Matthew Arnold, is ' rapid in his movement, 
 plain in his words and style, simple in his ideas, noble 
 in his manner.' Now, while this pronouncement cannot 
 be said to exhaust the virtues of the father of epic poetry, 
 every word of it is true of Scott. His rapid movement 
 continually enchains our attention. It is constant, not 
 merely in his frequent descriptions of breathless rides, 
 such as Deloraine's midnight journey to Melrose and 
 Fitz- James' headlong gallop from Loch Vennachar to 
 Stirling, or of sails before a favouring wind, as the voyage 
 of the nuns from Whitby to Lindisfarne and Bruce's 
 prosperous return from Skye to Arran, but in the un- 
 flagging animation of every scene. The dramatic power 
 of Marmion's departure from Tantallon and the de- 
 scription of the battle of Flodden is due in the first 
 instance to the swift movement of the verse, the quick- 
 ness with which it prints every detail upon the mind. 
 In scenes where feasting takes the place of more strenuous 
 action or tender sentiment is for the moment uppermost, 
 Scott varies his movement, which otherwise might be-
 
 INTRODUCTION xxiii 
 
 come tame, by interpolating snatches of ballad song which 
 heighten the effect. The feast of reconcihation in The Lay 
 of the Last Minstrel is enlivened by the strains of the rival 
 harpers ; the ballad of Alice Brand is the diversion of the 
 duologue between Allan-Bane and Ellen; the conference 
 of Bertram and Guy Denzil in the cave on Brignal banks 
 is broken by the songs of Edmund; the singing of The 
 Brooch of Lorn at Ardtornish turns festivity into strife. 
 Scott, moreover, understood the necessity of affording 
 breathing-spaces in which to collect himself and his 
 readers before passing from one career of rapid flight to 
 another. The studied quietude with which he uses Spen- 
 serian stanzas of remarkable beauty and descriptive 
 power as the prelude to each canto of The Lady of the 
 Lake and The Lord of the Isles and as the finale to each 
 poem; the unrivalled ease and dignity with which he 
 turns from his story to personal associations in the dedi- 
 cations to the cantos of Marmion, relieve the strain of 
 perpetual excitement. 
 
 The simplicity of his words and style and the directness 
 of his thought need no comment. His style is the mirror 
 of his simple and uninvolved thought: his imagination 
 translates its visions at once into the plainest words, 
 which he has no difficulty in finding. But to the full 
 effect of such a style nobility of manner is essential ; and 
 nobility of manner depends upon the poet's sense of the 
 dignity of his subject. No poet was ever less conscious 
 than Scott of his dedication to the service of song or less 
 incHned to wrap himself up in the singing-robes of the
 
 XXIV INTRODUCTION 
 
 sacer vates. He adopted the profession of literature from 
 personal inclination, but with a fuU sense of its pre- 
 cariousness and the determination that it ' should be my 
 staff, but not my crutch.' When his poetry ceased to 
 command its early popularity, he abandoned it for 
 another species of composition in which he acquired 
 even greater and more permanent fame. This easy treat- 
 ment of poetry is very different from the self -consecration 
 with which Milton and Wordsworth approached it. On 
 the other hand, the example of Shakespeare, who would 
 certainly have commended Scott's sentiments upon the 
 worldly aspect of literature, is a standing proof that 
 nobility of manner is not incompatible with a due regard 
 for Hterary profits. If Scott wrote at first with the need 
 of a substantial fortune before him, if literature became 
 with him the means of building up a country estate, the 
 subjects of which he wrote were the objects of his earliest 
 enthusiasm and fired his imagination until the day of 
 his death. Love for the history of the past combined 
 itself with a passion for the familiar scenes of his native 
 country : in remembering these and commemorating them 
 in verse, he absorbed himself for the time being in subjects 
 which were to him an abiding symbol of the nobility, 
 beauty and happiness of life, with the result that his 
 manner acquired and preserved a nobility and loftiness 
 which transfigure the superficial plainness of his diction 
 and the artlessness of his rhymes. 
 
 It is possible for lovers of poetry to possess a profound 
 sense of the beauty of Nature and an exacting apprecia-
 
 INTRODUCTION XXV 
 
 tion of the requirements of poetic style without any pre- 
 dilection for history or consciousness of the spirit of indi- 
 vidual places. To such persons — and they are not few — 
 Scott's poetry appeals but little. They fail to find in it 
 the natural mysticism, the presence of 'the light that 
 never was on sea or land,' penetrating and glorifying 
 common things, the power of phrase which gives per- 
 manent record to a fleeting emotion. Scott had little 
 dealing with abstract thought. It is true that he moralises 
 frequently, very much in the manner of his eighteenth- 
 century predecessors; but such moralising is merely in- 
 cidental and never lasts long. Bruce, in face of the naked 
 mountain-barrier of the Cuillin hills, is reminded of the 
 loneliness of a monarch, 'his soul a rock, his heart a 
 waste,' but breaks off his musings with alacrity at the 
 sight of hunters and a slaughtered stag. The famous out- 
 burst of patriotic feeling at the beginning of The Lay of 
 the Last Minstrel turns soon from the general sentiment 
 to the remembrance of scenes and places, to the natural 
 features of Scotland, to Yarrow, Ettrick and Teviot 
 stone. Scott's imagination is concentrated upon the 
 material supplied by the eye and ear. While Wordsworth 
 and Shelley, each in his own special way, transfuse all 
 sights and sounds into a mental atmosphere independent 
 of place and circumstance; while Keats and Coleridge 
 use them, each for his own fairy-land; while all that 
 Byron sees or hears becomes a symbol of his own per- 
 sonality as he chose to present it, Scott is content to 
 record these things as they are and as they give him 
 T. s. c
 
 XXVI INTRODUCTION 
 
 pleasure. The beautiful stanzas on Autumn at the be- 
 ginning of The Lord of the Isles are a faithful recapitula- 
 tion of what he saw and heard from his own windows. 
 One detail after another, as it comes under his observa- 
 tion, takes its place in the picture: there is no effort at 
 drawing the somewhat obvious comparison between the 
 decay of autumn and the decline of life which such a 
 scene naturally provokes and Scott was quite capable of 
 employing; but the lingering music of the verse is an 
 echo of the pleasurable melancholy and the wistful 
 affection with which he watches the sun decline behind 
 Ettrick forest, notices the last red leaves hanging on the 
 trees of Gala and listens to the faint song of the last birds 
 of the year. 
 
 Such verse, it may be said, falls far short of the super- 
 natural glory with which Wordsworth invests, for ex- 
 ample, his 'evening of extraordinary splendour and 
 beauty,' or turns from the river and woods in Tintern 
 Abbey to contemplate the indwelling and life-giving prin- 
 ciple of Nature. Scott misses sublimity. Nobility of 
 manner, on the other hand, is not necessarily sublime; 
 and Wordsworth's poetry contains abundance of proof 
 that a poet who can rise to sublimity may also fall very 
 far below nobility. Scott's verse is consistently dignified: 
 its merely trivial passages are extremely rare. Lockhart 
 rightly expressed some doubt as to the effort at con- 
 temporary satire which occurs at the end of the second 
 canto of The Bridal of Triermain, and most readers will 
 agree that the wonders encountered by De Vaux in the
 
 INTRODUCTION xxvil 
 
 I 
 
 third canto of that poem, not by any means one of the 
 most serious of Scott's compositions, are somewhat 
 childish and not altogether in keeping with the medieval 
 fairy-castle which rises, a splendid vision, out of rocks 
 and mist or is revealed at night by stormy gleams. These 
 things, however, are exceptions. To Scott the subject of 
 his tale is high and inspiring, and he seldom fails to rise 
 to it. Its scenery is consecrated by long association, and 
 he describes it with a fervour that cannot dwell too 
 ardently upon its lineaments or repeat its hallowed names 
 too often. 
 
 It is this love of places for their own sake which is 
 the crowning charm of Scott's poetry to all who have 
 felt it themselves. His knowledge of the scene, the 
 emotion which it has aroused in him, are the occasion for 
 his most animated descriptions of action. When we think 
 of Marmion, the first objects which we recall are the great 
 tower of Norham castle looming against the sunset, the 
 panorama of Edinburgh from Blackford hill, the ruins 
 of Tantallon on their promontory, the deep ravine of the 
 Till below Twisel. Melrose abbey by moonHght is the 
 out-standing picture of The Lay of the Last Minstrel : it 
 is again the aisles of Melrose which preserve the echo of 
 the solemn hymn with which the poem ends. The Tros- 
 sachs, with the peaks of Ben A'an and Benvenue seen by 
 gUmpses above the waving branches of the wood, and 
 the towers of StirHng, guarding the passage from the 
 glens and moors through and across which the Fiery 
 cross made its way from hand to hand, are the heart of 
 
 C2
 
 xxviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 the romance of The Lady of the Lake. Bruce's deeds in 
 The Lord of the Isles are secondary to the pictures of the 
 stormy sound through which his bark beat its way under 
 the walls of Ardtornish, the naked majesty of the shivered 
 crags of Skye, and the succession of islands which rose 
 from the sea and vanished behind the horizon as he sailed 
 southward to win back his kingdom. Each of these 
 scenes is, as it were, a living character in its poem, not 
 filled with or referred to an indwelling spirit which 
 generalises Nature into subservience to its workings, but 
 with its own individual traits and features. This is the 
 essential peculiarity of Scott among the romantic poets. 
 Scenery was necessary to Wordsworth, but he lost its 
 physical outlines in the ecstasy to which it gave impulse. 
 From Tintern Abbey it is a sound conclusion that, if we 
 would view Tintern aright, there is no need to visit it 
 at all; for the real subject of the poem is entirely inde- 
 pendent of any special place or scene. But to Scott 
 Melrose is the end and aim of his description : the tracery, 
 the carved foliage are to him essential matters, and it 
 is their beauty and that alone which he seeks to convey. 
 For the natural wonders of Staffa he finds no adequate 
 words of description ; but the distant sight of lona across 
 the sea suggests to him the contrast, not indeed very 
 original, but expressed with a solemn sincerity, between 
 the works of eternal and mortal architecture. Words- 
 worth, when he visited Staffa, distressed by his fellow- 
 tourists, wrote four sonnets of unequal merit, the aim of 
 which is not to describe, but to embody the reflections
 
 INTRODUCTION xxix 
 
 which the place aroused. One of these is the obvious 
 superiority of Nature to the works of man, and here he 
 is at one with Scott; but, while the sight of the pillared 
 cave itself is enough to awake this thought, Scott needs 
 some concrete object on which to found his contrast. To 
 Keats, on the other hand, neither local description nor 
 abstract reflection was necessary: Fingal's cave was 
 merely an analogy to the visions of fabled beauty among 
 which his mind dwelt. It called up memories of Aladdin's 
 palace and the city of the Apocalypse, and the chieftains 
 and bards of Scotland whose shades Wordsworth invoked 
 were forgotten to frame forth the apparition of Lycidas, 
 washed ashore on the threshold of the 'rugged wonder' 
 and disappearing from sight in its watery floor. 
 
 The concrete quality of Scott's imagination is nowhere 
 so noticeable as in his love of the names of places and his 
 power to invest them with charm. Milton, from his stores 
 of classical and romantic learning, gave magic and sug- 
 gestiveness to mere names, Aspramont and Montalban, 
 Ternate and Tidore, Namancos and Bayona; and there 
 is an echo of Milton in Scott's famous invocation of the 
 horn of Roland, with its allusions to Fontarabia and 
 Roncesvalles, on the field of Flodden. His love, however, 
 was concentrated upon the places of which he wrote. 
 Their names contained a subtle music for him: at the 
 end of his life, when, worn out with toil and unrefreshed 
 by foreign travel, he returned home to die, the familiar 
 scenes of Tweedside roused him from the torpor in which 
 he lay during the last journey from Edinburgh to Abbots-
 
 XXX INTRODUCTION 
 
 ford and 'presently he murmured a name or two — 
 "Gala Water, surely — Buckholm — Torwoodlee." ' Each 
 name, with its historical and personal associations, ac- 
 quired an individuality of its own. The mere mention of 
 it was a work of love, and through such lines as 
 
 And Jedwood, Eske, and Teviotdale, 
 
 Have to proud Angus come; 
 And all the Merse and Lauderdale 
 
 Have risen with haughty Home 
 
 we feel the pulse of passion beating and turning a cata- 
 logue of names into a triumphant chant. It is not that 
 there is any special art in Scott's choice or arrangement 
 of words. His descriptive epithets are for the most part 
 conventional: 'Barnard's towers' are 'old,' Durham 
 cathedral is 'huge and vast.' It would be difficult to 
 parallel in Scott the perfection of phrase and music which 
 Wordsworth achieved on Scott's own ground in such 
 
 lines as 
 
 And Dryborough, where with chiming Tweed 
 The lintwliites sing in chorus 
 or 
 
 The swan on still St Mary's lake 
 Float double, swan and shadow 
 
 or to find in Scott the infinite beauty and romantic 
 suggestiveness of 
 
 Breaking the silence of the seas 
 
 Among the farthest Hebrides. 
 
 But, if Scott's verse has less art, the emotion with which 
 he contemplates the scenes that were the earliest food 
 of his imagination makes itself felt in every line and
 
 INTRODUCTION XXXI 
 
 brings out the inherent picturesqueness and nobiHty of 
 even the most simple names. Even when he wrote of 
 places at some distance from Scotland and the Border, 
 as in Rokehy, his sense of the beauty of scenery and the 
 contrast between naked moor and wooded valley com- 
 municated the same power to his verse. Rokehy is in no 
 sense his best poem, but it contains, in the course of a 
 complicated and rather sentimental story, descriptions 
 and landscapes abounding in local names which are cer- 
 tainly not inferior in power and appropriateness to more 
 celebrated passages, while the lyric 'O, Brignal banks 
 are wild and fair' has the natural ease and charm of 
 movement and style which are so remarkable in the 
 ballads of Rosabelle and Lochinvar. If any example of 
 Scott's ability to deal nobly with a noble scene is needed, 
 the lines dealing with Durham in Marmion are a case in 
 point, where the solemn associations of the place and the 
 majesty of the great church on its peninsula above the 
 Wear are enhanced by the prelude enumerating the 
 resting-places of St Cuthbert's body: 
 
 Chester-le-Street and Ripon saw 
 His holy corpse, ere Wardilaw 
 
 Hail'd him with joy and fear; 
 And, after many wanderings past, 
 He chose his lordly seat at last, 
 Where his cathedral, huge and vast. 
 
 Looks down upon the Wear. 
 
 For rapidity of movement, plainness of diction, simplicity 
 of thought and nobility of manner this passage, rising
 
 xxxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 to its fine climax, could not be bettered; and the part 
 which place-names play in it is essential to its attraction. 
 Or, again, in Scott's description of the camp of James IV 
 as seen from Blackford hill, the central object of the 
 picture, the city of Edinburgh cHmbing up the ridge to 
 the point 'where the huge Castle holds its state' and 
 calling forth the cry of the poet's affection and devotion, 
 ' Mine own romantic town ! ', and its background of the 
 Forth, the Ochils and the shores of Fife and East Lothian, 
 give the whole scene an added splendour and nobility. 
 
 This love of place and his power of communicating it 
 by the most simple and direct methods are the chief 
 secret of the permanent fascination of Scott's poetry. 
 Added to these and closely connected with them are a 
 similar love and power with regard to history and legend. 
 Scott brought his imagination to bear upon facts collected, 
 as his notes to his poems and novels show, with the zeal 
 and patience of an accomplished antiquary. His lists of 
 names of knights and nobles are no less vivid and at- 
 tractive than his place-catalogues: such names stood as 
 living symbols of the pride and valour of the past. His 
 actual treatment of history in his narratives is always 
 cavaHer. His method, like that of Shakespeare in his 
 historical plays, was to give his material the most effective 
 form in which it could strike the imagination. In no case 
 is there any necessity for checking fiction, in poetry or 
 prose, too closely by historical fact. History, used in 
 connexion with imaginative work, is no more than its 
 setting: the licence which transposes and re-arranges
 
 INTRODUCTION XXXlll 
 
 facts and dates, in order to enhance the effect of a story 
 and stamp its characters with hfe, is quite permissible. 
 It does not shock us to find king James V in opposition 
 to an imaginary Roderick Dhu, a head of the house of 
 Douglas whose age and parentage agree with no genea- 
 logical tables of the family lurking in the Highlands with 
 a daughter unknown to history, or chronology freely 
 tampered with in the course of Bruce's wanderings. Our 
 interest lies in the disguised king, in Douglas and Ellen, 
 in Bruce himself: the freely treated historical basis is a 
 purely secondary matter. But there are points in which 
 a general historical accuracy may be preserved and is 
 even necessary to full effect; and in these Scott was not 
 always careful. His three earliest and most popular poems 
 had for their setting the life of the sixteenth century, 
 which in Scotland, as has been said, retained its medieval 
 colour while a process of transformation was going on 
 in England. Castles and monasteries are essential to the 
 picture; and, while it does not matter in the least that 
 Marmion, in spite of his vices a lively example of the 
 medieval knight, is a purely imaginary being and the 
 lord of manors and castles which other families possessed 
 at the date of Flodden, it does matter whether castles and 
 monasteries, institutions with permanent and well-defined 
 features of their own, are correctly described or not, 
 especially by an author to whom detail is of great sig- 
 nificance. Scott had a great eye for military antiquities: 
 his terms do not always stand the light of modern criti- 
 cism, but his castles, Branksome, Norham, Crichton,
 
 XXXIV INTRODUCTION 
 
 Tantallon and Stirling, are real medieval castles. If the 
 magic castle in the vale of St John must have struck 
 king Arthur, in pre-medieval days, as a portent in more 
 senses than one, the splendid sunlit vision which greeted 
 De Vaux at a later date would have been a most appro- 
 priate reward for the vigil of a knight of the fourteenth 
 or fifteenth century. While, however, we can study these 
 descriptions with pleasure and profit and admire Scott's 
 pictures of battles and sieges and feasts in castle -halls 
 as generally true and always life-like, he was never at 
 home with the ecclesiastical side of his subject. This 
 probably attracted him less, or at best was a picturesque 
 and mysterious element of the past with which, apart 
 from the ruins left by those who came, as he said, to 
 'cleanse our chancel from the rags of Rome,' he had no 
 fundamental sympathy. In the notes to the present 
 volume, some of the remarkable perversions of history 
 which attend his fine narrative of the voyage of the nuns 
 from Whitby to Lindisfarne are commented upon. These 
 are too numerous to notice here in detail; but it may be 
 said that the whole circumstances of the story are a 
 violation of historical truth, both as regards nunneries in 
 general and the special places mentioned in the poem, 
 while the culminating point, the walling-up of the guilty 
 nun and her paramour, is the standard example of an 
 absurd and often-repeated legend founded upon the mis- 
 understanding of the process of enclosing or immuring 
 anchorites in special cells to which they retired volun- 
 tarily for purposes of devotion. This is an exceptional
 
 INTRODUCTION XXXV 
 
 case; but it may be said as a general rule that Scott's 
 treatment of ecclesiastical matters was always tinged by 
 fancy and that his monks, friars and priests, who are 
 often associated with striking passages, have little more 
 connexion with truth than the monks and hermits of 
 so-called Gothic romance. The historical value of his 
 work may be instanced by comparing two of his best- 
 known novels. Kenilworth, in spite of the most daring 
 anachronisms, is a splendid and spirited picture of 
 EHzabethan court-hfe, the general truth of which no one 
 could contest. Ivanhoe, on the other hand, while it lacks 
 no splendour and spirit, is so full of fundamental errors 
 that it is actually a misleading picture of the life of a 
 period with which Scott had no great famiharity. At the 
 same time, whatever Scott's historical deficiencies may 
 have been, he opened men's eyes to the living interest 
 of the middle ages, and his work in poetry and prose 
 effected a salutary change in the general attitude towards 
 the past and quickened historical and antiquarian zeal, 
 Scott's activity as a poet is merely an episode in his 
 life. The circumstances which led him to abandon poetry 
 are detailed in his various prefaces. He was under no 
 illusion as to his powers: he regarded the gift of verse 
 somewhat lightly as a natural talent to be used so long 
 as it was of effective value. He had no special message 
 to give: his object was to please his readers by telling 
 them tales in verse, and, when their attention flagged, he 
 changed his method to tell them tales in prose. His gift 
 as a story-teller is pre-eminent throughout his poems.
 
 XXXVl INTRODUCTION 
 
 Each has a definite and carefully constructed plot, which 
 is developed with the utmost skill. It does not take 
 much insight to discover the secrets which he reserves to 
 hold our interest in suspense. If, however, we easily re- 
 cognise De Wilton in the disguised palmer and foresee 
 the inevitable unmasking of Marmion's treachery, it only 
 spurs our curiosity for the arrival of the critical moments 
 in which the mysteries are cleared. All through The Lady 
 of the Lake it is quite evident that ' Snowdoun's lord is 
 Scotland's king,' and no one is surprised to find that 
 Fitz- James' Highland guide is Roderick Dhu; but this 
 does not detract from the effect of Roderick's declaration 
 of his identity or of the chmax in which Fitz- James re- 
 veals himself as the king in the midst of his court. These 
 things are obviously not apparent to the other actors in 
 the story, and we share their astonishment in the hour 
 of discovery. The power of enchaining our interest in the 
 emotions of imaginary characters is essential to the 
 writer of fiction; and each of Scott's poems, however 
 conventional the elements of its plot, is a drama in which 
 the fortunes of the leading personages are for the moment 
 our own. 
 
 There is no doubt, however, that Scott found greater 
 freedom for his imaginative genius in the novel than in 
 the poem. Rokehy and The Lord of the Isles, with all their 
 skill of plot, are less fresh and spontaneous than their 
 predecessors. It is perhaps too much to say this of their 
 form. Rokehy contains many beautiful passages, and, if 
 we had no other poem of Scott's, The Lord of the Isles
 
 INTRODUCTION XXXvii 
 
 would assuredly be reckoned a high example of narrative 
 in verse. Yet neither gave signs of progress or novelty: 
 they were further exercises in a manner to which the 
 public was already accustomed and, as such, were re- 
 ceived with slackened enthusiasm. Scott's choice of new 
 historical periods did not greatly affect his treatment. 
 His personages and their traits of character were not 
 essentially different from those of his eariier poems. 
 Knights, generous in friendship and hostihty, ladies who 
 pass through dangers and extremes of fortune on their 
 way to happy marriage, freebooters with a rough chivalry 
 to counteract their vices, pages and minstrels were still 
 his theme. In The Lady of the Lake there had been a 
 strong element of sentimentaHty which distinguishes it 
 from the strenuous spirit prominent in The Lay of the 
 Last Minstrel and Marmion. In Rokehy sentimentality 
 pervades the whole story, and the plot by which Matilda 
 and the heir of Mortham are eventually united is fan- 
 tastic in the extreme. If the action of the story is violent, 
 it is violent by fits, and there are intervals in which, com- 
 pared with the constantly rapid transitions of the eariier 
 poems, it drags considerably. The Lord of the Isles, on 
 the other hand, is inferior to Marmion and The Lady of 
 the Lake mainly because it has very little to add to them : 
 the finale on the field of Bannockburn suffers because 
 Scott had already surpassed it in his description of the 
 battle of Flodden, while the supposed miracle wrought 
 by the dumb page, whose position on a neighbouring hill 
 at once recalls that of Clare in Marmion, is a theatrical
 
 xxxvni INTRODUCTION 
 
 touch in no way comparable to the recognition which 
 forms the chmax of The Lady of the Lake. The dumb page, 
 again, Edith in disguise, is a weak point in the story : not 
 only do we know at once who she is, but we feel that in 
 real life no one could have failed to see that she was a 
 woman and that the inconstant Ronald could not have 
 been deceived so long by so transparent a concealment. 
 At the end of the poem, while much has delighted us, the 
 effect of the main story is tame, and, looking back to the 
 variety and energy of Marmion, we feel that the perfect 
 unity and balance of the elements which go to the making 
 of Scott's favourite type of tale are somewhat impaired. 
 As a novelist, Scott had the opportunity of availing 
 himself of material which, as a poet, he found himself 
 debarred from using. The heroes and heroines of most of 
 his novels are very like those of his poems : Malcolm and 
 Ellen, Redmond and Matilda, Ronald and Edith are re- 
 peated over and over again, the men gallant and senti- 
 mental, the ladies sentimental and faithful, passing 
 through a humorous world without gaining amusement 
 from it. The world of his poems, however, is active and 
 troublesome with little room for humour; and, if Scott 
 is animated, he never ceases to be serious. In prose he 
 departed from the consistent dignity which verse de- 
 manded and varied his narrative with an inexhaustible 
 fertility in reproducing the simplest and homeliest traits 
 of character. As a storehouse of the manifold diversity 
 of human life, his novels are second in English only to 
 the plays of Shakespeare ; their brilliant pictures of action
 
 INTRODUCTION xxxix 
 
 are drawn with a shrewd wisdom and humour; and, while 
 the people round whom the story unfolds itself are often 
 conventional and uninteresting, the characters, serious 
 and comic, which are developed incidentally in its course, 
 are immortal. His poems need a constant elevation of 
 spirit which cannot descend to the trivial. Such an eleva- 
 tion, where the poet has no conscious mission and dwells 
 in no world of thought detached from every-day life, 
 cannot be maintained; and Scott's later poems are a 
 witness to a slight but natural decline of which no one 
 was more conscious than himself. In prose fiction he 
 found himself on surer ground, still face to face with the 
 scenery and history which he loved, but far nearer the 
 interplay of the heroic and ludicrous elements in human 
 nature, to which he was acutely sensitive, than while 
 fettered by the limits of verse. 
 
 Yet, allowing Scott's limitations as a poet and that 
 poetry was not his supreme gift, the fact of his poetical 
 influence remains. His work was the medium through 
 which his contemporaries learned to recognise and appre- 
 ciate the change in literary taste and sentiment which 
 accompanied and was closely akin to the great political 
 changes of their day : it is still the medium through which 
 many still learn to love poetry, and the echoes of its 
 stirring and simple music are still heard when the ear 
 has accustomed itself to more elaborate harmonies. The 
 dramatic force of its narrative passages, the alternate 
 gaiety and plaintiveness of the lyrics which diversify 
 them and haunt the memory as Fitz-Eustace's song
 
 xl INTRODUCTION 
 
 haunted the dying Marmion at Flodden, are remembered 
 when poetry which deals with more profound themes is 
 less easy to recall. This is not the place to speak of the 
 life and character of its author, simple and modest, using 
 his gifts freely and as if they were no more than the 
 commonest possessions in the service of others, courteous 
 and kindly to all men and so tenacious of his own honour 
 and independence that he wore himself out in the en- 
 deavour to retrieve the misfortunes of his later life and 
 died before he could fully enjoy his success. That cha- 
 racter, however, is mirrored in the sincerity of feeling 
 and straightforward lucidity of utterance which are in- 
 separable from his verse, and these qualities ensure a 
 permanence for poetic work which no mere skill in the 
 subtleties of musical rhythm can secure to artificial sen- 
 timent and diction. These are too often veils beneath 
 which scantiness of thought is hidden. If Scott's thought 
 was not deep, if it never soared high, he communicated 
 it directly and without reserve or pretence.
 
 THE GRAY BROTHER 
 
 The Pope he was saying the high, high mass. 
 
 All on Saint Peter's day, 
 With the power to him given, by the saints in heaven, 
 
 To wash men's sins away. 
 
 The Pope he was saying the blessed mass, 5 
 
 And the people kneel' d around, 
 And from each man's soul his sins did pass. 
 
 As he kiss'd the holy ground. 
 
 And all, among the crowded throng. 
 
 Was still, both limb and tongue, lo 
 
 While, through vaulted roof, and aisles aloof. 
 
 The holy accents rung. 
 
 At the hohest word he quiver'd for fear. 
 
 And falter' d in the sound — 
 And, when he would the chahce rear, 15 
 
 He dropp'd it to the ground. 
 
 ' The breath of one of evil deed 
 
 Pollutes our sacred day ; 
 He has no portion in our creed, 
 
 No part in what I say. 20 
 
 T. S. I
 
 THE GRAY BROTHER 
 
 ' A being, whom no blessed word 
 
 To ghostly peace can bring ; 
 A wretch, at whose approach abhorr'd, 
 
 Recoils each holy thing. 
 
 ' Up, up, unhappy ! haste, arise ! 25 
 
 My adjuration fear! 
 I charge thee not to stop my voice, 
 
 Nor longer tarry here ! ' 
 
 Amid them all a pilgrim kneel'd, 
 
 In gown of sackcloth gray; 30 
 
 Far journeying from his native field, 
 
 He first saw Rome that day. 
 
 For forty days and nights so drear, 
 
 I ween he had not spoke. 
 And, save with bread and water clear, 35 
 
 His fast he ne'er had broke. 
 
 Amid the penitential flock, 
 
 Seem'd none more bent to pray; 
 But, when the Holy Father spoke. 
 
 He rose and went his way. 40 
 
 Again unto his native land 
 
 His weary course he drew, 
 To Lothian's fair and fertile strand, 
 
 And Pentland's mountains blue.
 
 THE GRAY BROTHER 3 
 
 His unblest feet his native seat, 45 
 
 Mid Eske's fair woods, regain ; 
 Thro' woods more fair no stream more sweet 
 
 Rolls to the eastern main. 
 
 And lords to meet the pilgrim came. 
 
 And vassals bent the knee; 50 
 
 For all 'mid Scotland's chiefs of fame. 
 
 Was none more fam'd than he. 
 
 And boldly for his country still 
 
 In battle he had stood. 
 Ay, even when on the banks of Till, 55 
 
 Her noblest pour'd their blood 
 
 Sweet are the paths, O passing sweet ! 
 
 By Eske's fair streams that run. 
 O'er airy steep, through copsewood deep, 
 
 Impervious to the sun. 60 
 
 There the rapt poet's step may move. 
 
 And yield the muse the day ; 
 There Beauty, led by timid Love, 
 
 May scorn the tell-tale ray; 
 
 From that fair dome, where suit is paid, 65 
 
 By blast of bugle free. 
 To Auchendinny's hazel glade, 
 
 And haunted Woodhouselee.
 
 THE GRAY BROTHER 
 
 Who knows not Melville's beechy grove, 
 
 And Roslin's rocky glen, 7° 
 
 Dalkeith, which all the virtues love. 
 And classic Hawthornden? 
 
 Yet never a path, from day to day, 
 
 The pilgrim's footsteps range, 
 Save but the sohtary way 75 
 
 To Burndale's ruin'd grange. 
 
 A woful place was that, I ween. 
 
 As sorrow could desire; 
 For nodding to the fall was each crumbHng wall, 
 
 And the roof was scath'd with fire. 80 
 
 It fell upon a summer's eve. 
 
 While, on Carnethy's head. 
 The last faint gleams of the sun's low beams 
 
 Had streak' d the gray with red; 
 
 And the convent bell did vespers tell, 85 
 
 Newbattle's oaks among, 
 And mingled with the solemn knell 
 
 Our Ladye's evening song: 
 
 The heavy knell, the choir's faint swell. 
 
 Came slowly down the wind, 90 
 
 And on the pilgrim's ear they fell. 
 As his wonted path he did find.
 
 THE GRAY BROTHER 5 
 
 Deep sunk in thought, I ween, he was. 
 
 Nor ever rais'd his eye. 
 Until he came to that dreary place, 95 
 
 Which did all in ruins lie. 
 
 He gaz'd on the walls, so scath'd with fire. 
 
 With many a bitter groan — 
 And there was aware of a Gray Friar, 
 
 Resting him on a stone. loo 
 
 'Now, Christ thee save! ' said the Gray Brother; 
 
 ' Some pilgrim thou seemest to be.' 
 But in sore amaze did Lord Albert gaze. 
 
 Nor answer again made he. 
 
 ' O come ye from east, or come ye from west, 105 
 
 Or bring reliques from over the sea; 
 Or come ye from the shrine of St James the divine. 
 
 Or St John of Beverly? '— 
 
 ' I come not from the shrine of St James the divine. 
 Nor bring reliques from over the sea; no 
 
 I bring but a curse from our father, the Pope, 
 Which for ever will cling to me.' — 
 
 ' Now, woful pilgrim, say not so ! 
 
 But kneel thee down by me. 
 And shrive thee so clean of thy deadly sin, 115 
 
 That absolved thou mayst be.' —
 
 6 THE GRAY BROTHER 
 
 ' And who art thou, thou Gray Brother, 
 
 That I should shrive to thee, 
 When He, to whom are given the keys of earth and heaven. 
 
 Has no power to pardon me? ' — 120 
 
 ' O I am sent from a distant cHme, 
 
 Five thousand miles away. 
 And all to absolve a foul, foul crime. 
 
 Done here 'twixt night and day.' 
 
 The pilgrim kneel'd him on the sand, 125 
 
 And thus began his saye — 
 When on his neck an ice-cold hand 
 
 Did that Gray Brother laye. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM 
 THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL 
 
 I. Branksome Hall 
 
 The feast was over in Branksome tower. 
 
 And the Ladye had gone to her secret bower ; 
 
 Her bower that was guarded by word and by spell. 
 
 Deadly to hear, and deadly to tell — 
 
 Jesu Maria, shield us well ! 5 
 
 No living wight, save the Ladye alone. 
 
 Had dared to cross the threshold stone.
 
 BRANKSOME HALL 7 
 
 The tables were drawn, it was idlesse all ; 
 
 Knight, and page, and household squire, 
 Loiter'd through the lofty hall, lo 
 
 Or crowded round the ample fire : 
 The stag-hounds, weary with the chase, 
 
 Lay stretch'd upon the rushy floor. 
 And urged, in dreams, the forest race. 
 
 From Teviot-stone to Eskdale-moor. 15 
 
 Nine-and-twenty knights of fame 
 
 Hung their shields in Branksome hall ; 
 Nine-and-twenty squires of name 
 
 Brought them their steeds to bower from stall ; 
 
 Nine-and-twenty yeomen tall 20 
 
 Waited, duteous, on them all: 
 They were all knights of mettle true, 
 Kinsmen to the bold Buccleuch. 
 
 Ten of them were sheathed in steel, 
 
 With belted sword, and spur on heel : 25 
 
 They quitted not their harness bright. 
 
 Neither by day, nor yet by night : 
 
 They lay down to rest. 
 
 With corslet laced, 
 Pillow'd on buckler cold and hard ; 3° 
 
 They carved at the meal 
 
 With gloves of steel. 
 And they drank the red wine through the helmet barr'd. 
 
 /
 
 8 THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL 
 
 Ten squires, ten yeomen, mail-clad men. 
 
 Waited the beck of the warders ten ; 35 
 
 Thirty steeds, both fleet and wight, 
 
 Stood saddled in stable day and night. 
 
 Barbed with frontlet of steel, I trow. 
 
 And with Jedwood-axe at saddlebow; 
 
 A hundred more fed free in stall : — 4° 
 
 Such was the custom of Branksome hall. 
 
 Why do these steeds stand ready dight? 
 Why watch these warriors, arm'd, by night? — 
 They watch to hear the blood-hound baying : 
 They watch to hear the war-horn braying ; 45 
 
 To see St George's red cross streaming, 
 To see the midnight beacon gleaming : 
 They watch against Southern force and guile. 
 Lest Scroop, or Howard, or Percy's powers. 
 Threaten Branksome's lordly towers, 50 
 
 From Warkworth, or Naworth, or merry CarHsle. 
 
 Such is the custom of Branksome hall. — 
 
 Many a valiant knight is here; 
 But he, the chieftain of them all, 
 His sword hangs rusting on the wall, 55 
 
 Beside his broken spear. 
 Bards long shall tell. 
 How Lord Walter fell ! 
 When startled burghers fled, afar. 
 The furies of the Border war; 60 
 
 L ,
 
 BRANKSOME HALL 9 
 
 When the streets of high Dunedin 
 Saw lances gleam, and falchions redden. 
 And heard the slogan's deadly yell — 
 Then the Chief of Branksome fell. 
 
 Can piety the discord heal, 65 
 
 Or stanch the death-feud's enmity? 
 Can Christian lore, can patriot zeal. 
 
 Can love of blessed charity? 
 No ! vainly to each holy shrine. 
 
 In mutual pilgrimage, they drew; 70 
 
 Implor'd, in vain, the grace divine 
 
 For chiefs their own red falchions slew ; 
 While Cessford owns the rule of Carr, 
 
 While Ettrick boasts the line of Scott, 
 The slaughter' d chiefs, the mortal jar, 75 
 
 The havoc of the feudal war, i 
 
 Shall never, never be forgot ! 
 
 II. Melrose by Moonlight 
 
 Spreading herbs, and flowerets bright, 
 Glisten'd with the dew of night; 
 Nor herb, nor floweret, glisten'd there. 
 But was carv'd in the cloister-arches as fair. 
 The Monk gazed long on the lovely moon. 
 Then into the night he looked forth ;
 
 10 THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL 
 
 And red and bright the streamers Hght 
 
 Were dancing in the glowing north. 
 So had he seen, in fair Castile, 
 
 The youth in gHttering squadrons start, lo 
 
 Sudden the flying jennet wheel. 
 And hurl the unexpected dart. 
 He knew, by the streamers that shot so bright, 
 That spirits were riding the northern hght. 
 
 By a steel-clench'd postern door, 15 
 
 They enter'd now the chancel tall ; 
 The darken'd roof rose high aloof 
 
 On pillars lofty and light and small : 
 The key-stone, that lock'd each ribbed aisle. 
 Was a fleur-de-lys, or a quatre-f euille ; 20 
 
 The corbells were carv'd grotesque and grim ; 
 And the pillars, with cluster'd shafts so trim. 
 With base and with capital flourish' d around, 
 Seem'd bundles of lances which garlands had bound. 
 
 Full many a scutcheon and banner riven, 25 
 
 Shook to the cold night-wind of heaven. 
 
 Around the screened altar's pale ; 
 And there the dying lamps did burn, 
 Before thy low and lonely urn, 
 O gallant Chief of Otterburne ! 3° 
 
 And thine, dark Knight of Liddesdale ! 
 O fading honours of the dead ! 
 O high ambition, lowly laid !
 
 MELROSE BY MOONLIGHT II 
 
 The moon on the east oriel shone 
 
 Through slender shafts of shapely stone, 35 
 
 By foHag'd tracery combin'd; 
 Thou would'st have thought some fairy's hand 
 'Twixt poplars straight the ozier wand, 
 
 In many a freakish knot had twin'd; 
 Then fram'd a spell, when the work was done, 4° 
 And chang'd the willow-wreaths to stone. 
 The silver light, so pale and faint, 
 Show'd many a prophet, and many a saint. 
 
 Whose image on the glass was dyed; 
 Full in the midst, his Cross of Red 45 
 
 Triumphant Michael brandished. 
 
 And trampled the Apostate's pride. 
 The moon-beam kiss'd the holy pane. 
 And threw on the pavement a bloody stain. 
 
 III. The Bale-Fire 
 
 The ready page, with hurried hand, 
 Awak'd the need-fire's slumbering brand. 
 
 And ruddy blush' d the heaven : 
 For a sheet of flame, from the turret high, 
 Wav'd hke a blood-flag on the sky, 5 
 
 All flaring and uneven ; 
 And soon a score of fires, I ween. 
 From height, and hill, and cHff, were seen; 
 Each with warUke tidings fraught. 
 Each from each the signal caught; lo
 
 12 THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL 
 
 Each after each they glanc'd to sight, 
 
 As stars arise upon the night. 
 
 They gleam'd on many a dusky tarn, 
 
 Haunted by the lonely earn ; 
 
 On many a cairn's grey pyramid, 15 
 
 Where urns of mighty chiefs lie hid ; 
 
 Till high Dunedin the blazes saw, 
 
 From Soltra and Dumpender Law, 
 
 And Lothian heard the Regent's order. 
 
 That all should bowne them for the Border. 20 
 
 The hvelong night in Branksome rang 
 
 The ceaseless sound of steel; 
 The castle-bell, with backward clang. 
 
 Sent forth the larum peal; 
 Was frequent heard the heavy jar, 25 
 
 Where massy stone and iron bar 
 Were piled on echoing keep and tower. 
 To whelm the foe with deadly shower; 
 Was frequent heard the changing guard, 
 And watch-word from the sleepless ward; 30 
 
 While, wearied by the endless din, 
 Blood-hound and ban-dog yelled within. 
 
 IV. Caledonia 
 
 Breathes there the man, with soul so dead. 
 Who never to himself hath said. 
 This is my own, my native land !
 
 CALEDONIA 13 
 
 Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd, 
 
 As home his footsteps he hath turn'd, 5 
 
 From wandering on a foreign strand ! 
 If such there breathe, go, mark him well ; 
 For him no Minstrel raptures swell ; 
 High though his titles, proud his name. 
 Boundless his wealth as wish can claim ; 10 
 
 Despite those titles, power, and pelf. 
 The wretch, concentred all in self, 
 Living, shall forfeit fair renown. 
 And, doubly dying, shall go down 
 To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, 15 
 
 Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung. 
 
 O Caledonia ! stern and wild. 
 
 Meet nurse for a poetic child ! 
 
 Land of brown heath and shaggy wood. 
 
 Land of the mountain and the flood, 20 
 
 Land of my sires ! what mortal hand 
 
 Can e'er untie the filial band. 
 
 That knits me to thy rugged strand ! 
 
 Still as I view each well-known scene. 
 
 Think what is now, and what hath been, 25 
 
 Seems as, to me, of all bereft. 
 
 Sole friends thy woods and streams were left; 
 
 And thus I love them better still. 
 
 Even in extremity of ill. 
 
 By Yarrow's stream still let me stray, 30 
 
 Though none should guide my feeble way;
 
 14 THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL 
 
 Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break, 
 
 Although it chill my wither' d cheek; 
 
 Still lay my head by Teviot Stone, 
 
 Though there, forgotten and alone, 35 
 
 The Bard may draw his parting groan. 
 
 V. The Song of Albert Gr^me 
 
 It was an English ladye bright, 
 
 (The sun shines fair on Carhsle wall,) 
 And she would marry a Scottish knight, 
 
 For Love will still be lord of all. 
 
 BHthely they saw the rising sun, 5 
 
 When he shone fair on Carhsle wall ; 
 But they were sad ere day was done. 
 
 Though Love was still the lord of all. 
 
 Her sire gave brooch and jewel fine, 
 
 Where the sun shines fair on Carhsle wall; lo 
 
 Her brother gave but a flask of wine, 
 
 For ire that Love was lord of all. 
 
 For she had lands, both meadow and lea. 
 Where the sun shines fair on Carlisle wall ; 
 
 And he swore her death, ere he would see 15 
 
 A Scottish knight the lord of all !
 
 THE SONG OF ALBERT GR^ME 15 
 
 That wine she had not tasted well, 
 (The sun shines fair on Carlisle wall,) 
 
 When dead in her true love's arms she fell, 
 
 For Love was still the lord of all. 20 
 
 He pierc'd her brother to the heart. 
 
 Where the sun shines fair on Carlisle wall : — 
 
 So perish all would true love part. 
 That Love may still be lord of all ! 
 
 And then he took the cross divine, 25 
 
 (Where the sun shines fair on Carlisle wall,) 
 
 And died for her sake in Palestine ; 
 So Love was still the lord of all. 
 
 Now all ye lovers, that faithful prove, 
 
 (The sun shines fair on Carlisle wall,) 30 
 
 Pray for their souls who died for love ; 
 
 For Love shall still be lord of all. 
 
 VI. Harold's Song 
 
 O listen, listen, ladies gay ! 
 
 No haughty feat of arms I tell ; 
 Soft is the note, and sad the lay, 
 
 That mourns the lovely Rosabelle. 
 
 — ' Moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew ! 
 
 And, gentle ladye, deign to stay ! 
 Rest thee in Castle Ravensheuch, 
 
 Nor tempt the stormy firth to-day.
 
 l6 THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL 
 
 'The blackening wave is edg'd with white: 
 
 To inch and rock the sea-mews fly; lo 
 
 The fishers have heard the Water-Sprite, 
 Whose screams forebode that wreck is nigh. 
 
 ' Last night the gifted Seer did view 
 A wet shroud swath' d round ladye gay; 
 
 Then stay thee, Fair, in Ravensheuch: 15 
 
 Why cross the gloomy firth to-day? ' 
 
 ' 'Tis not because Lord Lindesay's heir 
 
 To-night at RosUn leads the ball, 
 But that my ladye-mother there, 
 
 Sits lonely in her castle-hall. 
 
 20 
 
 ' 'Tis not because the ring they ride. 
 
 And Lindesay at the ring rides well, 
 But that my sire the wine will chide. 
 
 If 'tis not fiU'd by Rosabelle.'— 
 
 O'er Roslin, aU that dreary night, 25 
 
 A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam ; 
 
 'Twas broader than the watch-fire's Hght, 
 And redder than the bright moon-beam. 
 
 It glar'd on RosHn's castled rock. 
 
 It ruddied all the copse-wood glen; 30 
 
 'Twas seen from Dryden's groves of oak. 
 
 And seen from cavern'd Hawthornden.
 
 HAROLD'S SONG 17 
 
 Seem'd all on fire that chapel proud. 
 
 Where Roslin's chiefs uncoffin'd He, 
 Each Baron, for a sable shroud, 35 
 
 Sheath'd in his iron panoply. 
 
 Seem'd all on fire, within, around. 
 
 Deep sacristy and altar's pale; 
 Shone every pillar foliage-bound. 
 
 And glimmer'd all the dead men's mail. 40 
 
 Blaz'd battlement and pinnet high, 
 
 Blaz'd every rose-carv'd buttress fair — 
 
 So still they blaze, when fate is nigh 
 The lordly line of high St Clair. 
 
 There are twenty of Roslin's barons bold 45 
 
 Lie buried within that proud chapelle ; 
 
 Each one the holy vault doth hold — 
 But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle ! 
 
 And each St Clair was buried there. 
 
 With candle, with book, and with knell; 50 
 
 But the sea-caves rung, and the wild winds sung, 
 
 The dirge of lovely Rosabelle. 
 
 VII. Hymn for the Dead 
 
 That day of wrath, that dreadful day. 
 When heaven and earth shall pass away. 
 What power shall be the sinner's stay? 
 How shall he meet that dreadful day? 
 
 T. S. o
 
 l8 THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL 
 
 When, shriveling Hke a parched scroll, 5 
 
 The flaming heavens together roll ; 
 When louder yet, and yet more dread, 
 Swells the high trump that wakes the dead ! 
 
 Oh ! on that day, that wrathful day, 
 
 When man to judgment wakes from clay, 10 
 
 Be Thou the trembUng sinner's stay, 
 
 Though heaven and earth shall pass away. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM MARMION 
 
 I. NoRHAM Castle 
 
 Day set on Norham's castled steep, 
 And Tweed's fair river, broad and deep, 
 
 And Cheviot's mountains lone : 
 The battled towers, the donjon keep. 
 The loophole grates, where captives weep, 5 
 
 The flanking walls that round it sweep. 
 
 In yellow lustre shone. 
 The warriors on the turrets high, 
 Moving athwart the evening sky, 
 
 Seem'd forms of giant height : 10 
 
 Their armour, as it caught the rays, 
 Flash'd back again the western blaze. 
 
 In lines of dazzHng light.
 
 NORHAM CASTLE 19 
 
 Saint George's banner, broad and gay, 
 
 Now faded, as the fading ray, 15 
 
 Less bright, and less, was flung; 
 The evening gale had scarce the power 
 To wave it on the Donjon Tower, 
 
 So heavily it hung. 
 The scouts had parted on their search, 20 
 
 The Castle gates were barr'd; 
 Above the gloomy portal arch. 
 Timing his footsteps to a march, 
 
 The Warder kept his guard ; 
 Low humming, as he paced along, 25 
 
 Some ancient Border gathering song. 
 
 IL 'The lordly strand of Northumberland' 
 
 And now the vessel skirts the strand 
 
 Of mountainous Northumberland ; 
 
 Towns, towers, and halls, successive rise. 
 
 And catch the nuns' delighted eyes. 
 
 Monk-Wearmouth soon behind them lay, 5 
 
 And Tynemouth's priory and bay; 
 
 They mark'd, amid her trees, the hall 
 
 Of lofty Seaton-Delaval; 
 
 They saw the Blythe and Wansbeck floods 
 
 Rush to the sea through sounding woods; 10 
 
 They pass'd the tower of Widderington, 
 
 Mother of many a valiant son; 
 
 2 — 2
 
 20 MARMION 
 
 At Coquet-isle their beads they tell 
 
 To the good Saint who own'd the cell. 
 
 Then did the Alne attention claim, 15 
 
 And Warkworth, proud of Percy's name; 
 
 And next, they cross'd themselves, to hear 
 
 The whitening breakers sound so near, 
 
 Where, boiUng through the rocks, they roar, 
 
 On Dunstanborough's cavern'd shore; 20 
 
 Thy tower, proud Bamborough, mark'd they there. 
 
 King Ida's castle, huge and square. 
 
 From its tall rock look grimly down. 
 
 And on the swelling ocean frown ; 
 
 Then from the coast they bore away, 25 
 
 And reach'd the Holy Island's bay. 
 
 The tide did now its flood-mark gain, 
 
 And girdled in the Saint's domain : 
 
 For, with the flow and ebb, its style 
 
 Varies from continent to isle ; 3° 
 
 Dry-shod, o'er sands, twice every day, 
 
 The pilgrims to the shrine find way ; 
 
 Twice every day, the waves efface 
 
 Of staves and sandall'd feet the trace. 
 
 As to the port the galley flew, 35 
 
 Higher and higher rose to view 
 
 The Castle with its battled walls, 
 
 The ancient Monastery's halls, 
 
 A solemn, huge, and dark-red pile, 
 
 Plac'd on the margin of the isle. 4°
 
 THE SAINT OF HOLY ISLAND 21 
 
 III. The Saint of Holy Island 
 
 Nor did Saint Cuthbert's daughters fail 
 
 To vie with these in holy tale; 
 
 His body's resting-place, of old. 
 
 How oft their patron chang'd, they told ; 
 
 How, when the rude Dane burn'd their pile, 5 
 
 The monks fled forth from Holy Isle ; 
 
 O'er northern mountain, marsh, and moor, 
 
 From sea to sea, from shore to shore, 
 
 Seven years Saint Cuthbert's corpse they bore. 
 
 They rested them in fair Melrose : 10 
 
 But though, alive, he lov'd it well. 
 
 Not there his relics might repose; 
 For, wondrous tale to tell ! 
 
 In his stone-coffin forth he rides, 
 
 A ponderous bark for river tides, 15 
 
 Yet hght as gossamer it glides. 
 Downward to Tilmouth cell. 
 Nor long was his abiding there. 
 For southward did the saint repair; 
 Chester-le-Street, and Rippon, saw 20 
 
 His holy corpse, ere Wardilaw 
 
 Hail'd him with joy and fear; 
 And, after many wanderings past. 
 He chose his lordly seat at last. 
 Where his cathedral, huge and vast, 25 
 
 Looks down upon the Wear. 
 There, deep in Durham's Gothic shade. 
 His relics are in secret laid;
 
 22 MARMION 
 
 But none may know the place, 
 Save of his holiest servants three, 3° 
 
 Deep sworn to solemn secrecy, 
 
 Who share that wondrous grace. 
 
 Who may his miracles declare ! 
 
 Even Scotland's dauntless king, and heir, 
 
 (Although with them they led 35 
 
 Galwegians, wild as ocean's gale, 
 And Lodon's knights, all sheath'd in mail. 
 And the bold men of Teviotdale,) 
 
 Before his standard fled. 
 Twas he, to vindicate his reign, 4° 
 
 Edg'd Alfred's falchion on the Dane, 
 And turn'd the Conqueror back again. 
 When, with his Norman bowyer band, 
 He came to waste Northumberland. 
 
 But fain St Hilda's nuns would learn 45 
 
 If, on a rock, by Lindisfarne, 
 
 Saint Cuthbert sits, and toils to frame 
 
 The sea-born beads that bear his name: 
 
 Such tales had Whitby's fishers told, 
 
 And said they might his shape behold, 5° 
 
 And hear his anvil sound ; 
 A deaden'd clang,— a huge dim form. 
 Seen but, and heard, when gathering storm 
 
 And night were closing round. 
 But this, as tale of idle fame, 55 
 
 The nuns of Lindisfarne disclaim.
 
 FITZ-EUSTACE'S SONG 
 
 23 
 
 IV. Fitz-Eustace's Song 
 
 Where shall the lover rest, 
 
 Whom the fates sever 
 From his true maiden's breast, 
 
 Parted for ever? 
 Where, through groves deep and high, 5 
 
 Sounds the far billow, 
 Where early violets die. 
 
 Under the willow. 
 Chorus. Eleu loro, &c. Soft shall be his pillow. 
 
 There, through the summer day, 10 
 
 Cool streams are laving; 
 There, while the tempests sway. 
 
 Scarce are boughs waving ; 
 There, thy rest shalt thou take. 
 
 Parted for ever, 15 
 
 Never again to wake. 
 
 Never, never! 
 Chorus. Eleu loro, &c. Never, never! 
 
 Where shall the traitor rest, 
 
 He, the deceiver, 20 
 
 Who could win maiden's breast. 
 
 Ruin, and leave her? 
 In the lost battle. 
 
 Borne down by the flying. 
 Where mingles war's rattle 25 
 
 With groans of the dying. 
 Chorus. Eleu loro, &c. There shall he be lying.
 
 24 MARMION 
 
 Her wing shall the eagle flap 
 
 O'er the false-hearted; 
 His warm blood the wolf shall lap, 30 
 
 Ere life be parted. 
 Shame and dishonour sit 
 
 By his grave ever ; 
 Blessing shall hallow it 
 
 Never, O never ! 35 
 
 Chorus. Eleu loro, &c. Never, never! 
 
 V. Edinburgh from Blackford Hill 
 
 Still on the spot Lord Marmion stay'd, 
 For fairer scene he ne'er survey'd. 
 
 When, sated with the martial show 
 
 That peopled all the plain below, 
 
 The wandering eye could o'er it go, 5 
 
 And mark the distant city glow 
 With gloomy splendour red; 
 
 For on the smoke-wreaths, huge and slow. 
 
 That round her sable turrets flow. 
 
 The morning beams were shed, 10 
 
 And ting'd them with a lustre proud. 
 
 Like that which streaks a thunder-cloud. 
 Such dusky grandeur cloth'd the height. 
 Where the huge Castle holds its state. 
 
 And all the steep slope down, 15 
 
 Whose ridgy back heaves to the sky.
 
 EDINBURGH FROM BLACKFORD HILL 25 
 
 Pil'd deep and massy, close and high, 
 
 Mine own romantic town ! 
 But northward far, with purer blaze, 
 On Ochil mountains fell the rays, 20 
 
 And, as each heathy top they kiss'd. 
 It gleam'd a purple amethyst. 
 Yonder the shores of Fife you saw; 
 Here Preston-Bay and Berwick-Law; 
 
 And, broad between them roll'd, 25 
 
 The gallant Frith the eye might note. 
 Whose islands on its bosom float, 
 
 Like emeralds chas'd in gold. 
 Fitz-Eustace' heart felt closely pent; 
 As if to give his rapture vent, 30 
 
 The spur he to his charger lent. 
 
 And rais'd his bridle hand, 
 And, making demi-volte in air, 
 Cried, ' Where's the coward would not dare 
 
 To fight for such a land ! ' 35 
 
 The Lindesay smil'd his joy to see; 
 Nor Marmion's frown repress'd his glee. 
 
 VL LOCHINVAR 
 
 O, young Lochinvar is come out of the west. 
 Through all the wide Border his steed was the best; 
 And, save his good broadsword, he weapons had none. 
 He rode all unarm'd, and he rode all alone.
 
 26 MARMION 
 
 So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, 5 
 
 There never was knight hke the young Lochinvar. 
 
 He staid not for brake, and he stopp'd not for stone. 
 
 He swam the Eske river where ford there was none ; 
 
 But ere he alighted at Netherby gate, 
 
 The bride had consented, the gallant came late: 10 
 
 For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war. 
 
 Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar. 
 
 So boldly he enter'd the Netherby Hall, 
 
 Among bride's-men, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all: 
 
 Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword, 15 
 
 (For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word,) 
 
 ' O come ye in peace here, or come ye in war. 
 
 Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar? ' 
 
 'I long woo'd your daughter, my suit you denied; — 
 Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide — 20 
 And now am I come, with this lost love of mine. 
 To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine. 
 There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far, 
 That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar.' 
 
 The bride kiss'd the goblet : the knight took it up, 25 
 He quaff'd off the wine, and he threw down the cup. 
 She look'd down to blush, and she look'd up to sigh. 
 With a smile on her lips, and a tear in her eye. 
 He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar, — 
 ' Now tread we a measure ! ' said young Lochinvar. 30
 
 LOCHINVAR 27 
 
 So stately his form, and so lovely her face, 
 
 That never a hall such a galliard did grace ; 
 
 While her mother did fret, and her father did fume, 
 
 And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume ; 
 
 And the bride-maidens whisper'd, ' 'Twere better by far, 35 
 
 To have match'd our fair cousin with young Lochinvar.' 
 
 One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear, 
 When they reach'd the hall-door, and the charger stood 
 
 near; 
 So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung. 
 So light to the saddle before her he sprung ! 40 
 
 ' She is won ! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur ; 
 They'll have fleet steeds that follow,' quoth young 
 
 Lochinvar. 
 
 There was mounting 'mong Graemes of the Netherby clan ; 
 Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they 
 
 ran: 
 There was racing and chasing on Cannobie Lee, 45 
 
 But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see. 
 So daring in love, and so dauntless in war. 
 Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar? ' 
 
 VIL Douglas and Marmion 
 
 Not far ad vane' d was morning day, 
 When Marmion did his troop array 
 
 To Surrey's camp to ride; 
 He had safe conduct for his band,
 
 28 MARMION 
 
 Beneath the royal seal and hand, 5 
 
 And Douglas gave a guide : 
 The ancient Earl, with stately grace, 
 Would Clara on her palfrey place. 
 And whisper'd in an under tone, 
 'Let the hawk stoop, his prey is flown.' — 10 
 
 The train from out the castle drew. 
 But Marmion stopp'd to bid adieu : — 
 
 ' Though something I might 'plain,' he said, 
 ' Of cold respect to stranger guest. 
 Sent hither by your King's behest, 15 
 
 While in Tantallon's towers I staid; 
 Part we in friendship from your land, 
 And, noble Earl, receive my hand.' 
 But Douglas round him drew his cloak. 
 Folded his arms, and thus he spoke : — 20 
 
 ' My manors, halls, and bowers, shall still 
 Be open, at my Sovereign's will, 
 To each one whom he lists, howe'er 
 Unmeet to be the owner's peer. 
 My castles are my King's alone, 25 
 
 From turret to foundation-stone — 
 The hand of Douglas is his own ; 
 And never shall in friendly grasp 
 The hand of such as Marmion clasp.' 
 
 Burn'd Marmion's swarthy cheek like fire, 30 
 
 And shook his very frame for ire. 
 And ' This to me ! ' he said, —
 
 DOUGLAS AND MARMION 29 
 
 ' An 'twere not for thy hoary beard, 
 Such hand as Marmion's had not spar'd 
 
 To cleave the Douglas' head ! 35 
 
 And, first, I tell thee, haughty Peer, 
 He, who does England's message here, 
 Although the meanest in her state. 
 May well, proud Angus, be thy mate : 
 And, Douglas, more I tell thee here, 4° 
 
 Even in thy pitch of pride. 
 Here in thy hold, thy vassals near — 
 (Nay, never look upon your lord. 
 And lay your hands upon your sword) — 
 
 I tell thee, thou'rt defied ! 45 
 
 And, if thou said'st I am not peer 
 To any lord in Scotland here, 
 Lowland or Highland, far or near, 
 
 Lord Angus, thou hast lied ! ' 
 On the Earl's cheek the flush of rage 5° 
 
 O'ercame the ashen hue of age: 
 Fierce he broke forth, 'And dar'st thou then 
 To beard the lion in his den. 
 
 The Douglas in his hall? 
 And hop'st thou hence unscath"d to go? — 55 
 
 No, by Saint Bride of Bothwell, no ! 
 Up drawbridge, grooms — what, warder, ho! 
 
 Let the portcullis fall.' 
 Lord Marmion tum'd, — well was his need, — 
 And dash'd the rowels in his steed, 60 
 
 Like arrow through the archway sprung.
 
 30 MARMION 
 
 The ponderous grate behind him rung : 
 To pass there was such scanty room, 
 The bars, descending, raz'd his plume. 
 
 The steed along the drawbridge flies, 65 
 
 Just as it trembled on the rise; 
 
 Nor lighter does the swallow skim 
 
 Along the smooth lake's level brim : 
 
 And, when Lord Marmion reach'd his band. 
 
 He halts, and turns with clenched hand, 70 
 
 And shout of loud defiance pours. 
 
 And shook his gauntlet at the towers. 
 
 ' Horse ! horse ! ' the Douglas cried, ' and chase ! ' 
 
 But soon he rein'd his fury's pace : 
 
 ' A royal messenger he came, 75 
 
 Though most unworthy of the name. — 
 
 A letter forg'd ! Saint Jude to speed ! 
 
 Did ever knight so foul a deed ! 
 
 At first in heart it lik'd me ill, 
 
 When the King prais'd his clerkly skill. 80 
 
 Thanks to Saint Bothan, son of mine. 
 
 Save Gawain, ne'er could pen a line: 
 
 So swore I, and I swear it still. 
 
 Let my boy-bishop fret his fill. — 
 
 Saint Mary mend my fiery mood ! 85 
 
 Old age ne'er cools the Douglas blood, 
 
 I thought to slay him where he stood. 
 
 'Tis pity of him too,' he cried: 
 
 ' Bold can he speak, and fairly ride,
 
 DOUGLAS AND MARMION 31 
 
 I warrant him a warrior tried.' 90 
 
 With this his mandate he recalls, 
 And slowly seeks his castle halls. 
 
 VIII. The English advance at Flodden 
 Even so it was. From Flodden ridge 
 
 The Scots beheld the English host 
 
 Leave Barmore-wood, their evening post, 
 
 And heedful watch'd them as they cross'd 
 The Till by Twisel Bridge. 5 
 
 High sight it is, and haughty, while 
 
 They dive into the deep defile; 
 
 Beneath the cavem'd cHff they faU, 
 
 Beneath the castle's airy wall; 
 By rock, by oak, by hawthorn-tree, 10 
 
 Troop after troop are disappearing; 
 
 Troop after troop their banners rearing. 
 Upon the eastern bank you see. 
 Still pouring down the rocky den, 
 
 Where flows the sullen Till, 15 
 
 And, rising from the dim-wood glen. 
 Standards on standards, men on men. 
 
 In slow succession still. 
 And, sweeping o'er the Gothic arch. 
 And pressing on, in ceaseless march, 20 
 
 To gain the opposing hill. 
 That morn, to many a trumpet clang, 
 Twisel! thy rock's deep echo rang; 
 And many a chief of birth and rank.
 
 32 MARMION 
 
 Saint Helen ! at thy fountain drank. 25 
 
 Thy hawthorn glade, which now we see 
 In spring-tide bloom so lavishly, 
 Had then from many an axe its doom, 
 To give the marching columns room. 
 
 And why stands Scotland idly now, 3° 
 
 Dark Flodden ! on thy airy brow, 
 
 Since England gains the pass the while, 
 
 And struggles through the deep defile? 
 
 What checks the fiery soul of James? 
 
 Why sits that champion of the dames 35 
 
 Inactive on his steed. 
 And sees, between him and his land, 
 Between him and Tweed's southern strand, 
 
 His host Lord Surrey lead? 
 What 'vails the vain knight-errant's brand? 40 
 
 — O, Douglas, for thy leading wand ! 
 
 Fierce Randolph, for thy speed ! 
 O for one hour of Wallace wight. 
 Or well-skill'd Bruce, to rule the fight. 
 And cry ' Saint Andrew and our right ! ' 45 
 
 Another sight had seen that morn, 
 From Fate's dark book a leaf been torn. 
 And Flodden had been Bannockbourne ! 
 The precious hour has pass'd in vain. 
 And England's host has gain'd the plain; 50 
 
 Wheehng their march, and circling still. 
 Around the base of Flodden hill.
 
 THE DEATH OF MARMION 33 
 
 IX. The Death of Marmion 
 
 When, doff' d his casque, he felt free air. 
 
 Around 'gan Marmion wildly stare : — 
 
 'Where's Harry Blount? Fitz-Eustace where? 
 
 Linger ye here, ye hearts of hare ! 
 
 Redeem my pennon, — charge again ! 5 
 
 Cry "Marmion to the rescue ! " — Vain ! 
 
 Last of my race, on battle-plain 
 
 That shout shall ne'er be heard again ! — 
 
 Yet my last thought is England's — fly. 
 To Dacre bear my signet-ring: 10 
 
 Tell him his squadrons up to bring — 
 
 Fitz-Eustace, to Lord Surrey hie; 
 Tunstall lies dead upon the field. 
 His life-blood stains the spotless shield : 
 Edmund is down : — my life is reft; 15 
 
 The Admiral alone is left. 
 Let Stanley charge with spur of fire, — 
 With Chester charge, and Lancashire, 
 Full upon Scotland's central host. 
 Or victory and England's lost. — 20 
 
 Must I bid twice? — hence, varlets! fly! 
 Leave Marmion here alone — to die.' 
 They parted, and alone he lay; 
 Clare drew her from the sight away. 
 Till pain wrung forth a lowly moan, 25 
 
 And half he murmur'd, — ' Is there none. 
 
 Of all my halls have nurst, 
 T. s. 3
 
 34 MARMION 
 
 Page, squire, or groom, one cup to bring 
 Of blessed water from the spring, 
 
 To slake my dying thirst ! ' 30 
 
 O Woman ! in our hours of ease 
 
 Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, 
 
 And variable as the shade 
 
 By the light quivering aspen made; 
 
 When pain and anguish wring the brow, 35 
 
 A ministering angel thou ! — 
 
 Scarce were the piteous accents said. 
 
 When, with the Baron's casque, the maid 
 
 To the nigh streamlet ran : 
 Forgot were hatred, wrongs, and fears; 40 
 
 The plaintive voice alone she hears. 
 
 Sees but the dying man. 
 She stoop'd her by the runnel's side. 
 
 But in abhorrence backward drew; 
 For, oozing from the mountain's side, 45 
 
 Where rag'd the war, a dark-red tide 
 
 Was curdling in the streamlet blue. 
 Where shall she turn ! — behold her mark 
 
 A little fountain cell. 
 Where water, clear as diamond-spark, 50 
 
 In a stone basin feU. 
 Above, some half-worn letters say, 
 
 Brink . toearp . pilsrim . brinfe . anb . prap . 
 Jf or . tije . feinb . goiil . of . ^ptiil . #rep . 
 OTfjo . huilt . tfjis; . crojisi . anb , toell . 55
 
 THE DEATH OF MARMION 35 
 
 She fill'd the helm, and back she hied, 
 And with surprise and joy espied 
 
 A monk supporting Marmion's head ; 
 A pious man, whom duty brought 
 To dubious verge of battle fought, 60 
 
 To shrieve the dying, bless the dead. 
 
 Deep drank Lord Marmion of the wave. 
 
 And, as she stoop'd his brow to lave — 
 
 ' Is it the hand of Clare,' he said, 
 
 ' Or injur'd Constance, bathes my head? ' 65 
 
 Then, as remembrance rose, — 
 ' Speak not to me of shrift or prayer ! 
 
 I must redress her woes. 
 Short space, few words, are mine to spare : 
 Forgive and listen, gentle Clare ! ' — 70 
 
 ' Alas ! ' she said, ' the while, — 
 O, think of your immortal weal ! 
 In vain for Constance is your zeal ; 
 
 She — died at Holy Isle.' 
 Lord Marmion started from the ground, 75 
 
 As light as if he felt no wound; 
 Though in the action burst the tide. 
 In torrents, from his wounded side. 
 ' Then it was truth,' — he said — ' I knew 
 That the dark presage must be true. 80 
 
 I would the Fiend, to whom belongs 
 The vengeance due to all her wrongs. 
 
 Would spare me but a day !
 
 36 MARMION 
 
 For wasting fire, and dying groan. 
 
 And priests slain on the altar stone, 85 
 
 Might bribe him for delay. 
 It may not be ! — this dizzy trance — 
 Curse on yon base marauder's lance. 
 And doubly curs' d my faihng brand ! 
 A sinful heart makes feeble hand.' 90 
 
 Then, fainting, down on earth he sunk. 
 Supported by the trembling Monk. 
 
 With fruitless labour, Clara bound. 
 
 And strove to stanch the gushing wound : 
 
 The Monk, with unavailing cares, 95 
 
 Exhausted all the Church's prayers. 
 
 Ever, he said, that, close and near, 
 
 A lady's voice was in his ear, 
 
 And that the priest he could not hear; 
 
 For that she ever sung, 100 
 
 ' In the lost battle, home down by the flying, 
 Where mingles war's rattle with groans of the dying!' 
 
 So the notes rung; — 
 ' Avoid thee. Fiend ! — with cruel hand. 
 Shake not the dying sinner's sand! 105 
 
 O, look, my son, upon yon sign 
 Of the Redeemer's grace divine; 
 
 O, think on faith and bUss ! — 
 By many a death-bed I have been. 
 And many a sinner's parting seen, no 
 
 But never aught like this.'
 
 THE DEATH OF MARMION 37 
 
 The war, that for a space did fail, 
 Now trebly thundering swell' d the gale, 
 
 And — Stanley ! was the cry; 
 A light on Marmion's visage spread, 115 
 
 And fir'd his glazing eye: 
 With dying hand, above his head. 
 He shook the fragment of his blade. 
 
 And shouted ' Victory ! 
 Charge, Chester, charge ! On, Stanley, on ! ' 120 
 
 Were the last words of Marmion. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM 
 THE LADY OF THE LAKE 
 
 I. Invocation 
 
 Harp of the North ! that mouldering long hast hung 
 
 On the witch-elm that shades Saint Fillan's spring, 
 And down the fitful breeze thy numbers flung. 
 
 Till envious ivy did around thee cling. 
 Muffling with verdant ringlet every string, — 5 
 
 O minstrel Harp, still must thine accents sleep? 
 Mid rusthng leaves and fountains murmuring. 
 
 Still must thy sweeter sounds their accent keep, 
 Nor bid a warrior smile, nor teach a maid to weep? 
 
 Not thus, in ancient days of Caledon, 10 
 
 Was thy voice mute amid the festal crowd, 
 
 When lay of hopeless love, or glory won, 
 Arous'd the fearful, or subdued the proud.
 
 38 THE LADY OF THE LAKE 
 
 At each according pause was heard aloud 
 
 Thine ardent symphony subhme and high ! 15 
 
 Fair dames and crested chiefs attention bow'd; 
 
 For still the burden of thy minstrelsy 
 Was Knighthood's dauntless deed, and Beauty's match- 
 less eye. 
 
 O wake once more ! how rude soe'er the hand 
 
 That ventures o'er thy magic maze to stray ; 20 
 
 O wake once more ! though scarce my skill command 
 
 Some feeble echoing of thine earlier lay : 
 Though harsh and faint, and soon to die away. 
 
 And all unworthy of thy nobler strain, 
 Yet if one heart throb higher at its sway, 25 
 
 The wizard note has not been touch'd in vain. 
 Then silent be no more ! Enchantress, wake again ! 
 
 II. The Trossachs 
 
 The western waves of ebbing day 
 
 Roll'd o'er the glen their level way; 
 
 Each purple peak, each flinty spire, 
 
 Was bath'd in floods of Hving fire. 
 
 But not a setting beam could glow 5 
 
 Within the dark ravines below, 
 
 Where twin'd the path in shadow hid. 
 
 Round many a rocky pyramid, 
 
 Shooting abruptly from the dell 
 
 Its thunder-spHnter'd pinnacle; 10
 
 THE TROSSACHS 39 
 
 Round many an insulated mass, 
 
 The native bulwarks of the pass, 
 
 Huge as the tower which builders vain 
 
 Presumptuous pil'd on Shinar's plain. 
 
 The rocky summits, split and rent, 15 
 
 Form'd turret, dome, or battlement, 
 
 Or seem'd fantastically set 
 
 With cupola or minaret. 
 
 Wild crests as pagod ever deck'd. 
 
 Or mosque of Eastern architect. 20 
 
 Nor were these earth-born castles bare. 
 
 Nor lack'd they many a banner fair; 
 
 For, from their shiver'd brows display'd. 
 
 Far o'er the unfathomable glade. 
 
 All twinkling with the dewdrop sheen, 25 
 
 The brier-rose fell in streamers green. 
 
 And creeping shrubs, of thousand dyes, 
 
 Wav'd in the west-wind's summer sighs. 
 
 Boon nature scatter'd, free and wild. 
 
 Each plant or flower, the mountain's child. 30 
 
 Here eglantine embalm'd the air. 
 
 Hawthorn and hazel mingled there; 
 
 The primrose pale, and violet flower, 
 
 Found in each cliff a narrow bower; 
 
 Fox-glove and night-shade, side by side, 35 
 
 Emblems of punishment and pride, 
 
 Group'd their dark hues with every stain 
 
 The weather-beaten crags retain.
 
 40 THE LADY OF THE LAKE 
 
 With boughs that quak'd at every breath, 
 
 Grey birch and aspen wept beneath ; 40 
 
 Aloft, the ash and warrior oak 
 
 Cast anchor in the rifted rock : 
 
 And, higher yet, the pine-tree hung 
 
 His shatter'd trunk, and frequent flung. 
 
 Where seem'd the cliffs to meet on high, 45 
 
 His boughs athwart the narrow'd sky. 
 
 Highest of all, where white peaks glanc'd, 
 
 Where glist'ning streamers wav'd and danc'd. 
 
 The wanderer's eye could barely view 
 
 The summer heaven's delicious blue; 50 
 
 So wondrous wild, the whole might seem 
 
 The scenery of a fairy dream. 
 
 Onward, amid the copse 'gan peep 
 
 A narrow inlet, still and deep. 
 
 Affording scarce such breadth of brim 55 
 
 As serv'd the wild-duck's brood to swim. 
 
 Lost for a space, through thickets veering, 
 
 But broader when again appearing. 
 
 Tall rocks and tufted knolls their face 
 
 Could on the dark -blue mirror trace; 60 
 
 And farther as the hunter stray'd. 
 
 Still broader sweep its channels made. 
 
 The shaggy mounds no longer stood. 
 
 Emerging from entangled wood, 
 
 But, wave-encircled, seem'd to float, 65 
 
 Like castle girdled with its moat ;
 
 THE TROSSACHS 4^ 
 
 Yet broader floods extending still 
 
 Divide them from their parent hill, 
 
 Till each, retiring, claims to be 
 
 An islet in an inland sea. 70 
 
 And now, to issue from the glen. 
 
 No pathway meets the wanderer's ken, 
 
 Unless he climb, with footing nice, 
 
 A far projecting precipice. 
 
 The broom's tough roots his ladder made, 75 
 
 The hazel saplings lent their aid ; 
 
 And thus an airy point he won. 
 
 Where, gleaming with the setting sun, 
 
 One burnish'd sheet of Hving gold. 
 
 Loch Katrine lay beneath him roU'd ; 80 
 
 In all her length far winding lay. 
 
 With promontory, creek, and bay. 
 
 And islands that, empurpled bright. 
 
 Floated amid the livelier light. 
 
 And mountains, that Uke giants stand, 85 
 
 To sentinel enchanted land. 
 
 High on the south, huge Benvenue 
 
 Down to the lake in masses threw 
 
 Crags, knolls, and moimds, confusedly hurl'd. 
 
 The fragments of an earlier world ; 9° 
 
 A wildering forest feather' d o'er 
 
 His ruin'd sides and summit hoar. 
 
 While on the north, through middle air, 
 
 Ben-an heav'd high his forehead bare.
 
 42 THE LADY OF THE LAKE 
 
 III. Ellen's Song 
 
 ' Soldier, rest ! thy warfare o'er. 
 
 Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking: 
 Dream of battled fields no more. 
 
 Days of danger, nights of waking. 
 In our isle's enchanted hall, 5 
 
 Hands unseen thy couch are strewing. 
 Fairy strains of music fall, 
 
 Every sense in slumber dewing. 
 Soldier, rest ! thy warfare o'er, 
 Dream of fighting fields no more : lo 
 
 Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking. 
 Mom of toil, nor night of waking. 
 
 No rude sound shall reach thine ear. 
 
 Armour's clang, or war-steed champing, 
 Trump nor pibroch summon here 15 
 
 Mustering clan, or squadron tramping. 
 Yet the lark's shrill fife may come 
 
 At the day-break from the fallow. 
 And the bittern sound his drum. 
 
 Booming from the sedgy shallow. 20 
 
 Ruder sounds shall none be near. 
 Guards nor warders challenge here. 
 Here's no war-steed's neigh or champing. 
 Shouting clans, or squadrons stamping.' 
 
 She paus'd — then, blushing, led the lay 25 
 
 To grace the stranger of the day.
 
 ELLEN'S SONG 43 
 
 Her mellow notes awhile prolong 
 
 The cadence of the flowing song, 
 
 Till to her lips in measur'd frame 
 
 The minstrel verse spontaneous came: — 30 
 
 ' Huntsman, rest ! thy chase is done. 
 
 While our slumbrous spells assail ye. 
 Dream not, with the rising sun. 
 
 Bugles here shall sound reveille. 
 Sleep ! the deer is in his den ; 35 
 
 Sleep ! thy hounds are by thee lying; 
 Sleep ! nor dream in yonder glen. 
 
 How thy gallant steed lay dying. 
 Huntsman, rest ! thy chase is done. 
 Think not of the rising sun, 40 
 
 For at dawning to assail ye, 
 Here no bugles sound reveille.' 
 
 IV. Boat Song 
 
 Hail to the Chief who in triumph advances ! 
 
 Honour'd and bless'd be the ever-green Pine ! 
 Long may the tree, in his banner that glances. 
 Flourish, the shelter and grace of our line ! 
 
 Heaven send it happy dew, 5 
 
 Earth lend it sap anew, 
 Gayly to bourgeon, and broadly to grow. 
 
 While every Highland glen 
 
 Sends our shout back agen, 
 ' Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho ! ieroe ! ' 10
 
 44 THE LADY OF THE LAKE 
 
 Ours is no sapling, chance-sown by the fountain, 
 
 Blooming at Beltane, in winter to fade ; 
 When the whirlwind has stripp'd every leaf on the 
 mountain, 
 The more shall Clan-Alpine exult in her shade. 
 
 Moor'd in the rifted rock, 15 
 
 Proof to the tempest's shock. 
 Firmer he roots him the ruder it blow ; 
 Menteith and Breadalbane, then, 
 Echo his praise agen, 
 ' Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho ! ieroe ! ' 20 
 
 Proudly our pibroch has thrill'd in Glen Fruin, 
 
 And Bannochar's groans to our slogan replied ; 
 Glen-Luss and Ross-dhu, they are smoking in ruin. 
 And the best of Loch Lomond lie dead on her side. 
 
 Widow and Saxon maid 25 
 
 Long shall lament our raid. 
 Think of Clan- Alpine with fear and with woe; 
 
 Lennox and Leven-glen 
 
 Shake when they hear agen, 
 ' Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho ! ieroe ! ' 30 
 
 Row, vassals, row, for the pride of the Highlands ! 
 
 Stretch to your oars, for the ever-green Pine ! 
 O ! that the rose-bud that graces yon islands. 
 
 Were wreath'd in a garland around him to twine ! 
 O that some seedling gem, 35 
 
 Worthy such noble stem.
 
 BOAT SONG 45 
 
 Honour'd and bless'd in their shadow might grow ! 
 
 Loud should Clan-Alpine then 
 
 Ring from her deepmost glen, 
 ' Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu ! ho ! ieroe ! ' 40 
 
 V. The Fiery Cross 
 
 Speed, Malise, speed ! the lake is past, 
 
 Duncraggan's huts appear at last, 
 
 And peep, like moss-grown rocks, half seen. 
 
 Half hidden in the copse so green ; 
 
 There mayest thou rest, thy labour done, 5 
 
 Their Lord shall speed the signal on. — 
 
 As stoops the hawk upon his prey. 
 
 The henchman shot him down the way. 
 
 — What woeful accents load the gale? 
 
 The funeral yell, the female wail ! 10 
 
 A gallant hunter's sport is o'er, 
 
 A valiant warrior fights no more. 
 
 Who, in the battle or the chase. 
 
 At Roderick's side shall fill his place ! — 
 
 Within the hall, where torches' ray 15 
 
 Supplies the excluded beams of day, 
 
 Lies Duncan on his lowly bier. 
 
 And o'er him streams his widow's tear. 
 
 His stripling son stands mournful by, 
 
 His youngest weeps, but knows not why ; 20 
 
 The village maids and matrons round 
 
 The dismal coronach resound.
 
 46 THE LADY OF THE LAKE 
 
 Coronach 
 
 He is gone on the mountain. 
 
 He is lost to the forest, 
 Like a summer-dried fountain, 25 
 
 When our need was the sorest. 
 The font, reappearing, 
 
 From the rain-drops shall borrow. 
 But to us comes no cheering, 
 
 To Duncan no morrow ! 30 
 
 The hand of the reaper 
 
 Takes the ears that are hoary. 
 But the voice of the weeper 
 
 Wails manhood in glory. 
 The autumn winds rushing 35 
 
 Waft the leaves that are searest, 
 But our flower was in flushing, 
 
 When blighting was nearest. 
 
 Fleet foot on the correi, 
 
 Sage counsel in cumber, 40 
 
 Red hand in the foray, 
 
 How sound is thy slumber ! 
 Like the dew on the mountain. 
 
 Like the foam on the river, 
 Like the bubble on the fountain, 45 
 
 Thou art gone, and for ever ! 
 
 See Stumah, who, the bier beside, 
 His master's corpse with wonder eyed,
 
 THE FIERY CROSS 47 
 
 Poor Stumah ! whom his least halloo 
 
 Could send like lightning o'er the dew, 50 
 
 Bristles his crest, and points his ears. 
 
 As if some stranger step he hears. 
 
 'Tis not a mourner's muffled tread 
 
 Who comes to sorrow o'er the dead, 
 
 But headlong haste, or deadly fear, 55 
 
 Urge the precipitate career. 
 
 All stand aghast : — unheeding all, 
 
 The henchman bursts into the hall ; 
 
 Before the dead man's bier he stood ; 
 
 Held forth the Cross besmear'd with blood; 60 
 
 'The muster-place is Lanrick mead; 
 
 Speed forth the signal ! clansmen, speed ! ' 
 
 Angus, the heir of Duncan's line. 
 
 Sprung forth and seiz'd the fatal sign. 
 
 In haste the stripling to his side 65 
 
 His father's dirk and broadsword tied ; 
 
 But when he saw his mother's eye 
 
 Watch him in speechless agony. 
 
 Back to her open'd arms he flew, 
 
 Press'd on her lips a fond adieu — 70 
 
 ' Alas ! ' she sobb'd, — ' and yet, be gone. 
 
 And speed thee forth, like Duncan's son ! ' 
 
 One look he cast upon the bier, 
 
 Dash'd from his eye the gathering tear, 
 
 Breath'd deep to clear his labouring breast, 75 
 
 And toss'd aloft his bonnet crest.
 
 48 THE LADY OF THE LAKE 
 
 Then, like the high-bred colt, when, freed, 
 
 First he essays his fire and speed. 
 
 He vanish'd, and o'er moor and moss 
 
 Sped forward with the Fiery Cross. 80 
 
 VI. The Ambuscade 
 
 ' Have, then, thy wish ! ' He whistled shrill. 
 
 And he was answer'd from the hill ; 
 
 Wild as the scream of the curlew. 
 
 From crag to crag the signal flew. 
 
 Instant, through copse and heath, arose 5 
 
 Bonnets and spears and bended bows; 
 
 On right, on left, above, below. 
 
 Sprung up at once the lurking foe; 
 
 From shingles grey their lances start. 
 
 The bracken bush sends forth the dart, 10 
 
 The rushes and the willow-wand 
 
 Are bristling into axe and brand. 
 
 And every tuft of broom gives hfe 
 
 To plaided warrior arm'd for strife. 
 
 That whistle garrison'd the glen 15 
 
 At once with full five hundred men. 
 
 As if the yawning hill to heaven 
 
 A subterranean host had given. 
 
 Watching their leader's beck and will. 
 
 All silent there they stood, and still. 20 
 
 Like the loose crags, whose threatening mass 
 
 Lay tottering o'er the hollow pass.
 
 THE AMBUSCADE 49 
 
 As if an infant's touch could urge 
 
 Their headlong passage down the verge. 
 
 With step and weapon forward flung, 25 
 
 Upon the mountain-side they hung. 
 
 The Mountaineer cast glance of pride 
 
 Along Benledi's living side, 
 
 Then fix'd his eye and sable brow 
 
 Full on Fitz-James— ' How say'st thou now? 30 
 
 These are Clan-Alpine's warriors true; 
 
 And, Saxon, — I am Roderick Dhu ! ' 
 
 Fitz-James was brave : — Though to his heart 
 
 The hfe-blood thrill' d with sudden start, 
 
 He mann'd himself with dauntless air, 35 
 
 Return' d the Chief his haughty stare, 
 
 His back against a rock he bore. 
 
 And firmly plac'd his foot before: — 
 
 ' Come one, come all ! this rock shall fly 
 
 From its firm base as soon as I.' 4° 
 
 Sir Roderick mark'd, and in his eyes 
 
 Respect was mingled with surprise. 
 
 And the stern joy which warriors feel 
 
 In foemen worthy of their steel. 
 
 Short space he stood — then wav'd his hand; 45 
 
 Down sunk the disappearing band; 
 
 Each warrior vanish'd where he stood. 
 
 In broom or bracken, heath or wood; 
 
 Sunk brand and spear and bended bow, 
 
 In osiers pale and copses low ; 5° 
 
 T. S.
 
 50 THE LADY OF THE LAKE 
 
 It seem'd as if their mother Earth 
 
 Had swallow'd up her warhke birth. 
 
 The wind's last breath had toss'd in air 
 
 Pennon, and plaid, and plumage fair, — 
 
 The next but swept a lone hill-side, 55 
 
 Where heath and fern were waving wide : 
 
 The sun's last glance was glinted back, 
 
 From spear and glaive, from targe and jack, — 
 
 The next, all unreflected, shone 
 
 On bracken green, and cold grey stone. 60 
 
 VII. The Ride to Stirling 
 
 ' Stand, Bayard, stand ! ' — The steed obey'd. 
 
 With arching neck and bended head, 
 
 And glancing eye and quivering ear. 
 
 As if he lov'd his lord to hear. 
 
 No foot Fitz- James in stirrup staid, 5 
 
 No grasp upon the saddle laid. 
 
 But wreath'd his left hand in the mane. 
 
 And lightly bounded from the plain, 
 
 Turn'd on the horse his armed heel. 
 
 And stirr'd his courage with the steel, 10 
 
 Bounded the fiery steed in air, 
 
 The rider sate erect and fair. 
 
 Then like a bolt from steel crossbow 
 
 Forth launch'd, along the plain they go. 
 
 They dash'd that rapid torrent through, 15 
 
 And up Carhonie's hill they flew;
 
 THE RIDE TO STIRLING 5^ 
 
 Still at the gallop prick'd the Knight, 
 
 His merry-men follow'd as they might. 
 
 Along thy banks, swift Teith ! they ride. 
 
 And in the race they mock thy tide; 20 
 
 Torry and Lendrick now are past, 
 
 And Deanstown Hes behind them cast ; 
 
 They rise, the banner'd towers of Doune, 
 
 They sink in distant woodland soon; 
 
 Blair-Drummond sees the hoofs strike fire, 25 
 
 They sweep Hke breeze through Ochtertyre; 
 
 They mark just glance and disappear 
 
 The lofty brow of ancient Kier; 
 
 They bathe their coursers' sweltering sides, 
 
 Dark Forth ! amid thy sluggish tides, 3° 
 
 And on the opposing shore take ground, 
 
 With plash, with scramble, and with bound. 
 
 Right-hand they leave thy cHffs, Craig-Forth ! 
 
 And soon the bulwark of the North, 
 
 Grey Stirhng, with her towers and town, 35 
 
 Upon their fleet career look'd down. 
 
 VIII. Allan-Bane's Lament 
 
 And art thou cold and lowly laid. 
 
 Thy foeman's dread, thy people's aid, 
 
 Breadalbane's boast, Clan-Alpine's shade ! 
 
 For thee shall none a requiem say? 
 
 For thee, who lov'd the minstrel's lay, 5 
 
 For thee, of Bothwell's house the stay.
 
 52 THE LADY OF THE LAKE 
 
 The shelter of her exil'd Hne, 
 E'en in this prison-house of thine, 
 I'll wail for Alpine's honour'd Pine ! 
 
 What groans shall yonder valleys fill ! lo 
 
 What shrieks of grief shall rend yon hill ! 
 
 What tears of burning rage shall thrill, 
 
 When mourns thy tribe thy battles done, 
 
 Thy fall before the race was won. 
 
 Thy sword ungirt ere set of sun ! 15 
 
 There breathes not clansman of thy line. 
 
 But would have given his life for thine, 
 
 O woe for Alpine's honour'd Pine ! 
 
 Sad was thy lot on mortal stage ! — 
 
 The captive thrush may brook the cage, 20 
 
 The prison 'd eagle dies for rage. 
 
 Brave spirit, do not scorn my strain ! 
 
 And, when its notes awake again, 
 
 Even she, so long belov'd in vain. 
 
 Shall with my harp her voice combine, 25 
 
 And mix her woe and tears with mine. 
 
 To wail Clan-Alpine's honour'd Pine. 
 
 IX. Lay of the Imprisoned Huntsman 
 
 My hawk is tir'd of perch and hood, 
 My idle greyhound loathes his food, 
 My horse is weary of his stall. 
 And I am sick of captive thraU.
 
 LAY OF THE IMPRISONED HUNTSMAN 53 
 
 I wish I were, as I have been, 5 
 
 Hunting the hart in forest green, 
 With bended bow and bloodhound free. 
 For that's the hfe is meet for me. 
 
 I hate to learn the ebb of time 
 
 From yon deep steeple's drowsy chime, 10 
 
 Or mark it as the sunbeams crawl. 
 
 Inch after inch, along the wall. 
 
 The lark was wont my matins ring, 
 
 The sable rook my vespers sing; 
 
 These towers, although a king's they be, 15 
 
 Have not a hall of joy for me. 
 
 No more at dawning sun I rise. 
 
 And sun myself in Ellen's eyes, 
 
 Drive the fleet deer the forest through, 
 
 And homeward wend with evening dew ; 20 
 
 A blithesome welcome proudly meet. 
 
 And lay my trophies at her feet. 
 
 While fled the eve on wing of glee. 
 
 That hfe is lost to love and me ! 
 
 X. Farewell 
 
 Harp of the North, farewell ! The hills grow dark, 
 On purple peaks a deeper shade descending; 
 
 In twilight copse the glow-worm lights her spark. 
 The deer, half-seen, are to the covert wending.
 
 54 THE LADY OF THE LAKE 
 
 Resume thy wizard elm ! the fountain lending, 5 
 
 And the wild breeze, thy wilder minstrelsy; 
 
 Thy numbers sweet with nature's vespers blending. 
 With distant echo from the fold and lea, 
 And herd-boy's evening pipe, and hum of housing bee. 
 
 Yet, once again, farewell, thou Minstrel harp, 10 
 
 Yet, once again, forgive my feeble sway. 
 And little reck I of the censure sharp 
 
 May idly cavil at an idle lay. 
 Much have I owed thy strains on life's long way. 
 
 Through secret woes the world has never known, 15 
 When on the weary night dawn'd wearier day. 
 
 And bitterer was the grief devour'd alone. 
 That I outhve such woes, Enchantress! is thine own. 
 
 Hark ! as my lingering footsteps slow retire. 
 
 Some Spirit of the Air has wak'd thy string ! 20 
 
 'Tis now a seraph bold, with touch of fire, 
 
 'Tis now the brush of Fairy's frolic wing. 
 Receding now, the dying numbers ring 
 
 Fainter and fainter down the rugged dell. 
 And now the mountain breezes scarcely bring 25 
 
 A wandering witch-note of the distant spell — 
 And now, 'tis silent all !— Enchantress, fare thee well !
 
 DAWN AND SUNRISE 55 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM ROKEBY 
 
 I. Dawn and Sunrise 
 
 Far in the chambers of the west 
 
 The gale had sigh'd itself to rest ; 
 
 The moon was cloudless now and clear, 
 
 But pale, and soon to disappear. 
 
 The thin grey clouds wax dimly light 5 
 
 On Brusleton and Houghton height ; 
 
 And the rich dale, that eastward lay. 
 
 Waited the wakening touch of day. 
 
 To give its woods and cultur'd plain. 
 
 And towers and spires, to light again, lo 
 
 But, westward, Stanmore's shapeless swell, 
 
 And Lunedale wild, and Kelton-fell, 
 
 And rock-begirdled Gilmanscar, 
 
 And Arkingarth, lay dark afar; 
 
 While, as a Hvelier twilight falls, 15 
 
 Emerge proud Barnard's banner'd walls. 
 
 High-crown'd he sits, in dawning pale, 
 
 The sovereign of the lovely vale. 
 
 What prospects, from his watch-tower high, 
 
 Gleam gradual on the warder's eye ! — 20 
 
 Far sweeping to the east, he sees 
 
 Down his deep woods the course of Tees, 
 
 And tracks his wanderings by the steam 
 
 Of summer vapours from the stream ;
 
 56 ROKEBY 
 
 And ere he pac'd his destin'd hour 25 
 
 By Brackenbury's dungeon-tower, 
 
 These silver mists shall melt away, 
 
 And dew the woods with glittering spray. 
 
 Then in broad lustre shall be shown 
 
 That mighty trench of living stone, 30 
 
 And each huge trunk that, from the side. 
 
 Reclines him o'er the darksome tide. 
 
 Where Tees, full many a fathom low. 
 
 Wears with his rage no common foe; 
 
 For pebbly bank nor sand-bed here, 35 
 
 Nor clay-mound, checks his fierce career, 
 
 Condemn'd to mine a channell'd way 
 
 O'er solid sheets of marble grey. 
 
 Nor Tees alone, in dawning bright. 
 
 Shall rush upon the ravish'd sight; 40 
 
 But many a tributary stream 
 
 Each from its own dark dell shall gleam: 
 
 Staindrop, who, from her silvan bowers. 
 
 Salutes proud Raby's battled towers; 
 
 The rural brook of Egliston, 45 
 
 And Balder, nam'd from Odin's son; 
 
 And Greta, to whose banks ere long 
 
 We lead the lovers of the song; 
 
 And silver Lune, from Stanmore wild, 
 
 And fairy Thorsgill's murmuring child, 50 
 
 And last and least, but loveliest still. 
 
 Romantic Deepdale's slender rill.
 
 DAWN AND SUNRISE 57 
 
 Who in that dim-wood glen hath stray'd, 
 
 Yet long'd for RosHn's magic glade? 
 
 Who, wandering there, hath sought to change 55 
 
 Even for that vale so stern and strange. 
 
 Where Cartland's Crags, fantastic rent, 
 
 Through her green copse like spires are sent? 
 
 Yet, Albin, yet the praise be thine, 
 
 Thy scenes and story to combine ! 60 
 
 Thou bid'st him, who by Roslin strays, 
 
 List to the deeds of other days ; 
 
 'Mid Cartland's Crags thou show'st the cave, 
 
 The refuge of thy champion brave; 
 
 Giving each rock its storied tale, 65 
 
 Pouring a lay for every dale. 
 
 Knitting, as with a moral band. 
 
 Thy native legends with thy land. 
 
 To lend each scene the interest high 
 
 Which genius beams from Beauty's eye. 70 
 
 II. Edmund's Songs 
 
 (I) 
 
 O, Brignal banks are wild and fair. 
 And Greta woods are green. 
 
 And you may gather garlands there. 
 Would grace a summer queen.
 
 58 ROKEBY 
 
 And as I rode by Dalton-hall, 5 
 
 Beneath the turrets high, 
 A maiden on the castle wall 
 
 Was singing merrily, — 
 ' O, Brignal banks are fresh and fair, 
 
 And Greta woods are green ; lo 
 
 I'd rather rove with Edmund there. 
 
 Than reign our English queen.' 
 
 ' If, maiden, thou wouldst wend with me. 
 
 To leave both tower and town. 
 Thou first must guess what hfe lead we, 15 
 
 That dwell by dale and down. 
 And if thou canst that riddle read. 
 
 As read full well you may. 
 Then to the greenwood shalt thou speed. 
 
 As blithe as Queen of May.' 2° 
 
 Yet sung she, ' Brignal banks are fair. 
 
 And Greta woods are green ; 
 I'd rather rove with Edmund there. 
 
 Than reign our Enghsh queen. 
 
 I read you, by your bugle-horn, 25 
 
 And by your palfrey good, 
 I read you for a ranger sworn. 
 
 To keep the king's greenwood ' — 
 'A ranger, lady, winds his horn. 
 
 And 'tis at peep of light; 3° 
 
 His blast is heard at merry morn. 
 
 And mine at dead of night.'
 
 EDMUND'S SONGS 59 
 
 Yet sung she, ' Brignal banks are fair. 
 
 And Greta woods are gay; 
 I would I were with Edmund there, 35 
 
 To reign his Queen of May ! 
 
 With burnish'd brand and musketoon. 
 
 So gallantly you come, 
 I read you for a bold dragoon, 
 
 That lists the tuck of drum.' — 40 
 
 ' I list no more the tuck of drum. 
 
 No more the trumpet hear; 
 But when the beetle sounds his hum. 
 
 My comrades take the spear. 
 And O ! though Brignal banks be fair, 45 
 
 And Greta woods be gay. 
 Yet mickle must the maiden dare, 
 
 Would reign my Queen of May ! 
 
 Maiden ! a nameless life I lead, 
 
 A nameless death I'll die; 50 
 
 The fiend, whose lantern lights the mead. 
 
 Were better mate than I ! 
 And when I'm with my comrades met 
 
 Beneath the greenwood bough, 
 What once we were we all forget, 55 
 
 Nor think what we are now. 
 Yet Brignal banks are fresh and fair, 
 
 And Greta woods are green. 
 And you may gather garlands there 
 
 Would grace a summer queen.' 60
 
 6o ROKEBY 
 
 (2) 
 
 ' A weary lot is thine, fair maid, 
 
 A weary lot is thine ! 
 To pull the thorn thy brow to braid. 
 
 And press the rue for wine ! 
 A lightsome eye, a soldier's mien, 5 
 
 A feather of the blue, 
 A doublet of the Lincoln green, — 
 
 No more of me you knew, 
 
 My love ! 
 
 No more of me you knew. 10 
 
 This morn is merry June, I trow, 
 
 The rose is budding fain ; 
 But she shall bloom in winter snow, 
 
 Ere we two meet again.' 
 He turn'd his charger as he spake, 15 
 
 Upon the river shore, 
 He gave his bridle-reins a shake. 
 
 Said, ' Adieu for evermore. 
 
 My love ! 
 
 Adieu for evermore. 20 
 
 (3) 
 
 Allen-a-Dale has no fagot for burning, 
 Allen-a-Dale has no furrow for turning, 
 Allen-a-Dale has no fleece for the spinning, 
 Yet Allen-a-Dale has red gold for the winning.
 
 EDMUND'S SONGS 6l 
 
 Come, read me my riddle ! come, hearken my tale ! 5 
 And tell me the craft of bold Allen-a-Dale. 
 
 The Baron of Ravensworth prances in pride, 
 
 And he views his domains upon Arkindale side. 
 
 The mere for his net, and the land for his game, 
 
 The chase for the wild, and the park for the tame; 10 
 
 Yet the fish of the lake, and the deer of the vale. 
 
 Are less free to Lord Dacre than Allen-a-Dale. 
 
 Allen-a-Dale was ne'er belted a knight, 
 
 Though his spur be as sharp, and his blade be as bright ; 
 
 Allen-a-Dale is no baron or lord, 15 
 
 Yet twenty tall yeomen will draw at his word; 
 
 And the best of our nobles his bonnet will vail. 
 
 Who at Rere-cross on Stanmore meets Allen-a-Dale. 
 
 Allen-a-Dale to his wooing is come; 
 The mother, she ask'd of his household and home: 20 
 ' Though the castle of Richmond stand fair on the hill. 
 My hall,' quoth bold Allen, 'shows gallanter still; 
 'Tis the blue vault of heaven, with its crescent so pale. 
 And with all its bright spangles ! ' said Allen-a-Dale. 
 
 The father was steel, and the mother was stone; 25 
 
 They lifted the latch, and they bade him be gone; 
 But loud, on the morrow, their wail and their cry : 
 He had laugh'd on the lass with his bonny black eye. 
 And she fled to the forest to hear a love-tale. 
 And the youth it was told by was Allen-a-Dale ! 30
 
 62 ROKEBY 
 
 III. Thorsgill 
 
 When Denmark's raven soar'd on high, 
 
 Triumphant through Northumbrian sky. 
 
 Till, hovering near, her fatal croak 
 
 Bade Reged's Britons dread the yoke. 
 
 And the broad shadow of her wing 5 
 
 Blacken'd each cataract and spring, 
 
 Where Tees in tumult leaves his source, 
 
 Thundering o'er Caldron and High-Force; 
 
 Beneath the shade the Northmen came, 
 
 Fix'd on each vale a Runic name, lo 
 
 Rear'd high their altar's rugged stone, 
 
 And gave their gods the land they won. 
 
 Then, Balder, one bleak garth was thine. 
 
 And one sweet brooklet's silver line. 
 
 And Woden's Croft did title gain i5 
 
 From the stern Father of the Slain ; 
 
 But to the Monarch of the Mace, 
 
 That held in fight the foremost place. 
 
 To Odin's son, and Sifia's spouse. 
 
 Near Stratforth high they paid their vows, 20 
 
 Remember'd Thor's victorious fame. 
 
 And gave the dell the Thunderer's name. 
 
 Yet Scald or Kemper err'd, I ween. 
 
 Who gave that soft and quiet scene. 
 
 With all its varied light and shade, 25 
 
 And every little sunny glade.
 
 THORSGILL 63 
 
 And the blithe brook that strolls along 
 
 Its pebbled bed with summer song, 
 
 To the grim God of blood and scar, 
 
 The grisly King of Northern War. 30 
 
 O, better were its banks assign'd 
 
 To spirits of a gentler kind ! 
 
 For where the thicket-groups recede. 
 
 And the rath primrose decks the mead, 
 
 The velvet grass seems carpet meet ^5 
 
 For the light fairies' lively feet. 
 
 Yon tufted knoll, with daisies strown, 
 
 Might make proud Oberon a throne. 
 
 While, hidden in the thicket nigh. 
 
 Puck should brood o'er his frolic sly ; 40 
 
 And where profuse the wood-vetch clings 
 
 Round ash and elm, in verdant rings, 
 
 Its pale and azure-pencill'd flower 
 
 Should canopy Titania's bower. 
 
 Here rise no cliffs the vale to shade; 45 
 
 But, skirting every sunny glade, 
 
 In fair variety of green 
 
 The woodland lends its silvan screen. 
 
 Hoary, yet haughty, frowns the oak, 
 
 Its boughs by weight of ages broke; 50 
 
 And towers erect, in sable spire. 
 
 The pine-tree scath'd by lightning-fire; 
 
 The drooping ash and birch, between. 
 
 Hang their fair tresses o'er the green,
 
 64 ROKEBY 
 
 And all beneath, at random grow, 55 
 
 Each coppice dwarf of varied show. 
 
 Or, round the stems profusely twin'd, 
 
 Fling summer odours on the wind. 
 
 Such varied group Urbino's hand 
 
 Round Him of Tarsus nobly plann'd, 60 
 
 What time he bade proud Athens own 
 
 On Mars's Mount the God Unknown ! 
 
 Then grey Philosophy stood nigh. 
 
 Though bent by age, in spirit high: 
 
 There rose the scar-seam 'd veteran's spear, 65 
 
 There Grecian Beauty bent to hear. 
 
 While Childhood at her foot was plac'd, 
 
 Or clung delighted to her waist. 
 
 IV. Evening 
 
 The sultry summer day is done, 
 
 The western hills have hid the sun, 
 
 But mountain peak and village spire 
 
 Retain reflection of his fire. 
 
 Old Barnard's towers are purple still, 5 
 
 To those that gaze from Toller-hill; 
 
 Distant and high, the tower of Bowes 
 
 Like steel upon the anvil glows; 
 
 And Stanmore's ridge, behind that lay. 
 
 Rich with the spoils of parting day, 10 
 
 In crimson and in gold array'd. 
 
 Streaks yet awhile the closing shade,
 
 EVENING 65 
 
 Then slow resigns to darkening heaven 
 
 The tints which brighter hours had given. 
 
 Thus aged men, full loth and slow, 15 
 
 The vanities of life forego. 
 
 And count their youthful follies o'er. 
 
 Till Memory lends her light no more. 
 
 The eve, that slow on upland fades, 
 
 Has darker clos'd on Rokeby's glades, 20 
 
 Where, sunk within their banks profound. 
 
 Her guardian streams to meeting wound. 
 
 The stately oaks, whose sombre frown 
 
 Of noontide made a twilight brown. 
 
 Impervious now to fainter light, 25 
 
 Of twilight make an early night. 
 
 Hoarse into middle air arose 
 
 The vespers of the roosting crows. 
 
 And with congenial murmurs seem 
 
 To wake the Genii of the stream; 30 
 
 For louder clamour'd Greta's tide, 
 
 And Tees in deeper voice replied. 
 
 And fitful wak'd the evening wind. 
 
 Fitful in sighs its breath resign' d. 
 
 T. S.
 
 66 THE BRIDAL OF TRIERMAIN 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM 
 THE BRIDAL OF TRIERMAIN 
 
 I. The Magic Castle 
 
 — -^. Paled in by many a lofty hill, 
 
 The narrow dale lay smooth and still. 
 
 And, down its verdant bosom led, 
 
 A winding brooklet found its bed. 
 
 But, midmost of the vale, a mound 5 
 
 Arose with airy turrets crown'd. 
 
 Buttress, and rampire's circHng bound. 
 
 And mighty keep and tower; 
 Seem'd some primeval giant's hand 
 The castle's massive walls had plann'd, lo 
 
 A ponderous bulwark to withstand 
 
 Ambitious Nimrod's power. 
 Above the moated entrance slung. 
 The balanc'd drawbridge trembling hung, 
 
 As jealous of a foe; 15 
 
 Wicket of oak, as iron hard. 
 With iron studded, clench'd, and barr'd. 
 And prong'd portcuUis, join'd to guard 
 
 The gloomy pass below. 
 But the grey walls no banners crown'd, 20 
 
 Upon the watch-tower's airy round 
 No warder stood his horn to sound. 
 No guard beside the bridge was found. 
 And, where the Gothic gateway frown'd, 
 
 Glanc'd neither bill nor bow. 25 
 
 L-)
 
 THE MAGIC CASTLE 67 
 
 Beneath the castle's gloomy pride 
 In ample round did Arthur ride 
 Three times ; nor living thing he spied, 
 
 Nor heard a living sound, 
 Save that, awakening from her dream, 30 
 
 The owlet now began to scream, 
 In concert with the rushing stream. 
 
 That wash'd the battled mound. 
 He lighted from his goodly steed, 
 And he left him to graze on bank and mead; 35 
 And slowly he climb'd the narrow way. 
 That reach'd the entrance grim and grey. 
 And he stood the outward arch below. 
 And his bugle-horn prepar'd to blow, 
 
 In summons blithe and bold, 4° 
 
 Deeming to rouse from iron sleep 
 The guardian of this dismal Keep, 
 
 Which well be guess'd the hold 
 Of wizard stern, or goblin grim. 
 Or pagan of gigantic limb, 45 
 
 The tyrant of the wold. 
 
 The ivory bugle's golden tip 
 
 Twice touch'd the Monarch's manly hp. 
 
 And twice his hand withdrew. 
 — Think not but Arthur's heart was good, 50 
 
 His shield was cross'd by the blessed rood. 
 Had a pagan host before him stood. 
 
 He had charg'd them through and through ;
 
 68 THE BRIDAL OF TRIERMAIN 
 
 Yet the silence of that ancient place 
 
 Sunk on his heart, and he paus'd a space 55 
 
 Ere yet his horn he blew. 
 But, instant as its 'larum rung, 
 The castle gate was open flung, 
 Portcullis rose with crashing groan 
 Full harshly up its groove of stone ; 60 
 
 The balance-beams obey'd the blast. 
 And down the trembling drawbridge cast ; 
 The vaulted arch before him lay, 
 With nought to bar the gloomy way. 
 And onward Arthur pac'd, with hand 65 
 
 On CaUburn's resistless brand. \ 
 
 II. The Enchanted Goblet 
 
 At dawn of morn, ere on the brake 
 
 His matins did a warbler make, 
 
 Or stirr'd his wing to brush away 
 
 A single dewdrop from the spray, 
 
 Ere yet a sunbeam, through the mist, 5 
 
 The castle-battlements had kiss'd. 
 
 The gates revolve, the drawbridge falls. 
 
 And Arthur sallies from the walls. 
 
 Doff'd his soft garb of Persia's loom, 
 
 And steel from spur to helmet-plume, 10 
 
 His Lybian steed full proudly trode. 
 
 And joyful neigh'd beneath his load.
 
 THE ENCHANTED GOBLET 69 
 
 The Monarch gave a passing sigh 
 
 To penitence and pleasures by, 
 
 When, lo! to his astonish'd ken 15 
 
 Appear'd the form of Guendolen. 
 
 Beyond the outmost wall she stood, 
 
 Attir'd hke huntress of the wood : 
 
 Sandall'd her feet, her ankles bare. 
 
 And eagle-plumage deck'd her hair; 20 
 
 Firm was her look, her bearing bold. 
 
 And in her hand a cup of gold. 
 
 ' Thou goest ! ' she said, ' and ne'er again 
 
 Must we two meet, in joy or pain. 
 
 Full fain would I this hour delay, 25 
 
 Though weak the wish — yet, wilt thou stay? 
 
 — No ! thou look'st forward. Still, attend, — 
 
 Part we hke lover and hke friend.' 
 
 She rais'd the cup — 'Not this the juice 
 
 The sluggish vines of earth produce; 30 
 
 Pledge we, at parting, in the draught 
 
 Which Genii love! ' — She said, and quaff 'd; 
 
 And strange unwonted lustres fly 
 
 From her flush'd cheek and sparkling eye. 
 
 The courteous Monarch bent him low, 35 
 
 And, stooping down from saddlebow. 
 
 Lifted the cup, in act to drink. 
 
 A drop escap'd the goblet's brink — 
 
 Intense as hquid fire from hell. 
 
 Upon the charger's neck it fell. 40
 
 70 THE BRIDAL OF TRIERMAIN 
 
 Screaming with agony and fright, 
 
 He bolted twenty feet upright ! 
 
 The peasant still can show the dint, 
 
 Where his hoofs lighted on the flint. 
 
 From Arthur's hand the goblet flew, 45 
 
 Scattering a shower of fiery dew, 
 
 That burn'd and bhghted where it fell ! 
 
 The frantic steed rush'd up the dell. 
 
 As whistles from the bow the reed ; 
 
 Nor bit nor rein could check his speed, 50 
 
 Until he gain'd the hill; 
 Then breath and sinew fail'd apace. 
 And, reeling from the desperate race. 
 
 He stood, exhausted, stiU. 
 The Monarch, breathless and amaz'd, 55 
 
 Back on the fatal castle gaz'd: 
 Nor tower nor donjon could he spy, 
 Darkening against the morning sky; 
 But, on the spot where once they frown'd. 
 The lonely streamlet brawl' d around 60 
 
 A tufted knoU, where dimly shone 
 Fragments of rock and rifted stone. 
 
 III. The Defenceless Border 
 
 Bewcastle now must keep the Hold, 
 Speir-Adam's steeds must bide in stall. 
 
 Of Harley-burn the bowmen bold 
 Must only shoot from battled wall ;
 
 THE DEFENCELESS BORDER 71 
 
 And Liddesdale may buckle spur, 5 
 
 And Teviot now may belt the brand, 
 Taras and Ewes keep nightly stir. 
 
 And Eskdale foray Cumberland. 
 Of wasted fields and plunder'd flocks 
 
 The Borderers bootless may complain; 10 
 
 They lack the sword of brave de Vaux, 
 
 There comes no aid from Triermain. 
 That lord, on high adventure bound, 
 
 Hath wander'd forth alone, 
 And day and night keeps watchful round 15 
 
 In the valley of Saint John. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM 
 THE LORD OF THE ISLES 
 
 I, Autumn on Tweedside 
 
 Autumn departs; but still his mantle's fold 
 Rests on the groves of noble Somerville ; 
 Beneath a shroud of russet dropp'd with gold 
 Tweed and his tributaries mingle still ; 
 Hoarser the wind, and deeper sounds the rill, 5 
 
 Yet hngering notes of silvan music swell. 
 The deep-ton'd cushat, and the redbreast shrill; 
 And yet some tints of summer splendour tell 
 When the broad sun sinks down on Ettrick's western fell. 
 
 Autumn departs; from Gala's fields no more 10 
 
 Come rural sounds our kindred banks to cheer; 
 Blent with the stream, and gale that wafts it o'er.
 
 72 THE LORD OF THE ISLES 
 
 No more the distant reaper's mirth we hear. 
 The last bHthe shout hath died upon our ear. 
 And harvest-home hath hush'd the clanging wain; 15 
 On the waste hill no forms of life appear, 
 Save where, sad laggard of the autumnal train, 
 Some age-struck wanderer gleans few ears of scatter'd 
 grain. 
 
 Deem'st thou these sadden'd scenes have pleasure still? 
 Lov'st thou through Autumn's fading realms to stray, 
 To see the heath-flower wither'd on the hill, 21 
 
 To listen to the wood's expiring lay. 
 To note the red leaf shivering on the spray. 
 To mark the last bright tints the mountain stain. 
 On the waste fields to trace the gleaner's way, 25 
 
 And moralize on mortal joy and pain? 
 O ! if such scenes thou lov'st, scorn not the minstrel strain. 
 
 No ! do not scorn, although its hoarser note 
 Scarce with the cushat's homely song can vie. 
 Though faint its beauties as the tints remote 30 
 
 That gleam through mist in autumn's evening sky, 
 And few as leaves that tremble, sear and dry. 
 When wild November hath his bugle wound : 
 Nor mock my toil — a lonely gleaner I, 
 Through fields time-wasted, on sad inquest bound, 35 
 Where happier bards of yore have richer harvest found. 
 
 So shalt thou list, and haply not unmov'd. 
 To a wild tale of Albyn's warrior day;
 
 AUTUMN ON TWEEDSIDE 73 
 
 In distant lands, by the rough West reprov'd, 
 Still live some reHcs of the ancient lay. 40 
 
 For, when on Coolin's hills the lights decay. 
 With such the Seer of Skye the eve beguiles ; 
 'Tis known amid the pathless wastes of Reay, 
 In Harries known, and in lona's piles, 
 Where rest from mortal coil the Mighty of the Isles. 45 
 
 II. The Brooch of Lorn 
 
 Whence the brooch of burning gold, 
 That clasps the Chieftain's mantle-fold, 
 Wrought and chas'd with rare device. 
 Studded fair with gems of price, 
 On the varied tartans beaming, 5 
 
 As, through night's pale rainbow gleaming. 
 Fainter now, now seen afar. 
 Fitful shines the northern star? 
 
 Gem ! ne'er wrought on Highland mountain. 
 
 Did the fairy of the fountain, 10 
 
 Or the mermaid of the wave 
 
 Frame thee in some coral cave? 
 
 Did, in Iceland's darksome mine. 
 
 Dwarf's swart hands thy metal twine? 
 
 Or, mortal-moulded, com'st thou here 15 
 
 From England's love, or France's fear? 
 
 No ! — thy splendours nothing tell 
 Foreign art or faery spell.
 
 74 THE LORD OF THE ISLES 
 
 Moulded thou for monarch's use. 
 
 By the overweening Bruce, 20 
 
 When the royal robe he tied 
 
 O'er a heart of wrath and pride; 
 
 Thence in triumph wert thou torn, 
 
 By the victor hand of Lorn ! 
 
 When the gem was won and lost, 25 
 
 Widely was the war-cry toss'd ! 
 
 Rung aloud Bendourish fell, 
 
 Answer'd Douchart's sounding dell, 
 
 Fled the deer from wild Teyndrum, 
 
 When the homicide, o'ercome, 3° 
 
 Hardly 'scap'd with scathe and scorn, 
 
 Left the pledge with conquering Lorn ! 
 
 Vain was then the Douglas brand. 
 
 Vain the Campbell's vaunted hand, 
 
 Vain Kirkpatrick's bloody dirk, 35 
 
 Making sure of murder's work; 
 
 Barendown fled fast away, 
 
 Fled the fiery De la Haye, 
 
 When this brooch, triumphant borne, 
 
 Beam'd upon the breast of Lorn. 4° 
 
 Farthest fled its former Lord, 
 Left his men to brand and cord. 
 Bloody brand of Highland steel, 
 Enghsh gibbet, axe, and wheel.
 
 THE BROOCH OF LORN 75 
 
 Let him fly from coast to coast, 45 
 
 Dogg'd by Comyn's vengeful ghost. 
 While his spoils, in triumph worn, 
 Long shall grace victorious Lorn ! 
 
 III. Loch Coruisk 
 
 With Bruce and Ronald bides the tale. 
 
 To favouring winds they gave the sail, 
 
 Till Mull's dark headlands scarce they knew. 
 
 And Ardnamurchan's hills were blue. 
 
 But then the squalls blew close and hard, 5 
 
 And, fain to strike the galley's yard. 
 
 And take them to the oar, 
 With these rude seas, in weary plight. 
 They strove the livelong day and night, 
 Nor tiU the dawning had a sight 10 
 
 Of Skye's romantic shore. 
 Where Coolin stoops him to the west. 
 They saw upon his shiver' d crest 
 
 The sun's arising gleam ; 
 But such the labour and delay, 15 
 
 Ere they were moor'd in Scavigh bay, 
 (For calmer heaven compell'd to stay,) 
 
 He shot a western beam. 
 Then Ronald said, ' If true mine eye. 
 These are the savage wilds that he 20 
 
 North of Strathnardill and Dunskye ; 
 
 No human foot comes here,
 
 76 THE LORD OF THE ISLES 
 
 And, since these adverse breezes blow. 
 
 If my good Liege love hunter's bow, 
 
 What hinders that on land we go, 25 
 
 And strike a mountain-deer? 
 Allan, my page, shall with us wend ; 
 A bow full deftly can he bend. 
 And, if we meet a herd, may send 
 
 A shaft shaU mend our cheer.' 3° 
 
 Then each took bow and bolts in hand. 
 Their row-boat launch' d and leapt to land. 
 
 And left their skiff and train. 
 Where a wild stream, with headlong shock. 
 Came brawhng down its bed of rock, 35 
 
 To mingle with the main. 
 
 Awhile their route they silent made, 
 As men who stalk for mountain-deer. 
 
 Till the good Bruce to Ronald said, 
 
 ' St Mary ! what a scene is here ! 40 
 
 I've travers'd many a mountain-strand. 
 
 Abroad and in my native land, 
 
 And it has been my lot to tread 
 
 Where safety more than pleasure led; 
 
 Thus, many a waste I've wander'd o'er, 45 
 
 Clombe many a crag, cross' d many a moor. 
 But, by my hahdome, 
 
 A scene so rude, so wild as this. 
 
 Yet so sublime in barrenness.
 
 LOCH CORUISK 'j^ 
 
 Ne'er did my wandering footsteps press, 50 
 
 Where'er I happ'd to roam.' 
 
 No marvel thus the Monarch spake; 
 
 For rarely human eye has known 
 A scene so stern as that dread lake, 
 
 With its dark ledge of barren stone. 55 
 
 Seems that primeval earthquake's sway 
 Hath rent a strange and shatter' d way 
 
 Through the rude bosom of the hill, 
 And that each naked precipice. 
 Sable ravine, and dark abyss, 60 
 
 Tells of the outrage still. 
 The wildest glen, but this, can show 
 Some touch of Nature's genial glow; 
 On high Benmore green mosses grow. 
 And heath-bells bud in deep Glencroe, 65 
 
 And copse on Cruchan-Ben ; 
 But here, — above, around, below. 
 
 On mountain or in glen. 
 Nor tree, nor shrub, nor plant, nor flower. 
 Nor aught of vegetative power, 70 
 
 The weary eye may ken. 
 For all is rocks at random thrown. 
 Black waves, bare crags, and banks of stone. 
 
 As if were here denied 
 The summer sun, the spring's sweet dew, 75 
 
 That clothe with many a varied hue 
 
 The bleakest mountain-side. 
 
 And wilder, forward as they wound.
 
 8o 
 
 78 THE LORD OF THE ISLES 
 
 Were the proud cliffs and lake profound. 
 Huge terraces of granite black 
 Afforded rude and cumber'd track; 
 
 For, from the mountain hoar, 
 Hurl'd headlong in some night of fear. 
 When yell'd the wolf and fled the deer, 
 
 Loose crags had toppled o'er; 85 
 
 And some, chance-pois'd and balanc'd, lay, 
 So that a stripHng arm might sway 
 
 A mass no host could raise, 
 In Nature's rage at random thrown. 
 Yet trembling Hke the Druid's stone 90 
 
 On its precarious base. 
 The evening mists, with ceaseless change, 
 Now cloth'd the mountains' lofty range, 
 
 Now left their foreheads bare. 
 And round the skirts their mantle furl'd, 95 
 
 Or on the sable waters curl'd. 
 Or on the eddying breezes whirl'd, 
 
 Dispers'd in middle air. 
 And oft, condens'd, at once they lower. 
 When, brief and fierce, the mountain shower 100 
 
 Pours like a torrent down. 
 And when return the sun's glad beams, 
 Whiten'd with foam a thousand streams 
 
 Leap from the mountain's crown. 
 
 'This lake,' said Bruce, 'whose barriers drear 105 
 Are precipices sharp and sheer. 
 Yielding no track for goat or deer.
 
 LOCH CORUISK 79 
 
 Save the black shelves we tread, 
 How term you its dark waves? and how 
 Yon northern mountain's pathless brow, ^ no 
 
 And yonder peak of dread, 
 That to the evening sun uplifts 
 The griesly gulfs and slaty rifts. 
 
 Which seam its shiver'd head? ' 
 'Coriskin call the dark lake's name, 115 
 
 Coolin the ridge, as bards proclaim. 
 From old Cuchullin, chief of fame. 
 But bards, familiar in our isles 
 Rather with Nature's frowns than smiles. 
 Full oft their careless humours please 120 
 
 By sportive names from scenes like these. 
 I would old Torquil were to show 
 His maidens with their breasts of snow. 
 Or that my noble Liege were nigh 
 To hear his Nurse sing lullaby ! 125 
 
 (The Maids — tall cHffs with breakers white, 
 The Nurse — a torrent's roaring might,) 
 Or that your eye could see the mood 
 Of Corryvrekin's whirlpool rude. 
 When dons the Hag her whiten'd hood ! 130 
 
 'Tis thus our islesmen's fancy frames. 
 For scenes so stern, fantastic names.'
 
 8o THE LORD OF THE ISLES 
 
 IV. The Voyage to Arran 
 
 Merrily, merrily goes the bark, 
 
 On a breeze from the northward free. 
 So shoots through the morning sky the lark, 
 
 Or the swan through the summer sea. 
 The shores of Mull on the eastward lay, 5 
 
 And Ulva dark and Colonsay, 
 And all the group of islets gay 
 
 That guard fam'd Staffa round. 
 Then all unknown its columns rose. 
 Where dark and undisturb'd repose lo 
 
 The cormorant had found, 
 And the shy seal had quiet home. 
 
 And welter' d in that wondrous dome. 
 
 Where, as to shame the temples deck'd 
 
 By skill of earthly architect, 15 
 
 Nature herself, it seem'd, would raise 
 
 A Minster to her Maker's praise ! 
 
 Not for a meaner use ascend 
 
 Her columns, or her arches bend ; 
 
 Nor of a theme less solemn tells 20 
 
 That mighty surge that ebbs and swells. 
 
 And still, between each awful pause. 
 
 From the high vault an answer draws. 
 
 In varied tone prolong'd and high. 
 
 That mocks the organ's melody. 25 
 
 Nor doth its entrance front in vain 
 
 To old lona's holy fane,
 
 THE VOYAGE TO ARRAN 8i 
 
 That Nature's voice might seem to say, 
 
 ' Well hast thou done, frail Child of clay ! 
 
 Thy humble powers that stately shrine 30 
 
 Task'd high and hard — but witness mine ! ' 
 
 Merrily, merrily goes the bark. 
 
 Before the gale she bounds; 
 So darts the dolphin from the shark, 
 
 Or the deer before the hounds. 35 
 
 They left Loch-Tua on their lee. 
 And they waken'd the men of the wild Tiree, 
 
 And the chief of the sandy Coll ; 
 They paus'd not at Columba's isle, 
 Though peal'd the bells from the holy pile 40 
 
 With long and measur'd toll; 
 No time for matin or for mass. 
 And the sounds of the holy summons pass 
 
 Away in the billows' roll. 
 Lochbuie's fierce and warlike Lord 45 
 
 Their signal saw, and grasp'd his sword, 
 And verdant Hay call'd her host. 
 And the clans of Jura's rugged coast 
 
 Lord Ronald's call obey, 
 And Scarba's isle, whose tortur'd shore 5° 
 
 Still rings to Corrievreken's roar. 
 
 And lonely Colonsay; 
 — Scenes sung by him who sings no more ! 
 His bright and brief career is o'er. 
 
 And mute his tuneful strains ; 55 
 
 T. s. 6
 
 82 THE LORD OF THE ISLES 
 
 Quench'd is his lamp of varied lore, 
 That lov'd the light of song to pour; 
 A distant and a deadly shore 
 Has Leyden's cold remains! 
 
 V. The Death of Argentine 
 
 Again he fac'd the battle-field,— 
 Wildly they fly, are slain, or yield. 
 ' Now then,' he said, and couch'd his spear, 
 ' My course is run, the goal is near; 
 One effort more, one brave career. 
 
 Must close this race of mine.' 
 Then in his stirrups rising high. 
 He shouted loud his battle-cry, 
 
 ' Saint James for Argentine ! ' 
 And, of the bold pursuers, four 
 The gallant knight from saddle bore; 
 But not unharm'd— a lance's point 
 Has found his breast-plate's loosen'd joint, 
 
 An axe has raz'd his crest; 
 Yet still on Colonsay's fierce lord, i5 
 
 Who press'd the chase with gory sword. 
 
 He rode with spear in rest. 
 And through his bloody tartans bor'd. 
 
 And through his gallant breast. 
 Nail'd to the earth, the mountaineer 20 
 
 Yet writh'd him up against the spear, 
 
 And swung his broadsword round ! 
 
 10
 
 THE DEATH OF ARGENTINE 83 
 
 — Stirrup, steel-boot, and cuish gave way. 
 Beneath that blow's tremendous sway. 
 
 The blood gush'd from the wound; 25 
 
 And the grim Lord of Colonsay 
 
 Hath turn'd him on the ground. 
 And laugh'd in death-pang, that his blade 
 The mortal thrust so well repaid. 
 
 Now toil'd the Bruce, the battle done, 30 
 
 To use his conquest nobly won ; 
 
 And gave command for horse and spear 
 
 To press the Southern's scatter'd rear. 
 
 Nor let his broken force combine. 
 
 When the war-cry of Argentine 35 
 
 Fell faintly on his ear; 
 'Save, save his life,' he cried, 'O save 
 The kind, the noble, and the brave ! ' 
 The squadrons round free passage gave. 
 
 The wounded knight drew near; 40 
 
 He rais'd his red-cross shield no more. 
 Helm, cuish, and breast-plate stream'd with gore; 
 Yet, as he saw the King advance. 
 He strove even then to couch his lance — 
 
 The effort was in vain ! 45 
 
 The spur-stroke fail'd to rouse the horse; 
 Wounded and weary, in mid-course 
 
 He stumbled on the plain. 
 
 Then foremost was the generous Bruce 
 
 To raise his head, his helm to loose : — 50 
 
 ' Lord Earl, the day is thine ! 
 
 6 — 2
 
 84 THE LORD OF THE ISLES 
 
 My Sovereign's charge, and adverse fate. 
 Have made our meeting all too late : 
 
 Yet this may Argentine, 
 As boon from ancient comrade, crave — 55 
 
 A Christian's mass, a soldier's grave.' 
 
 Bruce press'd his dying hand — its grasp 
 Kindly rephed ; but, in his clasp. 
 
 It stiffen'd and grew cold. 
 ' And, O farewell ! ' the victor cried, 60 
 
 ' Of chivalry the flower and pride. 
 
 The arm in battle bold. 
 The courteous mien, the noble race. 
 The stainless faith, the manly face ! — 
 Bid Ninian's convent light their shrine, 65 
 
 For late-wake of De Argentine. 
 O'er better knight on death-bier laid. 
 Torch never gleam'd, nor mass was said ! ' 
 
 HELLVELLYN 
 
 I cUmb'd the dark brow of the mighty Hellvellyn, 
 Lakes and mountains beneath me gleam'd misty and 
 wide; 
 
 All was still, save by fits, when the eagle was yelhng. 
 And starting around me the echoes replied. 
 
 On the right, Striden-edge round the Red-tarn was 
 bending, 5 
 
 And Catchedicam its left verge was defending. 
 
 One huge nameless rock in the front was ascending, 
 When I mark'd the sad spot where the wanderer died.
 
 HELLVELLYN 85 
 
 Dark green was that spot mid the brown mountain- 
 heather, 
 
 Where the Pilgrim of Nature lay stretch'd in decay, 10 
 Like the corpse of an outcast abandon 'd to weather, 
 
 Till the mountain-winds wasted the tenantless clay. 
 Nor yet quite deserted, though lonely extended. 
 For, faithful in death, his mute favourite attended. 
 The much-lov'd remains of her master defended, 15 
 
 And chas'd the hill-fox and the raven away. 
 
 How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber? 
 
 When the wind wav'd his garment, how oft didst thou 
 start? 
 How many long days and long weeks didst thou number, 
 
 Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart? 20 
 And, oh, was it meet that — no requiem read o'er him, — 
 No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him, 
 And thou, little guardian, alone stretch'd before him, — 
 
 Unhonour'd the Pilgrim from life should depart? 
 
 When a Prince to the fate of the Peasant has yielded, 25 
 The tapestry waves dark round the dim-lighted hall ; 
 
 With scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded, 
 And pages stand mute by the canopied pall : 
 
 Through the courts, at deep midnight, the torches are 
 gleaming ; 
 
 In the proudly-arch'd chapel the banners are beaming; 
 
 Far adown the long aisle sacred music is streaming, 31 
 Lamenting a Chief of the People should fall.
 
 86 HELLVELLYN 
 
 But meeter for thee, gentle lover of nature, 
 
 To lay down thy head like the meek mountain lamb, 
 When, wilder'd, he drops from some chff huge in stature, 
 And draws his last sob by the side of his dam. 36 
 
 And more stately thy couch by this desert lake lying, 
 Thy obsequies sung by the grey plover flying. 
 With one faithful friend but to witness thy dying. 
 
 In the arms of Hellvellyn and Catchedicam. 4° 
 
 THE PALMER 
 
 ' O, open the door, some pity to show. 
 
 Keen blows the northern wind ! 
 The glen is white with the drifted snow. 
 
 And the path is hard to find. 
 
 ' No outlaw seeks your castle gate, 5 
 
 From chasing the King's deer, 
 Though even an outlaw's wretched state 
 
 Might claim compassion here. 
 
 ' A weary Palmer, worn and weak, 
 
 I wander for my sin; 10 
 
 O, open, for Our Lady's sake! 
 
 A pilgrim's blessing win ! 
 
 'I'll give you pardons from the Pope, 
 
 And rehques from o'er the sea; — 
 Or if for these you will not ope, 15 
 
 Yet open for charity.
 
 THE PALMER 87 
 
 'The hare is crouching in her form, 
 
 The hart beside the hind; 
 An aged man, amid the storm, 
 
 No shelter can I find. 20 
 
 ' You hear the Ettrick's sullen roar. 
 
 Dark, deep, and strong is he. 
 And I must ford the Ettrick o'er, 
 
 Unless you pity me. 
 
 ' The iron gate is bolted hard, 25 
 
 At which I knock in vain ; 
 The owner's heart is closer barr'd, 
 
 Who hears me thus complain. 
 
 'Farewell, farewell! and Mary grant. 
 When old and frail you be, 3° 
 
 You never may the shelter want. 
 That's now denied to me.' 
 
 The Ranger on his couch lay warm. 
 
 And heard him plead in vain ; 
 But oft amid December's storm, 35 
 
 He'll hear that voice again : 
 
 For lo, when through the vapours dank. 
 
 Morn shone on Ettrick fair, 
 A corpse amid the alders rank, 
 
 The Palmer welter'd there. 4°
 
 88 HUNTING SONG 
 
 "HUNTING S6NG 
 
 Waken, lords and ladies gay, 
 
 On the mountain dawns the day. 
 
 All the jolly chase is here. 
 
 With hawk, and horse, and hunting-spear ! 
 
 Hounds are in their couples yelling, 5 
 
 Hawks are whistling, horns are kneUing, 
 
 Merrily, merrily, mingle they, 
 
 ' Waken, lords and ladies gay.' 
 
 Waken, lords and ladies gay. 
 
 The mist has left the mountain grey, 10 
 
 Springlets in the dawn are steaming. 
 
 Diamonds on the banks are gleaming : 
 
 And foresters have busy been. 
 
 To track the buck in thicket green; 
 
 Now we come to chant our lay, 15 
 
 ' Welcome, lords and ladies gay/ 
 
 Waken, lords and ladies gay. 
 
 To the green-wood haste away; 
 
 We can show you where he lies. 
 
 Fleet of foot, and tall of size; 20 
 
 We can show the marks he made. 
 
 When 'gainst the oak his antlers fray'd 
 
 You shall see him brought to bay, 
 
 ' Waken, lords and ladies gay.'
 
 HUNTING SONG 89 
 
 Louder, louder chant the lay, 25 
 
 Waken, lords and ladies gay ! 
 
 Tell them youth, and mirth, and glee, 
 
 Run a course as well as we; 
 
 Time, stern huntsman ! who can baulk, 
 
 Stanch as hound, and fleet as hawk; 30 
 
 Think of this, and rise with day. 
 
 Gentle lords and ladies gay. 
 
 THE SPINDLE SONG 
 
 -^^wist ye, twine ye ! even so 
 Mingle shades of joy and woe, 
 Hope, and fear, and peace, and strife. 
 In the thread of human life. 
 
 While the mystic twist is spinning, 5 
 
 And the infant's life beginning, 
 Dimly seen through twilight bending, 
 Lo, what varied shapes attending ! 
 
 Passions wild, and follies vain. 
 
 Pleasures soon exchang'd for pain; 10 
 
 Doubt, and jealousy, and fear. 
 
 In the magic dance appear. 
 
 Now they wax, and now they dwindle. 
 Whirling with the whirling spindle. 
 Twist ye, twine ye! even so 15 
 
 Mingle human bhss and woe.
 
 90 ON THE MASSACRE OF GLENCOE, 1692 
 
 ON THE MASSACRE OF GLENCOE, 1692 
 
 ' O tell me, Harper, wherefore flow 
 The wayward notes of wail and woe, 
 Far down the desert of Glencoe, 
 
 Where none may list their melody? 
 Say, harp'st thou to the mists that fly, * 5 
 
 Or to the dun-deer glancing by. 
 Or to the eagle, that from high 
 
 Screams chorus to thy minstrelsy? ' — 
 
 ' No, not to these, for they have rest, — 
 
 The mist-wreath has the mountain-crest, 10 
 
 The stag his lair, the erne her nest. 
 
 Abode of lone security. 
 But those for whom I pour the lay. 
 Not wild-wood deep, nor mountain grey. 
 Not this deep dell, that shrouds from day, 15 
 
 Could screen from treach'rous cruelty. 
 
 ' Their flag was furl'd, and mute their drum. 
 The very household dogs were dumb, 
 Unwont to bay at guests that come 
 
 In guise of hospitahty. 20 
 
 His bhthest notes the piper plied, 
 Her gayest snood the maiden tied. 
 The dame her distaff flung aside. 
 
 To tend her kindly housewifery.
 
 ON THE MASSACRE OF GLENCOE, 1692 91 
 
 'The hand that mingled in the meal, 25 
 
 At midnight drew the felon steel, 
 And gave the host's kind breast to feel 
 
 Meed for his hospitahty ! 
 The friendly hearth that warai'd that hand. 
 At midnight arm'd it with the brand, 30 
 
 That bade destruction's flames expand 
 
 Their red and fearful blazonry. 
 
 'Then woman's shriek was heard in vain. 
 
 Nor infancy's unpitied plain, 
 
 More than the warrior's groan, could gain 35 
 
 Respite from ruthless butchery ! 
 The winter wind that whistled shrill. 
 The snows that night that clok'd the hill. 
 Though wild and pitiless, had still 
 
 Far more than Southern clemency. 40 
 
 ' Long have my harp's best notes been gone. 
 Few are its strings, and faint their tone. 
 They can but sound in desert lone 
 
 Their grey-hair'd master's misery. 
 Were each grey hair a minstrel string, 45 
 
 Each chord should imprecations fling. 
 Till startled Scotland loud should ring, 
 
 " Revenge for blood and treachery ! " *
 
 92 JOCK OF HAZELDEAN 
 
 JOCK OF HAZELDEAN 
 
 'Why weep ye by the tide, ladie? 
 
 Why weep ye by the tide? 
 I'll wed ye to my youngest son, 
 
 And ye sail be his bride : 
 And ye sail be his bride, ladie, 5 
 
 Sae comely to be seen ' — 
 But aye she loot the tears down fa' 
 
 For Jock of Hazeldean. 
 
 ' Now let this wilf u' grief be done. 
 
 And dry that cheek so pale; lo 
 
 Young Frank is chief of Errington, 
 
 And lord of Langley-dale ; 
 His step is first in peaceful ha'. 
 
 His sword in battle keen ' — 
 But aye she loot the tears down fa' 15 
 
 For Jock of Hazeldean. 
 
 ' A chain of gold ye sail not lack. 
 
 Nor braed to bind your hair; 
 Nor mettled hound, nor manag'd hawk. 
 
 Nor palfrey fresh and fair; 20 
 
 And you, the foremost o' them a'. 
 
 Shall ride our forest queen ' — 
 But aye she loot the tears down fa' 
 
 For Jock of Hazeldean.
 
 JOCK OF HAZELDEAN 93 
 
 The kirk was deck'd at morning-tide, 25 
 
 The tapers glimmer'd fair; 
 The priest and bridegroom wait the bride, 
 
 And dame and knight are there. 
 They sought her baith by bower and ha' ; 
 
 The ladie was not seen ! 3° 
 
 She's o'er the Border, and awa' 
 
 Wi' Jock of Hazeldean. 
 
 PIBROCH OF DONUIL DHU 
 
 Pibroch of Donuil Dhu, 
 
 Pibroch of Donuil, 
 Wake thy wild voice anew. 
 
 Summon Clan-Conuil. 
 Come away, come away, 5 
 
 Hark to the summons ! 
 Come in your war array. 
 
 Gentles and commons. 
 
 Come from deep glen, and 
 
 From mountain so rocky, 10 
 
 The war-pipe and pennon 
 
 Are at Inverlochy. 
 Come every hill-plaid, and 
 
 True heart that wears one. 
 Come every steel blade, and 15 
 
 Strong hand that bears one.
 
 94 PIBROCH OF DONUIL DHU 
 
 Leave untended the herd, 
 
 Flock without shelter; 
 Leave the corpse uninterr'd, 
 
 Bride at the altar; 20 
 
 Leave the deer, leave the steer, 
 
 Leave nets and barges : 
 Come with your fighting gear. 
 
 Broadswords and targes. 
 
 Come as the winds come, when 25 
 
 Forests are rended, 
 Come as the waves come, when 
 
 Navies are stranded : 
 Faster come, faster come. 
 
 Faster and faster, 3° 
 
 Chief, vassal, page and groom. 
 
 Tenant and master. 
 
 Fast they come, fast they come; 
 
 See how they gather ! 
 Wide waves the eagle plume, 35 
 
 Blended with heather. 
 Cast your plaids, draw your blades. 
 
 Forward, each man, set ! 
 Pibroch of Donuil Dhu, 
 
 Knell for the onset ! 4°
 
 REBECCA'S HYMN 95 
 
 REBECCA'S HYMN 
 
 When Israel, of the Lord belov'd, 
 
 Out from the land of bondage came. 
 Her fathers' God before her mov'd. 
 
 An awful guide in smoke and flame. 
 By day, along the astonish'd lands 5 
 
 The cloudy pillar ghded slow ; 
 By night, Arabia's crimson'd sands 
 
 Return'd the fiery column's glow. 
 
 There rose the choral hymn of praise. 
 
 And trump and timbrel answer' d keen, lo 
 
 And Zion's daughters pour'd their lays. 
 
 With priest's and warrior's voice between. 
 No portents now our foes amaze, 
 
 Forsaken Israel wanders lone : 
 Our fathers would not know Thy ways, 15 
 
 And Thou hast left them to their own. 
 
 But present still, though now unseen ! 
 
 When brightly shines the prosperous day, 
 Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screen 
 
 To temper the deceitful ray. 20 
 
 And oh, when stoops on Judah's path 
 
 In shade and storm the frequent night. 
 Be Thou, long-suffering, slow to wrath, 
 
 A burning and a shining light !
 
 95 REBECCA'S HYMN 
 
 Our harps we left by Babel's streams, 25 
 
 The tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn; 
 No censer round our altar beams. 
 
 And mute are timbrel, harp, and horn. 
 But Thou hast said, The blood of goat. 
 
 The flesh of rams I will not prize ; 30 
 
 A contrite heart, a humble thought. 
 
 Are mine accepted sacrifice. 
 
 COUNTY GUY 
 
 Ah ! County Guy, the hour is nigh. 
 
 The sun has left the lea, 
 The orange flower perfumes the bower. 
 
 The breeze is on the sea. 
 The lark, his lay who thrill'd all day, 5 
 
 Sits hush'd his partner nigh; 
 Breeze, bird, and flower, confess the hour. 
 
 But where is County Guy? 
 
 The village maid steals through the shade. 
 
 Her shepherd's suit to hear; 10 
 
 To beauty shy, by lattice high. 
 
 Sings high-born Cavalier. 
 The star of Love, all stars above. 
 
 Now reigns o'er earth and sky ; 
 And high and low the influence know — 15 
 
 But where is County Guy?
 
 NOTES 
 
 THE GRAY BROTHER 
 
 This example of Scott's early ballad poetry appeared with 
 other ' Imitations of the Ancient Ballad ' in The Minstrelsy of the 
 Scottish Border (1802-3). Up to the publication of The Lay of the 
 Last Minstrel his original poetry, which began in free adaptations 
 of the German romantic poetry of the day, consisted of ballads 
 turning upon mysterious and supernatural incidents. The Gray 
 Brother, left unfinished, was founded upon a tradition of the 
 neighbourhood of Scott's country residence at Lasswade, Mid- 
 lothian. Heron, the lord of the barony of Gilmerton, avenged 
 himself upon the guilty love of his daughter and the abbot of 
 Newbattle by setting fire to the grange of Gilmerton and burning 
 the lovers to death. 
 
 1 . the high, high mass] The sing-song repetition of epithets 
 is an effective trick of the ballad. 
 
 2. Saint Peter's day] 29 June, the feast of the apostles St 
 Peter and St Paul. The scene is supposed to take place in the 
 church of St Peter at Rome, the chief of the ancient basilicas of 
 the city. 
 
 13. the holiest word] The words of consecration in the 
 canon of the mass. 
 
 19. Scott cites examples of the disturbance of religious duties 
 by the presence of unhallowed persons from the life of the seven- 
 teenth century Cameronian preacher, Alexander Peden, and 
 quotes the ancient legend of Medea, whose presence in Athens, 
 after her banishment from Corinth, hindered the priest of Artemis 
 from the performance of his sacred rites. 
 
 43. Lothian] See note on 1. 19, p. no below. 
 
 44. Pentland's mountEiins] The Pentland hills are south- 
 west of Edinburgh. One of the highest summits, Carnethy hill, 
 is mentioned in 1. 82 below. 
 
 T. s. 7
 
 98 NOTES pp. 3- 
 
 46. Eske's fair v^oods] The North Esk flows north-eastward 
 through the centre of Midlothian and, after joining the South Esk 
 near Dalkeith, enters the firth of Forth at Musselburgh. ' Upon 
 the whole,' says Scott, 'no stream in Scotland can boast such a 
 varied succession of the most interesting objects, as well as of the 
 most romantic and beautiful scenery.' 
 
 62. yield the muse the day] The darkness of the woods is 
 contrasted with the daylight of poetic fancy which they inspire. 
 
 66. blast of bugle] The owners of Penicuik held their barony 
 from the Crown of Scotland by meeting the king, whenever he 
 came to hunt on the Borough muir near Edinburgh, at a large 
 stone called the Hare Stone and winding three blasts on a horn. 
 The Clerks of Penicuik bear as their motto the words ' Free for a 
 blast.' Penicuik house, the ' fair dome' of 1. 65, was built in 1791. 
 
 67. Auchendixuiy] Near Penicuik. When Scott wrote, this 
 place was the residence of Henry Mackenzie (1745-1831), famous 
 as the author of The Man oj Feeling (1771). 
 
 68. haunted Woodhouselee] Woodhouselee castle was the 
 seat of Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, who murdered the regent 
 Moray at Linlithgow in 1569-70. This act of revenge was oc- 
 casioned by Moray's expulsion of Hamilton from his estates. Sir 
 James Bellenden, to whom Woodhouselee had been granted, 
 turned Hamilton's wife into the fields on a cold night, where she 
 went mad. Scott's ballad Cadyow Castle deals with Hamilton's 
 revenge. 
 
 69. Melville] Melville castle, between Lasswade and Dal- 
 keith. 
 
 70. Roslin] See introd. note, p. 112 below. 
 
 71. Dalkeith] Dalkeith palace, the chief seat of Scott's friend 
 and 'chieftain,' the duke of Buccleuch. 
 
 72. classic Hawthornden] See note on 1. 32, p, 113 below. 
 The classic memory of Hawthornden is the visit of Ben Jonson 
 to its owner, the poet William Drummond. 
 
 76. Burndale's ruin'd grange] The grange of Gilmerton, 
 the scene of the tragedy mentioned in introd. note above. 
 82. Carnethy's head] See note on 1. 44, p. 97 above.
 
 6 NOTES 99 
 
 86. Newbattle] The Cistercian abbey of Newbattle (New- 
 bottle, i.e. the new house), near Dalkeith, was founded by king 
 David I in 1140. Part of the buildings are included in the house 
 upon the site, which belongs to the marquess of Lothian. 
 
 99. a Gray Friar] A friar of the order of St Francis, the 
 habit of which was gray. Dominicans were similarly known as 
 Black friars and Carmelites as White friars. 
 
 103. Lord Albert] The pilgrim is of course the guilty Heron, 
 whose Christian name Scott brings in abruptly. 
 
 107. St James the divine] The relics of St James the Great 
 were preserved at Santiago de Compostela in Spain, a famous 
 place of pilgrimage. 
 
 108. St John of Beverly] John, bishop of Hexham 687 and 
 of York 705-18, founded a monastery at a place called Indera- 
 wuda near Beverley, where he died in 72 1 . As St John of Beverley, 
 he was one of the most famous saints of the north, and his stand- 
 ard, with those of St Peter, St Cuthbert and St Wilfrid, the 
 patron saints of York, Durham and Ripon, was carried upon a 
 car at the battle of Northallerton in 1138, as the sacred ensign 
 of the English army. 
 
 115. shrive] Confess. The word is used also for ' to absolve ' 
 from the point of view of the priest. 
 
 128. The story breaks off here; but it is evident that the gray 
 brother is a fiend in disguise, corae to claim the soul of the pilgrim 
 for his unpardonable sin. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL 
 The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Scott's 'first claim to be con- 
 sidered as an original author,' was published in 1805. Its origin 
 was the request of Harriet, countess of Dalkeith, the wife of 
 Charles William Scott, afterwards fourth duke of Buccleuch, that 
 Scott would write a ballad upon the legend of Gilpin Horner, the 
 gobUn page. Scott's first attempt gradually developed into a 
 narrative in verse, to the main plot of which the incident of the 
 goblin is accessory. 
 
 The story is a romance of the Scottish border, founded upon 
 
 7—2
 
 100 NOTES p. 
 
 Scott's unrivalled knowledge of its actual and legendary history, 
 which had been gained in his researches for his collection of 
 Scottish border- minstrelsy and was fortified by his wide reading 
 in the romantic literature of the middle ages and the Renaissance. 
 As a frame to his poem, he invented the episode of the visit of 
 the last survivor of the wandering bards of the border to Newark 
 castle on the Yarrow water, near Selkirk, where he sings to his 
 harp an old story of border feuds, in the presence of Anne, first 
 duchess of Buccleuch (d. 1692), the widow of the unfortunate 
 duke of Monmouth. The scene of his story is laid about the year 
 1553, not long after the murder of sir Walter Scott, one of the 
 ancestors of the dukes of Buccleuch, in Edinburgh. The murdered 
 man's daughter Margaret is in love with Henry Cranstoun, who 
 is involved in the blood-feud of the family; and her mother, who 
 is skilled in magic, hears a dialogue between the spirits of the 
 flood and fell, prophesying the end of the quarrel in the marriage 
 of the pair. She endeavours to forestall the decree of Fate by 
 sending William of Deloraine, one of the vassals of the house, to 
 fetch a book of magic from the tomb of the wizard Michael Scott 
 in the abbey church of Melrose. As he returns with the book, he 
 meets Cranstoun coming from a secret interview with Margaret 
 Scott and is wounded in a single combat. Cranstoun escapes, 
 while his goblin page, left to tend Deloraine, discovers the book 
 and learns from it a charm which enables him to cast a glamour 
 over the sight of all round him, so that he can pursue his designs 
 unrecognised. Under protection of this spell, he takes the 
 wounded Deloraine back to Branxholm tower and entices the 
 young heir of Buccleuch into the forest outside the castle. Here 
 the boy is taken prisoner by a party of English raiders from 
 Cumberland, under command of lord Dacre, the warden of the 
 marches; while the page assumes the boy's form and plays mis- 
 chievous tricks at Branxholm. When the news of the raid is 
 learned from the beacon-fires lighted on the surrounding hills, 
 the lady of the castle orders her supposed son to go out with his 
 knights; but the goblin, fearing that her magic will penetrate his 
 disguise, feigns cowardice and is sent, under charge of the archer
 
 6 NOTES lOI 
 
 Wat Tinlinn, to take shelter in the wilds of Buccleuch. On the 
 way he is compelled, at a running stream, a sure antidote to 
 witchcraft, to take his own shape and escapes, not without a 
 wound from Tinlinn's arrow. Meanwhile, Dacre and his fellow 
 warden, lord William Howard, appear before Branxholm with 
 the captive heir and demand the surrender of Deloraine for an 
 outrage committed on the Musgraves in time of truce, threatening, 
 in case of refusal, to send the boy as a hostage to England. The 
 lady answers by demanding the trial of Deloraine's innocence by 
 single combat between him or his champion and the injured 
 Musgrave. As the English learn that their way to Cumberland is 
 cut off by a superior Scottish force, Howard accepts the ofier. 
 The combat is fixed for the morrow, a truce is called, and both 
 hostile forces are entertained in the castle, together with the 
 relieving band of Scots, among whom is Cranstoun, disguised by 
 his page's art as a knight from Hermitage castle in Liddesdale. 
 He assumes secretly the armour of the wounded Deloraine, whom 
 the lady is restoring to health by a course of magical treatment, 
 impersonates him in the combat, kills Musgrave and restores the 
 heir to his mother. At the end of the fight Deloraine appears and 
 chivalrously laments his fallen foe, whose body is taken back to 
 Cumberland by Dacre, an unwilling witness of the truce. 
 Howard's party remains to celebrate the betrothal of Margaret 
 to Cranstoun, in which the lady, recognising her powerlessness to 
 avert Fate, acquiesces. At the banquet which follows the English 
 and Scottish bards entertain the company with their ballads, 
 while the goblin page, still in possession of Michael Scott's book, 
 supplies an undercurrent of malice and mischief. At the close, 
 however, a sudden darkness falls on the hall and, in a flash of 
 lightning seen far and wide, Michael Scott, whose form is seen by 
 Deloraine alone, summons the page, who disappears. The end of 
 the poem describes the penances and pilgrimages undertaken by 
 the partakers in the feud and a Requiem mass for Michael Scott's 
 soul at Melrose. 
 
 For the irregular rhymed metre of the poem and its origin see 
 the introduction to this volume.
 
 102 NOTES pp. 6- 
 
 I. Branksome Hall 
 
 1. Branksome tower] The tower of Branksome or Branx- 
 holm is on the left bank of the Teviot, three miles above Hawick. 
 The barony of Branxholm was acquired by the Scotts of Buc- 
 cleuch early in the fifteenth century, and the 'tower,' one of 
 those fortified houses which are common in the neighbourhood of 
 the English and Scottish border, became their chief place of 
 residence. 
 
 2. the Ladye] Janet Bethune (Beaton), the widow of sir 
 Walter Scott (see note on 1. 58 below). Scott mentions that her 
 reputation for witchcraft led to the supposition that she was one 
 of the instigators of the murder of Darnley in 1567. 
 
 bcwer] The medieval house had two main living-rooms, viz. 
 the hall or common meeting-place of the household, and the 
 bower, a smaller room opening out of one end of the hall and 
 serving as a private room for the heads of the house. The bower 
 was commonly used by the mistress of the house and her ladies. 
 In larger houses, as time went on, more private rooms were 
 added, but the hall and bower, known also as the great chamber, 
 remained the nucleus of the plan. In smaller houses and cottages, 
 the main room was known similarly as the hall and a lesser room 
 adjoining as the bower. Cf. Chaucer, Cant. Tales, B, 4022: 'Ful 
 sooty was hir bour, and eek hir halle.' See the mention of the 
 hall and bower of Branxholm, U. 16-19 below, and cf. Words- 
 worth's sonnet London, 1802, 1. 4: 'the heroic wealth of hall and 
 bower.' 
 
 5. The line is borrowed from Coleridge, Christabel, 54: ' Jesu, 
 Maria, shield her well ! ' In Scott's earliest draft of the stanzas, 
 the line ran 'Mary, mother, shield us well.' 
 
 6. wiglit] Creature, being (O.E. wiht). 
 
 8. idlesse] An archaic form of 'idleness.' 
 
 13. the rushy floor] The floor of the hall strewn with rushes, 
 as was customary in the middle ages and till a much later date. 
 
 14. the forest race] The forest is the wild hill-country lying 
 west of Branxholm, a southward continuation of Ettrick forest
 
 7 NOTES 103 
 
 which forms the watershed of southern Scotland. Teviot stone 
 (1. 15) is near the source of the Teviot, which flows eastward to 
 Hawick and joins the Tweed near Kelso. Eskdalemuir is at the 
 head of the White Esk, which, flowing southward, is joined by 
 the Black Esk, and enters the Solway firth near Longtown in 
 Cumberland. 
 
 16. Nine-and-twenty knights of fame] Relations and vas- 
 sals of the head of the house of Scott, who held their lands by the 
 tenure of military service under their chief. Scott was descended 
 from one of the branches of the family, the Scotts of Harden, and 
 commemorates his ancestor, Walter Scott, husband of Mary 
 Scott, the famous 'flower of Yarrow,' in canto iv, st. ix. 
 
 23. Buccleuch] The chief of the house of Scott was known, 
 as was customary in Scotland, by the name of his estate. The 
 barony of Buccleuch takes its name from a ravine in Ettrick 
 forest, near the confluence of the Rankle burn and Ettrick water. 
 Buccleuch, the cleugh or glen of the buck, was said to be so called 
 from the legend of the capture of a buck there by John of 
 Galloway, the traditional founder of the family, during a royal 
 hunt in the ninth century. Cf . canto vi, st. viii : 
 
 Since old Buccleuch the name did gain, ( 
 
 When in the cleuch the buck was ta'en. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch was created baron Scott of Buc- 
 cleuch in the peerage of Scotland in 1606. His son Walter was 
 created earl of Buccleuch in 161 9, and the duchy was created in 
 1673 in favour of Charles H's son James, duke of Monmouth, and 
 his wife Anne, younger daughter and, after the death of her elder 
 sister, sole heiress of the second earl. 
 
 25. belted, sword] Sword worn hanging from a belt round 
 the waist. 
 
 26. harness] Armour. 
 
 29. corslet laced] With their body-armour fastened in 
 readiness for any disturbance. 'Laced' applies strictly to the 
 quilted leather jerkin or hacqueton worn next the body, which 
 formed a stiff inner lining to the covering of plate armour.
 
 104 NOTES pp. 8- 
 
 36. wight] Active, fleet (O.E. wict, from the same root as 
 A.-S. wig=vfax). Cf. the Lay of Havelok the Dane, 344: 'He was 
 a fayr man, [and] a wict'; Chaucer, Cant. Tales, B, 3457: 'any 
 yong man, were he never so wight.' The word has no connexion 
 with 'wight,' 1. 6 above. 
 
 38. Barbed] Armed for war. Barde is a general French term 
 for horse-armour and the proper form of the word is 'barded,' 
 used by Scott in canto i, st. xxix: 'For he was barded from 
 counter to tail.' One of the blunders which led to the discovery 
 of Chatterton's forgeries was his use of the word 'barbed,' proper 
 to horses, to the walls of a hall hung with armour. 
 
 39. Jedwood-axe] The weapon used by the horsemen of the 
 neighbourhood of Jedburgh and known as a Jeddart staff. It was 
 a long-handled weapon with an axe-head : Scott describes it as a 
 sort of partisan, and refers to its representation in the shield-of- 
 arms of Jedburgh, where it is borne by a horseman. 
 
 41 . the custom] Used in the feudal sense, implying the manner 
 of service rendered by the knights of Branxholm to their superior. 
 
 42. dight] Prepared, arrayed, from A.-S. dihtan =to dispose, 
 arrange, derived from Lat. dictare. 
 
 46. St George's red cross] The sign of an English raid. 
 
 49. Scroop, or Howard, or Percy's powers] Three power- 
 ful northern English families. The Scropes were descended from 
 the judge sir Henry le Scrope (d. 1336), whose elder son Henry 
 founded the line of Scrope of Masham, while a younger son 
 Geoffrey founded that of Scrope of Bolton in Wensleydale. 
 Henry, ninth lord Scrope of Bolton, is famous as the warden of 
 the marches who suppressed the Rising of the North in 1569: he 
 was governor of 'merry Carhsle' (1. 51), the key ta the western 
 border, 1562-92. William Howard, third son of Thomas, fourth 
 duke of Norfolk, obtained Naworth castle and the Dacre lord- 
 ships in Cumberland by his marriage with EUzabeth Dacre in 
 1577: his great-grandson Charles was created earl of Carhsle in 
 1 66 1, and his descendants still own Naworth, on the left bank of 
 the small river Irthing. The Percys, earls of Northumberland, had 
 their chief strongholds at Alnwick and at Warkworth on the
 
 9 NOTES 105 
 
 Coquet. Although Scott sets his story about the year 1553, he 
 was here as elsewhere more careful to give it picturesque colouring 
 and atmosphere than strict accuracy. In 1553 none of the three 
 families mentioned were playing a prominent part in border war- 
 fare; and the connexion of the Howards with Naworth did not 
 begin till the marriage in 1577. Nevertheless, lord William 
 Howard, known as 'belted Will,' appears in The Lay of the Last 
 Minstrel as joint warden of the marches. 
 
 51. merry] A conventional ballad epithet applied to the 
 city. 
 
 58. Lord Walter] Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch was killed 
 in the streets of Edinburgh by his enemies, the Kerrs, in 1552. 
 The Kerrs, whose domains in Teviotdale were adjacent to those 
 of the Scotts, had taken part with the Douglases in the battle of 
 Melrose (1526) against sir Walter and his followers, whom 
 James V had secretly summoned to deliver him from the control 
 of his step-father and guardian, Archibald Douglas, earl of Angus. 
 The victory remained with Angus, but Kerr of Cessford, hotly 
 pursuing the defeated force of Buccleuch, was killed by a man 
 named Elliot. The feud between the Scotts and Kerrs, which 
 thus arose, lasted for many years afterwards: Scott mentions 
 that it gave rise to apprehensions as late as 1596. 
 
 61. Dunedin] The old name of Edinburgh (Edwin's burgh). 
 The foundation of Edinburgh is attributed to Edwin, king of 
 Northumbria (d. 633), who founded a small fortified outpost 
 there, upon the northern frontier of his kingdom. Dunedin is thus 
 said to mean Edwin's hill or fort; but ' -edin' by itself is probably 
 the Celtic eiddyn, i.e. high hill or fort. 
 
 63. slogan] The war-cry of a Scottish clan. The word is of 
 Highland origin, from Gael, sluaghgairm, literally 'host-shout.' 
 
 69. each holy shrine] Scott printed in Minstrelsy of the 
 Scottish Border, vol. i, an agreement entered into by the Scotts 
 and Kerrs in 1529, three years after the battle of Melrose, to 
 undertake a series of pilgrimages to the four chief shrines of 
 Scotland, at which each party should pray for the souls of its 
 slain enemies.
 
 I06 NOTES pp. 9- 
 
 73. Cessford] The two chief branches of the Kerrs or Carrs 
 were seated at Cessford in the parish of Morebattle, between the 
 Cheviots and Kelso, and at Ferniehirst in the Jed valley, two 
 miles above Jedburgh. From sir Robert Kerr of Cessford, created 
 earl of Roxburghe and baron Ker of Cessford and Caverstoun in 
 1616, the dukes of Roxburghe, whose second title is ' marquess of 
 Bowmont and Cessford,' are descended; while the marquesses of 
 Lothian take their origin from the Ferniehirst branch, the earl- 
 dom of Lothian having been originally created in favour of Mark 
 Kerr in 1606. 
 
 74. Ettrick] See note on 1. 23 ab6ve. Ettrick forest is the 
 hill district west of Selkirk. The Ettrick water joins Yarrow water 
 not far above Selkirk, where the Yarrow joins the Tweed. 
 
 II. Melrose by moonlight 
 
 From canto 11, stt. viii-xi. The 'monk of St Mary's aisle,' who 
 is charged with the secret of the tomb of Michael Scott, conducts 
 William of Deloraine into the abbey-church at dead of night to 
 open the tomb and extract the magic book. Scott's cavalier 
 treatment of history in the interests of romance is shewn by his 
 making the monk of St Mary's aisle the friend and confidant of 
 the philosopher-magician Michael Scott, who died about three 
 centuries before and is placed by Dante among the soothsayers 
 in Inferno, xx, 11 5-1 17. 
 
 4. the cloister-arches] The remains of the wall-arcades of 
 the cloister at Melrose, built about the end of the fourteenth 
 century, are decorated with a great variety of sculptured foliage, 
 carved in the hard red sandstone of the locality, of which the 
 abbey was built, and hardly affected by exposure to the weather. 
 The abbey was founded upon its present site by king David I in 
 1 136 for a colony of Cistercian monks from Rievaulx in York- 
 shire. It suffered greatly in the border wars and was entirely 
 rebuilt in the last quarter of the fourteenth and during the 
 fifteenth centuries, a period when Scottish architecture was re- 
 markable for the richness and beauty of its ornament. 
 
 7. the streamers light] The Aurora Borealis.
 
 10 NOTES 107 
 
 9. in fair Castile] We are told in st. vii that the monk had 
 been a warrior in his youth 'and fought in Spain and Italy.' 
 Scott's note on this passage quotes Froissart to illustrate the skill 
 of the Spanish knights in fighting on horseback with darts, an 
 art learned from the Moors and practised in the game called el 
 juego de las canas, i.e. dart-play. 
 
 II. jennet] The small horse used by the Spanish light 
 cavalry. Sp. jinete, probably of Arabic origin —a horseman: the 
 word 'jennet' (Fr. genet) was applied from the man to his char- 
 acteristic steed. 
 
 15. postern-door] The principal doorway by which the 
 church at Melrose was entered from the cloister remains in the 
 north aisle of the nave of the abbey-church, as is usual in monastic 
 buildings. Scott imagines the monk to live by himself in a separate 
 cell: this was not unusual towards the end of the middle ages, 
 but Cistercian monks, like those of other religious orders, the 
 Carthusians excepted, slept in the common dormitory or dorter 
 on the upper floor of the range of buildings adjoining the church, 
 and their only way into church by night was by an upper doorway 
 and stair communicating with the north transept. 
 
 17. The darken'd roof] The church was vaulted throughout 
 in stone. Some of the vaulting still remains in the aisles, and a 
 large number of bosses and key-stones, such as are described by 
 Scott, remain among the ruins. The church was ruined during 
 the Scottish reformation: in 1618 the middle portion was turned 
 into a Presbyterian church and roofed over with a heavy vault 
 which still remains. 
 
 19. each ribb6d aisle] Each bay or division of the vault 
 was, according to the medieval practice, built on a framework of 
 arches or ribs, the two ribs which crossed the compartment diagon- 
 ally and bore the main weight of the vault meeting in a carved 
 keystone common to both. ' Aisle '= an alley or passage, usually 
 applied to the lateral portions of a church on each side of its 
 broad main divisions. 
 
 20. quatre-feuille] A four-leaved ornament, imitated from 
 foliage. At Melrose the favourite form of foliage used by the
 
 io8 NOTES pp. 10- 
 
 masons was the curly kale, frequently imitated in Scottish build- 
 ings. 
 
 21. corbells] Projecting bracket-like ornaments (Fr. cor- 
 beille = a basket) used as terminations to vaulting-shafts, or sup- 
 ports for arches, statues or the timbers of a roof. They are often 
 carved in the shape of grotesque heads. 
 
 25. scutcheon] Shield (Fr. Scusson). Scott refers to the 
 armour, used as part of the trappings of a knight's funeral and 
 afterwards hung up over his tomb, like the Black prince's funeral- 
 armour at Canterbury. 
 
 30, 31. The 'gallant Chief of Otterburne' was James, second 
 earl of Douglas, who was killed in the battle of Otterburn in 
 Northumberland, 15 August, 1388. The Scots defeated Henry 
 Percy, called 'Hotspur,' the son of the first earl of Northumber- 
 land, but Douglas died before the battle was won. The ' dark 
 knight of Liddesdale' was sir William Douglas, known as 'the 
 flower of chivalry,' whose stronghold was Hermitage castle on a 
 tributary of the Liddel, which flows down Liddesdale to join the 
 Esk on the English border near Longtown. The epithet ' dark ' is 
 applied to him on account of his treacherous murder by starvation 
 of sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie, to whom David II had 
 granted the wardenship of Roxburgh castle, an office actually 
 held by Douglas. He, in his turn, was murdered in Ettrick forest 
 in 1353 by his kinsman William, first earl of Douglas, the father 
 of the victor of Otterburn. Both the persons alluded to were 
 buried in Melrose abbey, near the high altar; but their tombs 
 had been desecrated by the English under lord Eure and sir 
 Brian Layton in February 1544-5, some seven to eight years 
 before the date of this story. Eure and Layton both perished 
 two days later at the battle of Ancrum moor, and Eure's and 
 probably Layton's bodies were brought back to Melrose for 
 burial. 
 
 34. the east oriel] The east window of the abbey-church, of 
 which the broken tracery remains. The word 'oriel' is usually 
 applied to a window of polygonal form, and, in its primary use, 
 to such a window projecting upon corbels or brackets from an
 
 12 NOTES 109 
 
 upper story, which in neither respect suits the present case. 
 Scott's description of the tracery was influenced by the fantastic 
 theories of his friend sir James Hail of Dunglas, who attempted 
 to derive window-tracery from 'an architectural imitation of 
 wicker-work.' Such tracery is actually one result of the scientific 
 lightening and distribution of pressure of the stone roof, which 
 enabled the construction of large window-openings filled with a 
 thin framework of stone in the spaces between the points, at 
 regular intervals, to which the vault-ribs communicated the 
 pressure. 
 
 46. Triumphant Michael] Scott's description of the win- 
 dow-glass is imaginary, and the figure of St Michael is introduced, 
 as is shewn in the sequel, that his red cross may cast its light on 
 the grave of Michael Scott. In medieval churches, the repre- 
 sentation of St Michael, at any rate 'full in the midst,' was 
 seldom found in an east window: it occupied the middle of the 
 lower part of the west window, which was very commonly a 
 picture of the Last Judgment. The red cross also is not an attri- 
 bute of St Michael, to whom Scott here has transferred the proper 
 attribute of St George, the horseman trampling on the dragon. 
 St Michael is usually represented standing upon the arch-enemy, 
 whom he transfixes with his lance, while he holds in his left hand 
 the balance for weighing souls. 
 
 III. The Bale-Fire 
 
 From canto in, stt. xxix, xxx. The bale-fire (bale=O.E. bcBl, 
 which means a great fire, commonly applied to funeral pyres) 
 has been lighted on the beacons between Branxholm and the 
 English border, warning the Scots of the raid from Cumberland, 
 and the seneschal or steward of the castle has ordered Gilbert the 
 page to light the castle-beacon. 
 
 2. need-fire] The beacon, lighted as need required; strictly, 
 in the modern sense, a fire lighted by rubbing dry pieces of wood 
 together, i.e., in cases of necessity, where other means are absent. 
 
 13. tarn] A small mountain-lake, from old Norse tjorn. 
 
 14. earn] The erne or golden eagle (O.E. earn).
 
 110 NOTES pp. 12- 
 
 15. cairn] A loose pile of stones on the top of a hill, tradition- 
 ally supposed, like the cairn of Dunmail raise, between Ambleside 
 and Keswick, to mark the burial-place of chieftains. 
 
 17. Dunedin] See note on 1. 61, p. 105 above. 
 
 18. Soltra and Dumpender Law] Soltra = Soutra hill, the 
 most westerly of the Lammermuir hills, about 15 miles S.E. of 
 Edinburgh. Dumpender, now known as Traprain, Law (law = 
 O.K. hlaew, a small hill), is an isolated hill between Haddington 
 and Dunbar, about 20 miles E. of Edinburgh. 
 
 19. Lothian] The district south of the firth of Forth, com- 
 prising the three shires of Linlithgow, Edinburgh and Hadding- 
 ton, known respectively as West, Mid and East Lothian. 
 
 th.e Regent] In 1552-3 the regent of Scotland for the young 
 queen Mary, then in France, was James Hamilton, second earl of 
 Arran and duke of Chatelherault, who had been made regent in 
 1542. He abdicated the regency in 1554, when it was assumed by 
 the queen-mother Mary of Guise. 
 
 20. bo'wne them] Prepare themselves, a verb formed from 
 the old adjective 'bown' = ready. 
 
 24. larum] Alarm. 
 
 27. keep] The principal tower of a castle, usually called in 
 the middle ages the 'great tower,' which was provided with 
 special defences, so as to hold out upon its own account, in case 
 the rest of the castle were taken. The word 'keep' in this sense is 
 comparatively modern and was unknown in the age when castles 
 played their part in warfare. After the middle of the thirteenth 
 century, owing to improvements in the defence of the outer walls 
 of castles, the keep disappeared or became merely the most 
 prominent of many towers; but in the north it survived for long 
 in the form of the tower generally attached to the 'pele' or 
 fortified enclosure, and there are fine late examples in other parts 
 of England, notably in the eastern midlands. 
 
 30. -ward] The open space within the walls of a castle, known 
 in early times as the bailey (ballium = stockaded enclosure) . 
 Larger castles were divided into more than one ward by inner 
 walls or gatehouses. Thus at Windsor castle the lower or entrance
 
 15 NOTES III 
 
 ward, in which is St George's chapel, is divided from the upper 
 ward, in which is the royal palace, by the mount or artificial 
 hillock on which stands the keep or Round tower; and by the 
 narrow middle ward, forming the means of access from the lower 
 to the upper. 
 
 32. ban-dog] Mastiff, properly band-dog, from the band, 
 chain or leash in which it was held. 
 
 IV. Caledonia 
 
 From canto vi, stt. i, ii. These introductory lines, full of Scott's 
 passionate love for his native country, are the prelude to the 
 concluding portion of the minstrel's story. They are spoken, of 
 course, in the person of the minstrel, the last survivor of a bygone 
 age of song. 
 
 17. Caledonia] The Latin name for Scotland, said to be 
 derived from the Celtic name of its early inhabitants, the coill- 
 duinnhe, or men of the woods. 
 
 30. Yarrow's stream] The Yarrow joins the Tweed near 
 Selkirk. Wordsworth made it the subject of three poems, the 
 first and most beautiful of which. Yarrow Unvisited, had been 
 written in 1803, before the appearance of The Lay of the Last 
 Minstrel. See Selections from Wordsworth, pp. 131, 150. 
 
 32. Ettrick] See note on 1. 74, p. 106 above. 
 
 34. Teviot Stone] See note on 1. 14, p. 103 above. 
 
 V. The Song of Albert Gr^me 
 
 From canto vi, stt. xi, xii. The song sung at the betrothal 
 feast of Cranstoun and Margaret Scott by the minstrel of the 
 Grimes or Grahams, a branch of which family was settled in the 
 'Debateable land,' the strip of country between the rivers Esk 
 and Sark, north of Carlisle, in which was fought in 1542 the battle 
 of Solway moss. Scott adapted the refrains of his ballad from an 
 old Scottish song of which the refrains were ' The sun shines fair 
 on Carlisle wa' ' and ' And the lyon shall be lord of a'.' 
 
 17. she had. not tasted well] I.e. she had hardly tasted. 
 
 25. he took the cross divine] He became a crusader.
 
 112 NOTES pp. 15- 
 
 VI. Harold's Song 
 
 From canto vi, xxiii. The singer of this ballad at the betrothal- 
 feast is Harold, the bard of the house of Sinclair (St Clair). 
 Scott makes Harold a native of the Orkney isles. The Sinclairs 
 obtained the earldom of Orkney from the crown of Norway in 
 1379. Sir William Sinclair, the third earl, was created earl of 
 Caithness by James II of Scotland in 1455, and in 1471 exchanged 
 the earldom of Orkney with James III for estates in Fife, of 
 which Ravensheuch (1. 7), now called Ravenscraig, castle, formed 
 the chief member. The castle stands on the north shore of the 
 firth of Forth (1. 8), close to Pathhead, between the royal burghs 
 of Kirkcaldy and Dysart: the name of its owners is preserved 
 in an adjoining place called Sinclairtown. Rosslyn, eight miles 
 south of Edinburgh, belonged to the Sinclairs, who were of 
 Norman origin, from an early period. The castle, on a rock above 
 the North Esk river (1. 29), was rebuilt in the first half of the 
 fourteenth century. The famous collegiate church of St Matthew, 
 known as Rosslyn chapel (1. 33), was begun in 1446 by the third 
 earl of Orkney, and continued by his son William, the second 
 earl of Caithness: the quire alone was built, a transept being 
 begun but left unfinished. At the supposed date of Scott's story, 
 the head of the house of Sinclair was George, fourth earl of 
 Caithness (d. 1582). 
 
 4. Rosabelle] The name was common in the Sinclair family. 
 It was derived from Rosabel, daughter of Malise, earl of Strath- 
 earn, who married one of the early lords of Rosslyn. 
 
 II. the Water-Sprite] For the personification of water- 
 spirits, see note on 1. 129, p. 174 below. Cf. the White Lady's song 
 in The Monastery, ch. v, 11. 23, 24: 
 
 The Kelpy has risen from his fathomless pool. 
 He has lighted his candle of death and of dool. 
 
 13. the gifted Seer] Cf. the allusions to the second sight 
 with which Scottish seers were traditionally gifted in note on 
 1. 42, p. 170 below.
 
 17 NOTES 113 
 
 17. Lord Lindesay's heir] The persons of this poem belong 
 to Scott's imagination. Sir John Lindsay, ancestor of the Scottish 
 earls of Lindsay, was created lord Lindsay of the Byers in 1445: 
 the family was a younger branch of the house of Lindsay, the 
 elder branch being that of the earls of Crawford, a title obtained 
 in 1398. 
 
 26. A ■wondrous blaze] Scott notes the tradition that 
 Rosslyn chapel ' is said to appear on fire on the death ' of any of 
 the founder's descendants, and traces it to a probably Scan- 
 dinavian origin, from which it ' may have been imported by the 
 Earls of Orkney into their Lothian dominions.' 
 
 31. Dryden] Dryden park lies north of Rosslyn. 
 
 32. cavern 'd Hawthornden] Hawthornden is north-east of 
 Rosslyn, upon the right bank of the North Esk (see note on 1. 46, 
 p. 98 above). The house, famous as the residence of the poet 
 William Drummond (i 585-1 649), is on the edge of a red sandstone 
 cliff, hollowed out into caves, above the river. 
 
 34. uncoflfin'd] The Sinclairs were buried in their armour in 
 the vault at the east end of Rosslyn chapel. The Memoirs of John, 
 master of St Clair, quoted by Scott, state that his father, who 
 died late in the seventeenth century, was the first of the family 
 to be buried in a coffin. 
 
 38. altar's pale] The screened enclosure surrounding an altar. 
 
 39. foliage-bound] Scott alludes to ' the profuse carving on 
 the pillars and buttresses' of Rosslyn chapel, and especially to 
 the ' Prentice pillar, ' which is carved with a spiral band of flowers 
 and leaves, surrounding it from capital to base. 
 
 42. rose-carv'd] The rose, in the sculptures of the chapel, 
 alludes to the supposed derivation of the name of Rosslyn. The 
 word, however, is actually Celtic, and means ' the promontory of 
 the linn' [linnhe = waterfall or rapids). 
 
 VII. Hymn for the Dead 
 
 From canto vi, xxxi. This imposing hymn, much of the effect 
 of which is due to the solemn monotony of its rhymes, concludes 
 the minstrel's story, and is sung at a mass for the dead in Melrose 
 
 T s. 8
 
 114 NOTES pp. 17- 
 
 abbey. The theme is derived from the famous hymn, Dies irae, 
 dies ilia, attributed to the Franciscan friar, Thomas of Celano, 
 the friend and biographer of St Francis, whicli is sung at a 
 requiem mass as the sequence before the gospel is read. It was 
 justly appreciated by Scott, who (Lockhart, Life of Scott, oh. 
 Ixxxiii) always delighted in 'the magnificent hymns' of the 
 medieval church: on his death-bed he lay murmuring some of 
 them to himself, and ' we very often heard distinctly the cadence 
 of the Dies Irae.' The present hymn sums up briefly the general 
 spirit of the original, without translating it or reproducing its 
 form, and 11. 5, 6 have no counterpart in the Latin. Scott's power, 
 however, in reproducing phrases and imagery, may be estimated 
 by comparing 11. 7, 8 with the third stanza of Dies irae, 
 
 Tuba mirum spargens sonum 
 
 Per sepulchra regionum 
 
 Coget omnes ante thronum. 
 The first line occurs in the form ' The day of wrath, that dreadful 
 day ' in the translation of Dies irae by Wentworth Dillon, earl of 
 Roscommon (d. 1685). 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM MARMION 
 
 Marmion : a tale of Flodden Field, Scott's second narrative in 
 
 verse, was published in 1808 and dedicated to Henry, lord 
 
 Montagu of Boughton, second son of Henry, third duke of Buc- 
 
 cleuch. Each of the six cantos is prefixed by a long dedicatory 
 
 poem, each of which is addressed to one of Scott's antiquarian 
 
 friends. The greater part of the poem was composed at Ashestiel 
 
 in Ettrick forest, Scott's country home from the summer of 1804 
 
 until his removal to Abbotsford in 181 2. 
 
 The defeat and death of James IV of Scotland at Flodden 
 
 (1513), in conflict with the English army led by Thomas Howard, 
 
 earl of Surrey and afterwards third duke of Norfolk, form the 
 
 historical basis of the poem, which is otherwise pure romance. 
 
 The name of Marmion, 
 
 Lord of Fontenaye, 
 
 Of Lutterward, and Scrivelbaye, 
 
 Of Tamworth tower and town.
 
 l8 NOTES 115 
 
 was probably selected by Scott for its chivalrous sound, and he was 
 ' entirely a fictitious personage.' He says: ' I have. . .not created 
 a new family, but only revived the titles of an old one in an 
 imaginary personage.' The family of Marmion (usually spelt in 
 English Marmyun) came from Fontenay-le-Marmion (Calvados), 
 between Caen and Falaise. Robert Marmion obtained the lord- 
 ship of Tamworth, Staffs., and the manor of Scrivelsby, Lines., 
 from the Conqueror; but his male line died out with Philip 
 Marmion, who died in 1291-2. Lutterward, i.e. Lutterworth, 
 Leics., never belonged to the Marmions: Scott seems to have 
 included it because it was part of the possessions of the family of 
 Ferrers, who succeeded in process of time to the lordship of 
 Tamworth. At the time of Flodden, however, Tamworth be- 
 longed to the Ferrers family, Scrivelsby to the Dymokes, and 
 Lutterworth had passed from the house of Ferrers to that of 
 Grey. 
 
 Canto I, The Castle, describes the visit of Marmion to Norham 
 castle, on his way to the court of Scotland, where he is charged 
 with an embassy to learn the meaning of James IV's warlike 
 preparations. He departs under guidance of a Palmer or pilgrim, 
 who is undertaking a journey to the shrines of Scotland. The 
 change of scene in canto 11, The Convent, has been prepared for 
 by the questions of the constable of Norham as to the absence 
 of a page of Marmion's from his company. "When Marmion leaves 
 Norham, a ship is on its way from Whitby to Lindisfarne, con- 
 veying the abbess of Whitby and her nuns on a visit. The abbess 
 here sits in judgment with the abbot of Lindisfarne and the 
 prioress of Tynemouth upon an apostate nun and monk. The nun, 
 Constance de Beverley, disguised in a page's dress, has left her 
 monastery for love of Marmion and has been deserted by him for 
 the heiress Clare, a ward of the Crown, whom he woos for her 
 lands. Constance tells how Marmion accused Clare's betrothed 
 lover, De Wilton, of treason, and overthrew him in single combat, 
 and produces a packet of letters to prove Marmion's guilt. 
 Clare, meanwhile, had taken refuge at Whitby from the king's 
 attempt to force her marriage with Marmion, and is actually at 
 
 8—2
 
 Il6 NOTES p. 
 
 Lindisfarne with the abbess. Constance confesses that she had 
 attempted to poison Clare with the aid of the 'caitiff monk.' 
 The two criminals are walled up alive, Constance using her last 
 opportunity of speech in prophesying the doom of the monasteries. 
 
 Although it is necessary to the progress of the story and con- 
 tains much fine poetry, canto ii is a serious blot upon the poem. 
 Its personages and incidents are not merely imaginary, but en- 
 tirely false to the history of the times ; and Scott, instead of pro- 
 ducing a picture which is generally true of the period of which he 
 wrote, chose to rely entirely upon his fancy, with a result that 
 to the ordinary reader of the poem is misleading, and to anyone 
 who is acquainted with the general subject is merely grotesque. 
 
 In canto iii, The Hostel, or Inn, Marmion continues his journey. 
 At Gifford, near Haddington, he spends the night in an inn, 
 where his conscience is stung by the page Fitz-Eustace's rendering 
 of Constance's favourite song. As this lay of forsaken love ends, 
 Marmion seems to hear a passing-bell and, asking what this may 
 mean, is answered by the Palmer, who hitherto has not broken 
 silence, with the ominous words, 'The death of a dear friend.' 
 The Host then tells the local legend of the combat of Alexander III 
 of Scotland in an enchanted Pictish earthwork with a spirit in 
 the form of Edward I, in which he compelled his foe to shew him 
 visions of the future, but received a wound which bled yearly on 
 the anniversary of the fight. Marmion's superstition is aroused 
 by this story. At dead of night he visits the Pictish camp, and 
 Fitz-Eustace, awaiting his return, sees him ride back headlong 
 and is mystified by the discovery that he has had a fall on the 
 moor. Canto iv, The Camp, opens with the mysterious illness of 
 Marmion's horse, Bevis, in the inn stable. Marmion affects to 
 disregard the tale that the horse has been fairy-ridden and pro- 
 ceeds on his way until, on the banks of the Tyne, he meets sir 
 David Lindsay, Lyon king-at-arms, who conducts him to Crichton 
 castle, the place chosen by James IV for his entertainment. Here 
 sir David tells him the story of the Scottish king's recent vision 
 of St John, and Marmion confides to him the secret of his adven- 
 ture in the Pictish camp at Gifford, relating how he has encoun-
 
 1 8 NOTES 117 
 
 tered and been overthrown by a fairy knight in the appearance 
 of his mortal enemy, whose name we know to be De Wilton. 
 From Crichton they journey towards Edinburgh, and, from the 
 brow of Blackford hill, see the whole host of Scotland encamped 
 upon the plain south of the city. In canto v. The Court, they 
 pass through the camp and meet the king at Holyrood palace. 
 Here James declares his intention of invading England, and 
 announces that he is going to send Marmion under the escort of 
 Archibald Douglas, earl of Angus, to Tantallon castle, together 
 with a company of English nuns who have been captured at sea 
 and are to be sent back to England in Marmion's charge. These 
 nuns are, of course, the nuns from Whitby, among whom is Clare. 
 The abbess contrives to meet the Palmer at night and entrusts 
 to him the packet of letters which prove that the papers alleged 
 to be evidence of De Wilton's treason had been forged by Con- 
 stance. At the end of their meeting, they see a vision of a phantom 
 proclamation at the High cross of Edinburgh, summoning the 
 future victims of Flodden to their doom beyond the grave. 
 Next morning, the party goes to Tantallon; but before arriving 
 there, Clare is separated from the rest of the nuns, to be con- 
 signed to the care of lady Angus before returning to her home in 
 England. While they remain at Tantallon, news comes that 
 James has taken Norham and other Border castles and that 
 battle is imminent. 
 
 The last canto, The Battle, opens at Tantallon. Here the Palmer, 
 who is of course De Wilton, tells the story of Marmion's perfidy 
 to Angus and asks him to give him knighthood, so that he may 
 go to the English camp and demand justice. This he relates to 
 Clare, who finds him one night on the battlements, guarding his 
 armour before the ceremony of knighthood takes place. She 
 attends the ceremony and arrays him in the armour, lent him by 
 Angus, which had been worn by the earl's ancestor at Otterburn 
 (see note on 11. 30, 31, p. 108 above). Next morning Marmion, with 
 Clare in his charge, leaves the castle for the English army: Angus 
 refuses to clasp his hand, and Marmion, defjdng him, narrowly 
 escapes detention at Tantallon. On his way, he misses the Palmer
 
 Ii8 NOTES pp. i8- 
 
 and learns that he has ridden away in armour at dawn : Marmion 
 realises that the Palmer is De Wilton and that his antagonist at 
 Gifford was no phantom. He reaches the field of Flodden, where 
 he leaves Clare in the care of his pages and some archers on a 
 hill by a stone cross, instructing them to make for Berwick in 
 case of danger. Here they watch the battle until the Scottish 
 right wing overpowers the English and Marmion is dismounted, 
 when Clare's escort ride to his rescue and leave her alone. Mar- 
 mion, wounded to death, is brought to Clare, and dies, tended by 
 her and a monk. De Wilton bears himself nobly in the battle, 
 and, after the defeat of the Scots, wins Clare's hand, the wedding 
 ceremony being performed at court by Wolsey, in the presence 
 of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon. In spite of Marmion's 
 base conduct, Scott has some tenderness for his bravery; but, 
 with a final stroke of retributive justice, he leaves him to be 
 buried in a nameless grave at Flodden, while the body of one of 
 his humble retainers is mistaken for his and buried beneath a 
 splendid tomb in Lichfield cathedral. 
 
 The metre throughout is more regular than that of The Lay of 
 the Last Minstrel, being in the main the octosyllabic couplet, 
 frequently broken by seven-syllable lines which rhyme at irregu- 
 lar intervals. If it has not the full freshness and picturesque 
 variety of the earlier poem, it is superior to it in its vigorous 
 eloquence, and the magnificent pictures of the camp at Edinburgh, 
 the scenes at Tantallon and the culminating description of the 
 battle of Flodden have made it the most popular of Scott's 
 narratives in verse. 
 
 I. NoRHAM Castle 
 
 From canto i, i, ii. Norham castle is in Northumberland, on a 
 steep hill upon the south bank of the Tweed. It belonged to the 
 bishops of Durham, and the stone castle, of which the ruins re- 
 main, was begun by Ranulf Flambard, bishop 1099- 1 128. After 
 a very varied history and much rebuilding, which was due to the 
 constant injury caused by Scottish attacks, it was given up to 
 the Crown in 1559. It is six miles S.W. of Berwick-on-Tweed :
 
 19 NOTES 119 
 
 the episcopal estates of which it formed the head were an isolated 
 portion of the county palatine of Durham known as Norham- 
 shire. 
 
 3. Cheviot] The Cheviot hills rise some twelve miles S. and 
 S.W. of Norham, on the borders of Northumberland and Rox- 
 burghshire. 
 
 4. battled] Embattled. 
 
 the donjon keep] For ' keep ' see note on 1. 27, p. no above. 
 The great tower or keep was often called the donjon, a word 
 derived from the late Latin dunio, which was applied to the 
 moated mount forming part of the earthworks of an early castle. 
 The top of this artificial hillock, as may be seen from several 
 representations in the Bayeux tapestry, was surrounded by a 
 wooden stockade, within which was built a tower of timber, 
 intended to be a place of final defence in case the main area or 
 bailey of the castle was taken. In process of time wooden forti- 
 fications were superseded by defences of stone, when the great 
 tower of a castle, whether built upon a mount or not, occupied 
 the same position and was known as a donjon. In EngUsh the 
 word took the form 'dungeon,' which is often applied to such 
 towers and, by a later use, was specially given to the vaulted 
 cellars in their basements. These were more often store-rooms 
 than prisons, so that the use of 'dungeon' as synonymous with 
 'prison' comes rather from their more recent employment than 
 from their original purpose. The great tower at Norham, of which 
 three sides and the basement vaults remain, is said to have been 
 begun by bishop Flambard ; but the greater portion of it appears 
 to belong to the age of bishop Hugh Puiset (i 153-95)- 
 
 14. Saint George's banner] The banner of the patron saint 
 of England. Norham stood on the very edge of the kingdom: 
 the opposite bank of the Tweed is in Scotland. 
 
 II. 'The lordly strand of Northumberland' 
 
 From canto 11, viii, ix. Scott describes the northward voyage 
 of the abbess and her nuns. The passage is a good example of his 
 power of inspiring a catalogue of names with poetic interest.
 
 120 NOTES pp. 19- 
 
 Each of these names had for him its own historical and romantic 
 association, which he contrives to communicate to his readers. 
 
 4. the nuns] Scott makes his abbess and nuns come from 
 Whitby. In early Saxon times there was a monastery at "Whitby 
 presided over by the abbess St Hilda; but the later abbey of 
 Whitby, whose ruins remain upon the clifE above the town, was a 
 monastery of monks not of nuns. 
 
 5. Monk-Wearmouth] On the north bank of the Wear, 
 opposite Sunderland and the bishop of Durham's manor of 
 Bishop- Wearmouth. The monastery of Wearmouth, of which a 
 large portion of the church remains, was founded in 674 by Benet 
 Biscop, the first abbot. The story of its foundation is told at 
 length by the Venerable Bede in his Hisioria Abhatum. Bede was 
 a native of the place and spent most of his life in the monastery 
 of Jarrow, a few miles away, which was under the same abbot. 
 About 1075 the two monasteries were revived as cells or sub- 
 ordinate priories to the cathedral priory of Durham. 
 
 6. Tynemouth's priory] The ruins of Tynemouth priory 
 stand upon the headland on the north side of the mouth of the 
 Tyne. The priory of St Mary and St Oswin, probably on the site 
 of a Saxon monastery, was founded in 1074; but, about 1085, it 
 was granted by Robert Mowbray, earl of Northumberland, to 
 the abbot and convent of St Albans in Hertfordshire, and from 
 that time onwards was a cell of that distant monastery. Scott, 
 whose knowledge of monastic history was extremely vague, 
 makes the same mistake as in the case of Whitby (see note on 
 1. 4 above) and introduces a 'prioress' of Tynemouth into the 
 conclave at Holy Island. 
 
 8. Seaton-Delaval] Seaton Delaval hall stands near the coast, 
 about three miles south-west of Blyth. It was owned by the family 
 of Delaval from a period soon after the Norman conquest: John 
 Horsley, who married the heiress of the Delavals temp. Henry VII, 
 took the name of Delaval. The present hall was begun in 1718 by 
 admiral George Delaval: the architect was sir John Vanbrugh. 
 The main building was entirely gutted by fire in 1822 and has 
 never been restored for occupation.
 
 20 NOTES 121 
 
 9. the Blythe and Wansbeck floods] The Blyth river enters 
 the sea at the port of Blyth. The mouth of the Wansbeck is 
 about three miles higher up the coast. Both rivers, in common 
 with most of the streams of the north-east of England, run 
 through deeply sunken valleys among thick woods. The town of 
 Morpeth lies in a wide opening of the Wansbeck valley, about 
 seven miles above its mouth. 
 
 II. Widderington] Widdrington castle is eight miles north- 
 east of Morpeth, near Druridge bay. The old castle was destroyed 
 towards the end of the eighteenth century. The Widdringtons 
 were a famous family in Northumbrian ballad lore. The most 
 celebrated allusion to them occurs in Chevy Chase : 
 
 For Wetharryngton my harte was wo. 
 
 That ever he slayne shulde be; 
 For when both his leggis wear hewyne in to, 
 
 Yet he knyled and fought on hys kne. 
 
 13. Goquet-isle] Opposite the mouth of the river Coquet. 
 There was a small Benedictine monastery on the island, a cell 
 belonging to Tynemouth priory. 
 
 15. the Alne] The mouth of the Aln, which gives its name to 
 Alnwick, is about four miles north of the mouth of the Coquet. 
 
 16. Warkworth] See note on 1. 49, p. 104 above. Warkworth 
 castle stands upon a hill on the right bank of the Coquet, round 
 which the river sweeps in a horse-shoe curve, one of the finest 
 castle-sites in England. The small town is sheltered upon a 
 narrow tongue of land between the hill and the river. 
 
 20. Dunstanborough] The castle of Dunstanburgh is on a 
 basaltic promontory between Alnmouth and Bamburgh. Its 
 ruins are in the main those of a castle built by Thomas, earl of 
 Lancaster, about 13 15. On the east side of the castle is the chasm 
 known as the Rumble Churn, forming the entrance to a cavern 
 beneath the rock: at high tide the waves rise in great masses of 
 spray above the sides of this narrow rift. 
 
 21. Bamborough] The basaltic rock of Bamburgh (Bebban- 
 burh, the burh or fortified enclosure of Bebba, the queen of Ida)
 
 122 NOTES pp. 20- 
 
 was stockaded by Ida, king of Northumbria 547-59. and formed 
 the capital of his kingdom. The great castle, still inhabited, was 
 founded by Robert Mowbray, earl of Northumberland, in the 
 eleventh century. It was ceded to Henry II by Malcolm, king of 
 Scotland, in 1157, and soon afterwards the rectangular great 
 tower or keep, which occupies the highest point of the site, was 
 begun. 
 
 26. Holy Island] The isle of Lindisfarne, separated from the 
 mainland by some three miles of sands, which are covered at 
 high water (see 11. 27-34), was chosen by St Aidan in 634 as the 
 site of the monastery from which he ruled his Northumbrian 
 bishopric. St Cuthbert, who was a monk of Lindisfarne 664-71, 
 was bishop of Lindisfarne 685-7, and the place became peculiarly 
 associated with his sanctity. He was buried at Lindisfarne; but 
 his remains were removed during the invasions of the Danes 
 and, after their long wanderings (see notes on the next selected 
 passage), eventually found a resting-place at Durham. The island 
 became a dependency of the cathedral priory of Durham, and 
 the ruins which remain are those of the priory, the church of 
 which was begun about 1093. Scott invents an abbot of Holy 
 Island: the head of the priory was a prior appointed by the 
 prior of Durham. The ruins stand upon low ground on the south 
 shore of the island; while the castle (1. 37), a small fortress built 
 early in the sixteenth century by John Castell, prior of Durham, 
 is on the top of an isolated rock called the Beblowe, at the south- 
 west corner of the island. 
 
 28. the Saint] St Cuthbert. 
 
 30. continent] The mainland. 
 
 39. dark-red pile] The priory ruins are of the deep red 
 sandstone employed also at Bamburgh castle and in most of the 
 buildings of the Border district. 
 
 III. The Saint of Holy Island 
 
 From canto 11, xiv-xvi. For St Cuthbert see note on 1. 26 
 of the preceding passage. 
 
 I. Saint Cuthbert 's daughters] The nuns of Lindisfarne.
 
 21 NOTES 123 
 
 There were, however, no nuns there. Scott makes the same mis- 
 take in this case as in the cases of Whitby and Tynemouth (see 
 notes on 11. 4, 6, p. 120 above). 
 
 2. these] The nuns who had been relating the glories of 
 Whitby abbey. 
 
 3-26. In 875 Eardulf, the bishop, and a remnant of the clergy 
 of Lindisfarne fled from the island during the devastation of 
 Northumbria by the Danes, taking with them the body of St 
 Cuthbert in its stone cofhn. They wandered for seven years with 
 little rest through the north of England until in 882 they settled 
 at Chester-le-Street (1. 20), to which the seat of the bishops of 
 Lindisfarne was transferred. In 995, threatened by another 
 Danish invasion, the saint's body was removed to Ripon. Three 
 or four months later it was brought back to Chester-le-Street. 
 The story was that, on coming to a place called Wardlaw, east 
 of Durham, the wain which bore the cof&n stuck fast and could 
 not be moved, which was taken as a sign that the saint wished 
 to find a new home. It was revealed in a vision to a monk named 
 Eadmer that the appointed place was called Dunholme; and a 
 further legend told how this spot, the future Durham, was dis- 
 covered. Bishop Aldhun and his clergy settled at Durham, and 
 St Cuthbert found permanent rest, with the exception of one 
 short interval (see note on 1. 42 below) in the cathedral priory 
 church, the present building of which was begun by the Norman 
 bishop William of Saint-Calais nearly a century after their settle- 
 ment on the site. 
 
 10. Melrose] St Cuthbert had been a monk and prior of the 
 early monastery at Melrose. The story of the visit to Melrose and 
 the miraculous passage of the coffin down the Tweed to Tillmouth 
 had no place in the medieval traditions of the saint's wanderings 
 and does not occur earlier than the eighteenth century. 
 
 17. Tilmouth cell] A ruined chapel dedicated to St Cuthbert 
 stands on the left bank of the Till at its confluence with the Tweed 
 between Coldstream and Norham. A stone coffin was preserved 
 here, which gave rise to the legend mentioned above; and the 
 neighbourhood was associated with the traditions of the flight
 
 124 NOTES pp. 21- 
 
 from Lindisfarne. In canto vi, after the battle of Flodden, Clare 
 
 is taken for safety to 
 
 the chapel fair, 
 
 Of Tilmouth upon Tweed. 
 
 27-32. Scott refers to the tradition that the Northumbrian 
 Roman Catholics kept the precise spot of the saint's burial a 
 secret, which was committed to only three persons at a time. 
 When one of them died, the two survivors chose a third to fill 
 his place. The body, however, was never removed from its final 
 resting-place at the back of the high altar in Durham cathedral : 
 the tomb was opened and the remains examined in 1827, and 
 once again in recent years, with results that left no reason for 
 doubt. 
 
 34. Scotland's dauntless king, and heir] David I of Scot- 
 land and his son Henry, who were defeated in 1138 at the battle 
 of the Standard on Cowton moor, near Northallerton. The battle 
 received its name from the standards of St Peter of York, St 
 Cuthbert of Durham, St Wilfrid of Ripon and St John of Beverley, 
 which were carried on waggons in the middle of the English army. 
 
 36. GalAvegians] Men of Galloway. 
 
 37. Lodon] Lothian. See note on 1. 19, p. no above. 
 
 41. Alfred's falchion] The chronicler Symeon of Durham 
 (lib. II, cap. xxv) tells how, while Alfred the great was in hiding 
 in the marshes of Glastonbury, St Cuthbert appeared to him in a 
 vision and encouraged him to victory over the Danes. 
 
 42. the Conqueror] When William I laid waste the north of 
 England in 1069, bishop Egelwin fled from Durham to Lindisfarne 
 with the saint's body. It was brought back to Durham in March 
 1070. In 1072 the Conqueror, returning from Scotland, came to 
 Durham and demanded with threats to see the body. It was said 
 that, before his wish could be accomplished, he was seized with 
 an intolerable high fever, and, recognising that he had incurred 
 the wrath of the saint, fled southwards in hot haste, never stopping 
 till he reached the Tees. 
 
 48. The sea-born beads] The ammonites found among the 
 rocks of Lindisfarne were popularly known as St Cuthbert's
 
 25 NOTES 125 
 
 beads, and their origin was accounted for by the legend mentioned 
 in the text. 
 
 IV. Fitz-Eustace's Song 
 
 From canto iii, x, xi. See introd. note, p. 116 above, for the 
 circumstances in which the song is sung. It comes to the guilty 
 Marmion as a prophecy of disgrace: 
 
 The air was sad; but sadder still 
 
 It fell on Marmion's ear, 
 And plain'd as if disgrace and ill, 
 And shameful death, were near. 
 
 The phrase Eleu loro, etc., which comes between each verse and 
 its echoing refrain, represents a plaintive symphony on the harp 
 with which the page accompanies his song. 
 
 V. Edinburgh from Blackford Hill 
 
 Canto IV, xxx. This stanza concludes the description of Mar- 
 mion's view of the Scottish army. Blackford hill is south of 
 Edinburgh, and the army was encamped upon the ground, now 
 covered by modern suburbs, between it and the ridge, culminating 
 in the castle rock, along which the old town of Edinburgh is built. 
 
 8. the smoke-virreatlis] The smoke of Edinburgh, rising 
 from the closely packed houses of the old town, gave her the 
 familiar name of 'Auld Reekie.' So, in Stevenson's Kidnapped, 
 David Balfour, looking northward from the brow of the Pent- 
 lands, saw Edinburgh 'smoking like a kiln.' 
 
 18. Mine ovm romantic to-wn !] The description culminates 
 in one of those eloquent touches of sincere emotion which dis- 
 tinguish Scott's poetry and reveal its underlying charm. Cf. the 
 apostrophe to Edinburgh in the introductory epistle to canto v : 
 
 Stern then, and steel-girt was thy brow, 
 Dun-Edin ! O, how alter'd now. 
 When, safe amid thy mountain court. 
 Thou sit'st, like Empress at her sport, 
 And liberal, unconfin'd, and free. 
 Flinging thy white arms to the sea.
 
 126 NOTES pp. 25- 
 
 For thy dark cloud, with umber'd lower, 
 That hung o'er cliff, and lake, and tower, 
 Thou gleam 'st against the western ray 
 Ten thousand lines of brighter day. 
 
 The new town of Edinburgh, built at the northern and seaward 
 foot of the ridge which mounts from Holyrood palace to the 
 castle, and separated from the old town by the depression in 
 which lay the lake called the Nor' loch, was planned in 1767, 
 four years before Scott's birth. 
 
 20. Ochil mountains] The Ochil hills, some 20 miles north- 
 west of Edinburgh at their nearest point, rise between Stirling 
 and Perth and form the boundary between the highlands and 
 lowlands of Scotland. 
 
 23-8. The view ranges eastward from the Ochils to the coast 
 of Fife on the north side of the firth of Forth, and then turns to 
 the south side of the firth. Preston bay is the southern curve of 
 the firth of Forth, east of Edinburgh, on which stands the village 
 of Prestonpans. Between the bay and the open sea is the broad 
 northward projection of East Lothian, at the extremity of which, 
 near Tantallon castle, is the isolated hill of North Berwick Law. 
 
 33. demi- volte] A half-turn on horseback. 
 
 36. The Lindesay] Sir David Lindsay, Lyon king-at-arms, 
 famous as poet and satirist. See introd. note, p. 116 above. 
 
 VL LOCHINVAR 
 
 Canto V, xii. The song sung by lady Heron to James IV and 
 his court at Holyrood. Scott notes that the ballad was 'in a very 
 slight degree founded on a ballad called " Katharine Janfarie," 
 which may be found in the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border."' 
 The scene of the ballad, the circumstances of which are imaginary, 
 is laid at Netherby, a seat of the Grahams or Grammes on the 
 Cumberland bank of the border river Esk, near Longtown. 
 
 I . the Avest] Lochinvar is a small lake among the hills in the 
 north of Kirkcudbrightshire, where on an island was a castle 
 belonging to the Gordons.
 
 27 NOTES N 127 
 
 20. the Solway] The Esk flows into Solway firth a few miles 
 below Netherby. The swift rise of the tide on the Solway sands 
 is described in Redgaunilet, letter iv : ' He that dreams on the bed 
 of the Solway may wake in the next world.' 
 
 32. a galliard] Described by sir John Davies, Orchestra: or 
 a poem on Dancing, as ' a swift and wand'ring dance. . . . 
 With lofty turns and capriols in the air, 
 Which with the lusty tunes accordeth fair.' 
 It was known also as the cinquepace: 
 
 Five was the number of the music's feet. 
 Which still the dance did with five paces meet. 
 
 39. the croupe] The crupper or hinder-part of the horse. 
 
 41. scaur] A cliff or crag, from the Norse sker. The word is 
 frequently found in the north of England, e.g. Gordale scar near 
 Skipton, and Ravenscar, the cliff which forms the highest point 
 of the coast between Whitby and Scarborough. 
 
 44. Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves] Names of border 
 families. The Forsters and Fenwicks came from Northumberland : 
 the Musgraves originally from Westmorland. The murder of 
 Richard Musgrave of Stapleton, not far from Netherby, by 
 William of Deloraine, was the cause of the ' Warden raid ' which 
 forms a prominent feature of The Lay of the Last Minstrel. 
 
 45. Cannobie Lee] Canonbie in Dumfriesshire is on the Esk, 
 a few miles above Netherby. The 'lee' or 'lea' is Canonbie muir, 
 a tract of moorland to the north-east of the village. 
 
 VII. Douglas and Marmion 
 
 Canto VI, xiii-xv. See introd. note, p. 117 above. Archibald 
 Douglas, fifth earl of Angus, succeeded his father, the fourth 
 earl, in 1462. In 1482 he combined with other Scottish nobles 
 against James III and his favourite Robert Cochrane, earl of 
 Mar. While the confederates were awaiting the approach of the 
 king's army in the church of Lauder, Angus told them the fable 
 of the mice who decided to safeguard themselves against the cat 
 by tying a bell round his neck, but failed to do so because no one 
 would undertake the task. He concluded by promising to bell
 
 128 NOTES pp. 27- 
 
 the cat himself, and so encouraged his friends to the summary 
 process of hanging the earl of Mar and his accomplices on the 
 bridge of Lauder. He thus obtained his famous nickname of 
 Archibald Bell-the-Cat. He died in 1514, the year after Flodden. 
 
 Tantallon castle, where this scene takes place, is on a rock, 
 almost encircled by the sea, three miles east of North Berwick in 
 Haddingtonshire. After the execution of Murdoch Stewart, 
 second duke of Albany and earl of Fife, in 1425, it was granted 
 to the earls of Angus. 
 
 3. Surrey's camp] Thomas Howard, earl of Surrey, com- 
 manded the English forces at Flodden. In 15 14 he was created 
 duke of Norfolk, a title formerly borne by his father, who had 
 died fighting for Richard III at Bosworth. 
 
 10. The earl's words mean that Marmion's efforts to win 
 Clare would be of no avail, as De Wilton was already on his way 
 to Surrey's camp, where he would expose Marmion's treachery. 
 
 13. 'plain] Complain. 
 
 25. My castles are my King's alone] According to the 
 feudal theory, the sovereign was the owner of all landed property, 
 which was held by its tenants either directly by grant from him, 
 or by grant of intermediate lords whose tenure could eventually 
 be traced back to him. Thus Tantallon had been granted by the 
 Crown to the earls of Angus after its forfeiture by the previous 
 tenant, Murdoch, duke of Albany, and would return to the Crown 
 in the event of its forfeiture by the earls of Angus. Tenants who 
 held property immediately from the Crown were known as 
 tenants in chief. 
 
 56. Saint Bride of Bothwell] St Bride or Bridget was the 
 patron saint of the house of Douglas. Bothwell castle in Lanark- 
 shire was one of the strongholds of the elder branch of the family, 
 the earls of Douglas (see note on 11. 30, 31, p. 108 above), which 
 forfeited its estates by the rebellion of the last earl in 1455 against 
 king James II. Bothwell castle was restored to the Douglases 
 by James IV in exchange for their castle of Hermitage. The 
 churches of Bothwell and Douglas, near Lanark, the original seat 
 of the family, were dedicated to St Bride.
 
 31 NOTES 129 
 
 77. A letter forg'd] The letters which were intended to 
 prove De Wilton's treason had been forged for Marmion by- 
 Constance of Beverley. She, before her tragic end at Lindisfarne, 
 had given them to the abbess of Whitby, who had delivered them 
 to the supposed palmer, De Wilton in disguise, at Edinburgh, 
 the night before the journey to Tantallon, where the story was 
 revealed by De Wilton to the earl of Angus. 
 
 81. Saint Bothan] The second abbot of loua, more correctly 
 Bath an. 
 
 82. Gawain] Gavin Douglas, third son of the earl of Angus, 
 famous as the author of a translation of the Aeneid of Vergil. 
 Scott makes him a bishop at this time (1. 84), and, as such, he is 
 present when the earl restores De Wilton to the honour of knight- 
 hood. As a matter of fact, he was not consecrated bishop till 
 1516, when he received the see of Dunkeld. He was deprived of 
 his bishopric in 1520 and died in 1522. He had been nominated 
 to the archbishopric of St Andrews in 15 14, but failed to obtain 
 it. At the date of Marmion, when he was nearly forty, he was 
 provost of the collegiate church of St Giles at Edinburgh. 
 
 VIII. The English advance at Flodden 
 
 Canto VI, xix, xx. Marmion, on his journey from Tantallon 
 to the English army, rests at Tennel on the Scottish bank of the 
 Tweed, below Coldstream. From this point he sees, on the 
 morning of 9 Sept. 15 13, the EngUsh cross the Till at Twisel, 
 close to its junction with the Tweed, and advance upon the 
 Scottish army. James IV, on marching into England, had taken 
 up his position on the hill of Flodden, a foot-hill of the Cheviots, 
 which descend steeply into the broad valley of the Till on its 
 western side. Surrey was encamped on Barmoor, the ridge which 
 forms the eastern limit of the valley at this point. Instead of 
 marching directly across the river, he moved his army down the 
 right bank of the Till, and, by crossing the stream at Twisel, 
 gained a position which cut off James' return to Scotland. 
 
 7. the deep defile] The Till at Twisel bridge flows through 
 
 T. S. Q
 
 130 NOTES pp. 31- 
 
 a narrow wooded gorge. On the right bank, close to the bridge, 
 rises the red sandstone chff at the top of which is the ruined 
 castle of Twisel, in its present state a comparatively modern 
 building, begun by sir Francis Blake in 1770. 
 
 9. airy] Lofty, exposed to the air, as in 1. 31 below. 
 
 15. the sullen Till] The Till runs sluggishly with a deep 
 stream. A traditional rhyme contrasts its course with that of the 
 
 Tweed : 
 
 Tweed says to Till, 
 
 ' What gars ye rin sae still ? ' 
 
 Till says to Tweed, 
 
 ' Though ye rin with speed, 
 
 And I rin slaw. 
 Yet where ye drown ae man, 
 
 I drown twa ! ' 
 
 16. dim-'wood] Dim with wood. 
 
 25. Saint Helen] St Helen's well is a petrifying spring be- 
 neath a rock which rises near the bridge. 
 
 40. the vain knight-errant] Scott notes the weak point in 
 the character of James IV, a knight in whom dreams of chivalry 
 and romance took the place of aptitude for war. In the following 
 lines, he contrasts him with the heroes who defeated England at 
 Bannockburn in 13 14 — Robert Bruce, king of Scotland 1306-29 
 (1. 44), sir James Douglas, lord of Douglas, known as 'the good 
 lord James' (1. 41), and sir Thomas Randolph, earl of Moray 
 (1. 42). Randolph was famous for his exploit of the capture of 
 Edinburgh castle by a night assault in March, 13 12-3. 
 
 43. Wallace wight] Wight = strong, active, cf. note on 1. 36, 
 p. 104. Sir William Wallace, the defender of the independence of 
 Scotland against Edward I, was defeated at Falkirk in 1298, and, 
 after maintaining irregular warfare for some time, was taken 
 prisoner and executed at Westminster in 1305. 
 
 45. Saint Andrew] The patron saint of Scotland.
 
 35 NOTES 131 
 
 IX. The Death of Marmion 
 
 Canto VI, xxix-xxxii. For the circumstances, see introd. note, 
 p. 118 above. 
 
 3. Blount and Fitz-Eustace, Marmion's two pages, had carried 
 him out of the battle. In the next line Marmion recognises them 
 with his returning senses. 
 
 10. Dacre] Lord Dacre commanded the reserve of the Eng- 
 lish cavalry at Flodden. 
 
 13. Tunstall] Sir Brian Tunstall of Thurland, Lancashire, 
 called by Surrey (canto vi, xxiv), 'stainless knight,' and known 
 as Tunstall the undefiled, 'one of the few Englishmen of rank 
 slain at Flodden' (Scott). 
 
 15. Edmund] Sir Edmund Howard, son of the earl of Surrey, 
 commanded the right wing of the army. 
 
 16. The Admiral] Thomas Howard, lord high admiral of 
 England, eldest son of the earl of Surrey. He succeeded his 
 father as duke of Norfolk in 1524. 
 
 17. Stanley] Sir Edward Stanley, fifth son of Thomas Stan- 
 ley, first earl of Derby, the step-father of king Henry VII. He 
 was placed in command of the English cavalry at Flodden with 
 lord Dacre. He was created baron Monteagle in 15 14 and died 
 in 1523. 
 
 33. variable] Cf. Vergil, Aen. iv, 569-70: ' Varium et muta- 
 bile semper Femina.' 
 
 52. some half-worn letters] Scott imagined this inscription, 
 a version of which has been carved over a spring in the neigh- 
 bourhood of the battle-field, but in a situation which, considering 
 the relative position of the English and Scottish armies, it is 
 quite impossible to connect with this incident. 
 
 61. shrieve] Absolve after confession: cf. ' shrift,' 1. 67 
 below. 
 
 65. Constsmce] Constance of Beverley, the nun who, be- 
 trayed by Marmion, had been immured at Lindisfarne. 
 
 80. the dark presage] Marmion alludes to the night in the 
 inn at GiA'crd (canto iii, xii), when Fitz-Eustace sang the song
 
 132 NOTES pp. 35- 
 
 ' Where shall the lover rest' (p. 125 above). As Fitz- Eustace sang 
 Marmion seemed to hear a death-peal 
 
 Such as in nunneries they toll 
 
 For some departing sister's soul. 
 On asking the company what this meant, he was answered by 
 the Palmer with the words 'The death of a dear friend.' The 
 concluding words of the third stanza of Fitz-Eustace's song, with 
 their foreboding meaning, ring in Marmion's ears as he dies 
 (11. loi, 102 below). 
 
 98. A lady's voice] See the previous note. In Marmion's 
 dying ears, the voice of Constance, whose 'favourite roundelay' 
 Fitz-Eustace had chosen as his song, sings the fatal words. 
 
 104. Avoid, thee, Fiend!] The monk endeavours to exorcise 
 the avenging spirit of Constance, which makes Marmion deaf to 
 his consolations. 
 
 105. sand] The running sand in the hour-glass of the dying 
 sinner's life. 
 
 106. yon sign] The stone cross on the hill where Marmion's 
 death takes place. 
 
 120. Chester] The men of Cheshire, led in the victorious 
 charge by sir Edward Stanley. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM THE LADY OF THE LAKE 
 
 In The Lady of the Lake, begun at Ashestiel in the autumn of 
 1809, Scott left the theme of border warfare for a subject suggested 
 by the romantic scenery of the southern Highlands of Scotland. 
 This district had already furnished material for some of the most 
 beautiful lyrics of Wordsworth, who had visited the Scottish 
 lakes with his sister Dorothy and Coleridge in 1803; but to the 
 general public it was still unknown country. Scott's poem ap- 
 peared in May 1810. ' I do not recollect,' said Robert Cadell, the 
 publisher of Lockhart's Life of Scott, 'that any of all the author's 
 works was ever looked for with more intense anxiety, or that 
 any one of them excited a more extraordinary sensation when it 
 did appear. The whole country rang with the praises of the poet 
 — crowds set off to view the scenery of Loch Katrine, till then
 
 37 NOTES 133 
 
 comparatively unknown; and as the book came out just before 
 the season for excursions, every house and inn in that neighbour- 
 hood was crammed with a constant succession of visitors.' 
 
 The date of the story is the reign of James V of Scotland, the 
 son of the king who figures in Marmion, and the father of Mary 
 queen of Scots. He was a year old at the time of his father's 
 death: in 1528 he threw off the control of his step-father, Archi- 
 bald, earl of Angus, the grandson of the Angus of Marmion, and 
 ruled till 1542, when he died at Falkland palace of grief at the 
 defeat of Solway moss. 
 
 The poem opens with the description of a stag-hunt in which a 
 single rider, out-distancing the rest, enters the defile of the Tros- 
 sachs, between Loch Achray and Loch Katrine. Here his horse, 
 spent with the chase, dies, and the hunter, arriving on the shore 
 of Loch Katrine, blows his bugle to summon any companion who 
 may be near. In answer to his call, a boat puts off from an island 
 in the lake. Ellen, the Lady of the Lake, thinking that the note 
 is that of her father or her lover, Malcolm Graeme, appears and 
 finds the huntsman, whose coming has been prophesied by the 
 harper Allan-Bane. She ferries him over to the island, where he 
 is received in the rustic mansion by its mistress, dame Margaret, 
 and announces himself under the title of the knight of Snowdoun, 
 James Fitz-James. Canto i, The Chase, ends with the uneasy 
 dreams of the stranger, in whose mind the sight of a huge falchion 
 hung among the weapons of the hall has awakened memories 
 and forebodings. Canto 11, The Island, opens with his departure 
 and a conversation between Ellen and Allan-Bane, which dis- 
 closes the main situation. Ellen is the daughter of the proscribed 
 chief of the house of Douglas, who has found refuge upon the 
 island under the protection of Roderick Dhu, chief of the High- 
 land clan Alpine. Roderick is a suitor for the hand of Ellen, 
 whose affections are fixed on Malcolm Graeme. At the end of 
 the conversation, Roderick himself arrives in his galley and 
 shortly afterwards Douglas returns from hunting. He is accom- 
 panied by Malcolm, who has preserved him from discovery by 
 the huntsmen on the mainland. In the evening, Roderick an-
 
 134 NOTES p. 
 
 nounces that the king, under pretext of a hunting expedition, is 
 preparing to levy war on the Highland chiefs, and that Douglas 
 has been recognised. He proposes, on condition of his marriage 
 with Ellen, to invade the Lowlands, while Douglas guards the 
 mountain passes. Douglas refuses the proffered alliance, and 
 Roderick turns his anger on Malcolm. Douglas intervenes and 
 stops the threatened fight, and Roderick tells Malcolm to bear 
 his challenge to the king. Malcolm refuses his safe-conduct and 
 swims away from the island, bent on a plan for rescuing Douglas 
 from his dangerous exile. 
 
 In Canto iii. The Gathering, Roderick Dhu, with preliminary 
 ceremonies, sends his follower Malise with the fiery cross, the 
 summons of assemblage to the clan, ordering them to meet at 
 Lanrick mead, at the north-west end of Loch Vennachar. Douglas 
 and Ellen withdraw from the island to the Goblin cave in Ben- 
 venue. As Roderick is on his way to the place of muster, he hears 
 Ellen singing her evening hymn to the Virgin. Canto iv, The 
 Prophecy, takes its name from the augury derived by Roderick's 
 chaplain, the wizard-monk Brian, from the sacrifice of a bull: 
 
 Which spills the foremost foeman's life, 
 That party conquers in the strife ! 
 
 In the meantime, while the clan prepares for battle, and their 
 women and children are sent for safety to the island in Loch 
 Katrine, Roderick has learned that a spy from the south has 
 entered his territory under the guidance of a clansman named 
 Murdoch, who has been charged to mislead him into an ambush. 
 This spy he takes to be the ' foremost foeman ' of the prophecy. 
 Warned of the approach of an army led by the earls of Moray 
 and Mar, Roderick determines to await them in the Trossachs. 
 The scene then changes to the Goblin cave and to another con- 
 versation between Ellen and the harper. Douglas has by this 
 time left his retreat, and Ellen and Allan-Bane are alone. As 
 Allan-Bane is finishing the ballad of Alice Brand, the knight of 
 Snowdoun, guided by Murdoch, appears before them. He has 
 returned under the spell of Ellen's beauty to declare his love and
 
 37 NOTES 135 
 
 offer to take her in safety to Stirling. She decUnes his offer: her 
 father is an outlaw and she loves none but Malcolm. She warns 
 him of the danger he is in from his faithless guide; and he, realising 
 that his suit is hopeless, leaves her, confiding to her a ring which 
 he says that the king of Scots has given him as a reward for saving 
 his life. The ring will be her passport to the monarch, who will 
 grant her what boon she asks, in redemption of his pledge to the 
 knight. 
 
 On leaving Ellen, Fitz- James enters the Trossachs, where he 
 meets Blanche of Devan, a Lowland girl who has been carried off 
 by Roderick on her wedding-day and has been driven mad by 
 her misfortunes. Her wild songs and a sudden shout from his 
 guide awaken his suspicions, hitherto neglected. He threatens 
 Murdoch, who attempts to escape, but, after shooting an arrow 
 and wounding Blanche instead of the knight, is overtaken and 
 slain. Blanche, wounded to death, lays upon the knight the 
 charge of avenging her and gives him a lock of her bridegroom's 
 hair, which he twines with a tress of her own and places in his 
 bonnet. He wanders on, until he comes upon a lonely watch-fire 
 guarded by a clansman, in answer to whose challenge he pro- 
 claims himself a foe to Roderick. The mountaineer, recognising 
 him as the foeman of Brian's prophecy but assured by his bold 
 words that he is no spy, offers him the hospitality of his fire and 
 plaid for the night and promises to guide him in safety next day 
 to the outskirts of Roderick's camp. Next morning, at the begin- 
 ning of canto V, The Combat, the two travel together by the side 
 of Loch Vennachar. Fitz- James tells the highlander that his 
 journey has been purely peaceful and that he knew nothing of 
 the imminent battle: his only knowledge of Roderick till the day 
 before has been that he is an outlaw, exiled for stabbing a knight 
 at the regent Albany's court at Holyrood. The clansman defends 
 Roderick's action: his forays into the Lowlands are merely just 
 retribution for the encroachments of the Crown upon the property 
 of the clans, who are driven for refuge into the barren Highlands; 
 even if an ambush has been laid for a defenceless man, it is be- 
 cause the stranger has ventured to tread hostile soil without
 
 136 NOTES p. 
 
 warning, and because his life is forfeit to an augury. The knight 
 accepts his words, but declares that he is bound to meet Roderick 
 in combat and will come openly for that purpose, and that he 
 longs for the hour of meeting Roderick and his clan. At these 
 words the clansman whistles: a band of armed men springs up 
 from behind the rocks and bushes; these, the clansman says, are 
 the clan and he himself is Roderick. At a sign from their chieftain, 
 the warriors disappear, and Roderick, in fulfilment of his promise, 
 guides his guest as far as the outlet of the lake and there offers 
 him single combat. Fitz-James points out to him that the augury 
 has already been accomplished by the death of Murdoch: the 
 foremost foeman has fallen, and Roderick's best course will be 
 to come with him to the king at Stirling and ask for grace. 
 Roderick, however, refuses to accept the death of a 'wretched 
 kern' as a fulfilment of the prophecy, though it binds him to 
 avenge his clansman. The fight then takes place, and Roderick 
 is defeated and wounded. The knight blows his bugle: four 
 esquires appear in answer, and they ride to Stirling castle with 
 the wounded chieftain. As they climb the steep to the castle, 
 they see a man mounting on foot behind them, whom Fitz-James 
 recognises as the banished Douglas. He has come to court to 
 deliver himself to his sovereign, after obtaining a promise of 
 shelter for Ellen at Cambuskenneth abbey. But the day on 
 which he arrives is a holiday in Stirling, when the burghers are 
 holding sports in the castle park; and Douglas determines to 
 shew his prowess at the games. Disowned by the king and cour- 
 tiers, but admired by the crowd, he performs prodigies of strength 
 and flings the gold which he wins to the people. The king, seeing 
 the sports flag, lets loose a stag to be coursed by two greyhounds. 
 Douglas' hound Lufra joins in the chase and brings down the 
 stag. A groom strikes her; and Douglas in anger strikes him 
 senseless with his gauntlet and declares himself to the king, 
 offering himself as a hostage for his Highland entertainers. The 
 king orders him to be taken prisoner to the castle, amid the 
 murmurs of the crowd, whose rebellion is stilled by the entreaties 
 of Douglas. While the king is disturbed by these events, he hears
 
 37 NOTES 137 
 
 the news of the rising of Clan- Alpine, which is said to be on behalf 
 of Douglas, and sends to the earl of Mar to stop his advance, as 
 both Roderick and Douglas are prisoners. 
 
 Night closes on canto v, amid confused rumours of battle. The 
 sun rises on canto vi, The Guard-room, in which Ellen appears 
 with the ring among the mercenary soldiers in the outer ward of 
 the castle, accompanied by Allan-Bane and a Flem.ish archer, 
 Bertram. She is taken to the king by the captain. Meanwhile 
 Allan asks to see his chieftain and is conducted to the cell where, 
 not Douglas, but Roderick lies. Dying of his wound and ignorant 
 of what has happened since the single combat, Roderick demands 
 news and bids the harper sing the story of the battle between 
 his clan and the Lowlanders. Allan's song tells of the victorious 
 advance of Mar and Moray through the Trossachs, of the last 
 stand of the clan on the banks of Loch Katrine to protect the 
 women and children upon the island, and of the arrival of king 
 James' messenger with the flag of truce. As he concludes, 
 Roderick dies and Allan breaks forth into a song of lament. The 
 scene changes to the room where Ellen awaits her interview with 
 the king. She hears a song of a prisoner in a neighbouring tower, 
 in which her name occurs; and at this moment she is joined by 
 Fitz-James, who takes her to the king. But in the presence- 
 chamber, among the courtiers, she sees at first no king, until she 
 realises that the knight of Snowdoun, who remains uncovered, 
 is the king himself. The poem ends with the restoration of Douglas 
 to his title and estates, and the bestowal of Ellen's hand upon 
 Malcolm Graeme as the pledge redeemed by the ring. 
 
 The romance is entirely unhistorical, apart from its foundation 
 upon legends regarding James V. The story of the banished 
 Douglas is founded upon traditions of the youth of James Douglas, 
 earl of Morton and regent of Scotland 1572-8, who was nephew 
 of the fallen regent Angus; but the circumstances are quite out 
 of keeping with actual events. Roderick Dhu is an entirely 
 imaginary character. On the other hand, Scott took great pains 
 to verify the topography of his poem ; and its great charm lies in 
 the beautiful and vivid descriptions of the scenery which is the
 
 138 NOTES pp. 37- 
 
 setting of the tale. The Lady of the Lake has less sustained vigour 
 than Marmion: chivalry and battle are its episodes rather than 
 its theme, and greater prominence is given to the sentimental 
 element in the character of Ellen than to Clare in Marmion. The 
 story, however, does not flag in interest: such episodes as the 
 journey of the Fiery cross and Fitz-James' ride from Coilantogle 
 to Stirling have the inspired quality which Scott's love of his 
 native land communicated to such passages; and the dramatic 
 suspense which culminates in the disclosure, foreseen all along 
 by the reader, of the identity of the knight of Snowdoun with 
 the king of Scots, is maintained with an art which foreshadows 
 Scott's later success as a novelist. 
 
 I. Invocation 
 
 From canto i, II. 1-27. Each canto of The Lady of the Lake 
 opens with a passage in Spenserian stanza, preluding the main 
 subject, a device again employed by Scott in The Lord of the 
 Isles. The invocation is addressed to the spirit of ancient Scottish 
 ballad-poetry, symbolised by the harp to which the minstrel 
 accompanied his song. Scott varies the narrative of The Lady of 
 the Lake, as those of his other poems, by introducing lays and 
 ballads at intervals in free imitation of the old type of lyric; and 
 Allan-Bane, the Highland harper, plays a prominent part in the 
 story. 
 
 2. the witch-elm that shades St Fillan's spring] St 
 Fillan's well is mentioned by Scott in Marmion, i, xxix, with a 
 note that several springs in Perthshire dedicated to St Fillan 
 were, even after the reformation, held to have effect in cases of 
 madness. Lunatics were ' left all night, bound to the holy stone, 
 in confidence that the saint would cure and unloose them before 
 morning.' The most famous of these holy wells was in Glendo- 
 chart, near Crianlarich in the south-west of Perthshire, where the 
 Irish missionary St Fillan, abbot of Pittenweem in Fife, founded 
 a monastery in the eighth century. Scott's choice of such a well 
 as the resting-place of the harp of the North is probably an
 
 39 NOTES 139 
 
 allusion to the healing influence of poetry, typified by the wel 
 'whose spring,' as he says in Marmion, 
 
 can frenzied dreams dispel, 
 And the craz'd brain restore. 
 A witch- or wych-elm (O.E. wice) is an elm with drooping 
 branches; but Scott appears to use the prefix in a double sense, 
 referring to the magic qualities of the spring and the harp which 
 he figures as hanging above it. Cf. 'magic maze' in 1. 20 and 
 'wizard note' in 1. 26, and see note on 1. 5, p. 147 below. 
 
 3. thy numbers flung] The wind played through the strings 
 of the harp, arousing fitful strains, until the ivy grew round and 
 buried it. 
 
 10. Caledon] See note on 1. 17 (no. iv), p. iii above. 
 
 14. each according pause] Each pause in the song, at 
 which the symphony played on the harp harmoniously echoes 
 the melody. 
 
 20. thy magic maze] The variety of strings of the harp, 
 from which the hand produces an endless combination of magic 
 sounds, 'the wizard note' of 1. 26. 
 
 II. The Trossachs 
 
 From canto i, xi-xiv, where Fitz-James' journey to Loch 
 Katrine is described. A chain of three lakes, Loch Katrine, Loch 
 Achray and Loch Vennachar, lies at the head-waters of the Teith, 
 which joins the Forth near Stirling. Between Loch Katrine and 
 Loch Achray is the narrow defile of the Trossachs, vividly 
 described in these stanzas. It winds between the mountains of 
 Ben A'an (1. 94) and Benvenue (1. 87) — 'a rugged labyrinth of 
 mounds and rocks, covered with the richest vegetation of oaks 
 and pensile birch and rowans' (Murray's Guide to Scotland). 
 
 14. Shinar's plain] See Genesis xi. 2. 
 
 ig. pagod] Pagoda or Eastern temple, usually a tall building 
 of tapering or pyramidal shape, rising with fantastic effect. 
 
 20. mosque] Scott refers to the picturesque grouping of the 
 cupolas and minarets of an Eastern mosque. 
 
 21. earth-born castles] Cf. the description in The Brida
 
 I40 NOTES pp. 39- 
 
 of Triermain, i. xiii, of the Castle rock in the vale of St John near 
 Keswick : 
 
 But, midmost of the vale, a mound 
 Arose with airy turrets crown'd. 
 Buttress, and rampire's circling bound, 
 
 And mighty keep and tower; 
 Seem'd some primeval giant's hand 
 The castle's massive walls had plann'd, 
 A ponderous bulwark to withstand 
 Ambitious Nimrod's power. 
 25. sheen] Shining. The actual meaning of the word is 
 'beautiful,' like the German schon: its transferred sense is due to 
 a mistaken connexion with the verb 'to shine.' 
 
 29. Boon] Bounteous. Here again a slight confusion in sense 
 has taken place between the adjective, which is equivalent simply 
 to the French 60^= good, kind, and the substantive 'boon,' 
 which means a prayer or gift. 
 
 36. Emblems of punishment and pride] The sombre 
 deadly nightshade is in Scott's imagination an emblem of punish- 
 ment, with its poisonous fruit; the bright hues of the foxglove 
 naturally suggest pride. 
 
 41. warrior oak] ' The builder Oake, sole king of forrests 
 air (Spenser, Faerie Queene, i, i, 8), where the enduring power of 
 the oak and its use in building war-ships, both implied here by 
 Scott, are referred to. Spenser, in the same passage (i, i, 9), applies 
 the epithet 'warlike' to the beech. The allusion to ships of war 
 is developed in 'Cast anchor' (1. 42). 
 
 44. His shatter 'd trunk] Cf. Byron, Childe Harold, iv, xx: 
 
 But from their nature will the tannen grow 
 Loftiest on loftiest and least sheltered rocks, etc. 
 
 48. glist'ning streamers] The boughs of the trees, shining 
 in the sun and waving to and fro in the breeze, revealing the 
 mountain-peaks and the blue sky at intervals. 
 
 54. A narrow inlet] The upper end of the Trossachs is 
 indented by a deep inlet of Loch Katrine, dividing into two
 
 43 NOTES 141 
 
 branches, the southern one of which is the outlet of the river, 
 while the modern road ends at the foot of the northern. Fitz- 
 James travelled along the bank of the northern branch and the 
 main inlet until he came to the open lake opposite Ellen's isle. 
 
 68. their parent hill] Benvenue. The scene is described 
 from the foot of Ben A'an. 
 
 75. his ladder] Scott says that, until a road was made 
 through the Trossachs, the only exit was ' by a sort of ladder, 
 composed of the branches and roots of trees.' 
 
 80. Loch Katrine] The name of the lake was derived, accord- 
 ing to Scott, from the Gaelic word ceaihairne or 'cateran,' origin- 
 ally meaning 'peasantry,' which, from the free-booting habits of 
 the Highlanders, acquired the sense of 'marauder.' 
 
 85. like giants] Cf. Browning, Childe Roland to the Dark 
 Tower came, 190-1 : 
 
 The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay. 
 Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay. 
 
 90. The fragments of an earlier -world] The dibris of the 
 mountain, representing its gradual decay through long eras. 
 
 III. Ellen's Song 
 
 From canto i, xxxi, xxxii. Sung by Ellen at the close of the 
 evening spent by Fitz-James in the island, to the music of an 
 unseen harp. 
 
 15. pibroch] War music played on the bagpipes: Gaelic 
 piobaireachd. 
 
 19. his drum] The peculiar ' bumping ' note of the bittern. 
 The popular tradition was that the note was produced by the 
 bittern putting its bill into a hollow reed, such as abound in the 
 marshes where it made its home. Cf. Suckling, Aglaura iv, ii, 8. 
 
 34. reveill6] The bugle-note sounded at early morning to 
 awaken (French riveiller) soldiers and huntsmen. 
 
 IV. Boat Song 
 From canto 11, xix, xx. Sung by the oarsmen as they ferry 
 Roderick Dhu in his galley to the island. Scott imitated the
 
 142 NOTES pp. 43- 
 
 measure of the Highland boat-songs, sung in honour of a favourite 
 chief and 'so adapted as to keep time to the sweep of the oars.' 
 The metre is dactyUc, i.e. a stressed syllable, at the point where 
 the oars strike the water, is followed by two short or unstressed 
 syllables. 
 
 2. the ever-green Pine] The emblem of Clan-Alpine. It 
 will be noticed how the clansmen identify it, as savage tribes to- 
 day identify their totems, with the clan itself and Roderick as 
 its chieftain. It is not merely an emblem, but contains the soul 
 of the clan and binds its members in special bonds of relation- 
 ship. 
 
 3. glances] I.e. as the folds of the banner are moved by the 
 wind. 
 
 10. The Gaelic title of the chieftain means 'Roderick the 
 black, son of Alpine.' Roderick derives his surname of dhu or the 
 black from his dark complexion. ' Ho ! ieroe ! ' is merely the long 
 shout of the rowers in time with the oars. 
 
 12. Beltane] The festival of Beltane, which in some districts 
 corresponded with Midsummer, is said by Pennant in his Tour in 
 Scotland to have been held in the Highlands on the first of May, 
 when bonfires were lighted and the peasantry offered cakes of 
 oatmeal to obtain safety for their crops and herds. The origin of 
 the word is uncertain, but the second syllable is equivalent to 
 the Celtic word for 'fire'; and the festival appears to have 
 originated in pagan sacrifices to the sun when entering upon the 
 summer solstice. Cf. The Lady of the Lake, 11, xv: 
 
 when at Beltane game 
 Thou ledst the dance with Malcolm Graeme, 
 
 and The Lord of the Isles, i, viii : ' The shepherd lights his beltane 
 fire.' See also introd. note on no. iii, p. 109 above. 
 
 18. Menteith and Breadalbane] The districts of Perthshire 
 inhabited by the clan Alpine. Menteith is the south-west part of 
 the county between the valley of the Forth and the head-waters 
 of the Tay, bordering upon Stirlingshire. Breadalbane includes a 
 large part of western and central Pertlishire, north and east of
 
 45 NOTES 143 
 
 Menteith. They formed two of the old territorial divisions of 
 which the modern Perthshire consisted, the others being Athol in 
 the north, Methven and Perth in the south, and Gowrie and 
 Stormont in the east and south-east. 
 
 21. pibroch] See note on 1. 15, p. 141 above. 
 
 Glen Fruin] The Fruin water runs into Loch Lomond at its 
 south-west corner. Glen Fruin was the scene of a battle between 
 the Macgregors and Colquhouns in 1602-3, described by Scott in 
 a note to the present passage. The Colquhouns were defeated 
 with great bloodshed, and, according to one tradition, sir Hum- 
 phrey Colquhoun, who had taken refuge in the castle of Ben- 
 nachra or Bannochar (1. 22) in the glen, was dragged out and 
 slaughtered by the victorious clan. The Macgregors were pro- 
 scribed by James VI as a result of this conflict. 
 
 22. slogan] See note on 1. 63, p. 105 above. 
 
 23. Glen-Luss and Ross-dhu] On the west side of Loch 
 Lomond. Rossdhu (the black promontory) at the mouth of the 
 Finlas water, two miles south of Luss, is the seat of the Colquhouns 
 of Luss. 
 
 28. Lennox and Leven-glen] Lennox is the old division of 
 Scotland corresponding to Dumbartonshire and a large part of 
 Stirlingshire, with portions of the adjacent counties, and includ- 
 ing most of Loch Lomond. The Leven is the river which forms 
 the southern outlet of Loch Lomond and enters the Clyde at 
 Dumbarton. 
 
 35. some seedling gem] The oarsmen allude to the prospect 
 of a marriage between Roderick and Ellen. 
 
 V. The Fiery Cross 
 
 From canto iii, xv-xviii. The cross of yew, smeared with the 
 blood of a sacrificed goat, and with its ends charred with the 
 flame of the sacrificial fire, is sent out as the summons of muster 
 to Clan-Alpine. It is carried eastward from the island on Loch 
 Katrine by Malise to Duncraggan, between Loch Achray and 
 Loch Vennachar. Here he resigns it, as is told in the present 
 passage, to Angus, who takes it to St Bride's chapel at the foot
 
 144 NOTES pp. 45- 
 
 of Loch Lubnaig and interrupts the marriage of Norman and 
 Mary. Norman carries it northward and, turning westward from 
 Strathyre along Loch Voil and Loch Doine, bears it down Strath 
 Gartney, on the northern bank of Loch Katrine, to the original 
 starting-point. 
 
 I. the lake] Loch Achray. 
 
 22. coronach] Gaelic corranach =a funeral song, literally, ' a 
 cry together.' Scott's poem Glenfinlas ; or Lord Ronald's Coronach 
 has its scene in this same district, Duncraggan being at the foot 
 of Glen Finglas. 
 
 27. font] Fountain. Cf. Marmion, vi, xxxvii: 'her font of 
 stone.' 
 
 39. correi] Gaelic coire — a. cauldron. Applied to a hollow in 
 a mountain, ' the hollow side of the hill, where the game usually 
 lies' (Scott). 
 
 40. cumber] Circumstances of trouble or perplexity. 
 47. Stumah] ' Faithful. The name of a dog ' (Scott). 
 
 61. Lanrick mead] A flat meadow near the head of Loch 
 Vennachar, lying south-east of Duncraggan. 
 
 VI. The Ambuscade 
 From canto v, ix, x. The circumstances are summarised in the 
 introductory note, pp. 135, 136 above. They follow upon Fitz- 
 James' words to his unknown guide: 
 
 For love-lorn swain, in lady's bower. 
 Ne'er panted for the appointed hour. 
 As I, until before me stand 
 The rebel Chieftain and his band. 
 
 28. Benledi's living side] Ben Ledi (the hill of God) is the 
 mountain which divides Loch Vennachar and the river Teith 
 from Loch Lubnaig and the river Leny. The rivers meet at 
 Callander, near the foot of the triangular promontory formed by 
 the mountain. 'Living,' because the side of the mountain is 
 suddenly alive with Roderick's clansmen. 
 
 32. Saxon] Inhabitant of the Lowlands, of English stock, as 
 opposed to the Celtic Highlander north of the Forth.
 
 51 NOTES 145 
 
 58. from... glaive, from targe and jack] The glaive is the 
 broadsword, the targe is the circular shield, which formed part of 
 the Highlander's armour. The jack is the defensive coat, made of 
 stuffed leather or other stout material, worn on the upper part 
 of the body and frequently called the haketon (Fr. hacqueton) . 
 
 VII. The Ride to Stirling 
 
 From canto v, xviii. This fine example of Scott's power of 
 describing swift movement, aided by his intimate knowledge and 
 love of Scottish topography, follows the combat between Fitz- 
 James and Roderick. Fitz-James and two of his esquires, De 
 Vaux and Herries, ride in haste to take part in the games at 
 Stirling, while Herbert and Luffness follow with the wounded 
 Roderick. The route described follows the road from Coilantogle 
 ford, at the foot of Loch Vennachar, where the riders cross the 
 Teith (1. 15). The distance to Stirhng is about eighteen miles. 
 Scott tells us in his preface that he made a special journey to see 
 whether it was possible to ride the distance in the time indicated 
 in the poem, i.e. between about 10 a.m. and noon. 
 
 9. armed] With the spur. 
 
 16. Carhonie] Now called Gartchonzie, a little way below 
 the ford. 
 
 21. Torry and Lendrick] On the Teith, between Callander 
 and Doune. Lendrick, now called Lanrick, castle, is to be dis- 
 tinguished from Lanrick on Loch Vennachar (see note on 1. 61, 
 p. 144 above). 
 
 22. Deanstown] Deanston is south-west of Doune, which the 
 riders passed on their left hand. 
 
 23. the banner'd towers of Doune] Doune castle, begun 
 early in the fifteenth century by Robert, duke of Albany (d. 1420), 
 brother of king Robert III, stands at the confluence of the Teith 
 and Ardoch, eight miles from Stirhng. On the execution of 
 Murdoch, duke of Albany, in 1425, it passed to the Crown. 
 Margaret Tudor, sister of Henry VIII, and wife of James IV, 
 who held it by grant of her husband, married as her third husband 
 Henry Stewart, lord Methven, to a younger brother of whom she 
 
 T. s. 10
 
 146 NOTES pp, 51- 
 
 granted the castle. By the marriage of his descendant, the second 
 lord Doune, with the daughter of the regent Moray, it passed 
 into the hands of the earls of Moray. 
 
 25. Blair-Drummond] This and the places mentioned in 
 11. 26, 28 are country seats between Doune and Stirling. Ochter- 
 tyre (1. 26) belonged to Scott's friend, John Ramsay. Kier (1. 28). 
 at some distance on the opposite side of the Teith, was the seat 
 of the Stirhngs : its ' lofty brow ' was the site of an ancient camp 
 or fort (caer), from which it derived its name. 
 
 30. Dark Forth] The Forth is crossed just below its junction 
 with the Teith, two miles above Stirling. 
 
 33. Craig-Fcrth] An isolated hill of ironstone rock on the 
 right bank of the Forth, west of Stirling. 
 
 35. Grey Stirling] The town of Stirling occupies the slope 
 of a high rock of basalt, on the summit of which is the castle. 
 King James V was born in Stirling castle and, towards the close 
 of his reign, began the royal palace within its walls. The im- 
 portance of Stirhng in Scottish history is expressed in 1. 34 : it was 
 the key to the Highlands on the one hand, while, on the other 
 hand, it formed, as at the time of the battle of Bannockburn, a 
 formidable bar to English invasion. 
 
 VIII. Allan-Bane's Lament 
 
 From canto vi, xxii. Sung by the harper beside the corpse of 
 Roderick Dhu in his prison at Stirling. 
 
 3. Breadalbane's boast] See note on I. 18, p. 142 above. 
 Clan-Alpine's shade] See note on 1. 2, p. 142 above. 
 
 4. requiem] A mass for the dead, so called from the first 
 word of the introit. Requiem eternani dona eis, Domine (grant 
 them eternal rest, O Lord). 
 
 6. Bothwell's house] See note on 1. 56, p. 128 above. Scott 
 makes the banished Douglas head of his family and lord of Both- 
 well, for which he had no authority in history. 
 
 24. Even she] I.e. Ellen.
 
 55 NOTES 147 
 
 IX. Lay of the Imprisonad Huntsman 
 From canto vi, xxiv. Malcolm Graeme, a ward of the Crown 
 of Scotland, has escaped to the Highlands and spent his unlicensed 
 liberty with the fugitives on the island. On his voluntary return 
 to Stirling to plead their cause, he is imprisoned in the castle, 
 and Ellen, while waiting for her interview with the king, over- 
 hears him singing this song. 
 
 10. yon deep steeple] The steeple of the Greyfriars church, 
 which stands at the head of the town of Stirling, below the 
 esplanade of the castle. 
 
 X. Farewell 
 
 The concluding stanzas of The Lady of the Lake resume the 
 theme of the opening invocation: see notes on p. 138 above. 
 
 5. thy wizard elm] The phrase confirms the double sense of 
 ' witch-elm ' in the invocation which preludes the poem : see note 
 on 1. 2, p. 138 above, and cf. 'witch-note' in 1. 26 below. 
 
 13. an idle lay] WiUiam Morris, in the envoi to The Earthly 
 Paradise, addresses his book of romantic poetry in similar terms : 
 
 I love thee, whatso time or men may say 
 Of the poor singer of an empty lay. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM ROKEBY 
 Rokeby, Scott's fourth romance in verse, was published in 
 January 1813, with a dedication to his friend John Bacon Sawrey 
 Morritt, the owner of the estate which gives its name to the poem. 
 The village and park of Rokeby, the old pronunciation of which, 
 now dying out, is 'Rookby,' are on the south bank of the Tees, 
 3^ miles south-east of Barnard Castle. The western boundary of 
 the park is formed by the river Greta, which joins the Tees at its 
 foot. Scott first visited Rokeby in June i8og: he described it as 
 'one of the most enviable places I have ever seen, as it unites 
 the richness and luxuriance of English vegetation with the 
 romantic variety of glen, torrent, and copse, which dignifies our 
 northern scenery.' He disclosed his plan for the poem to Morritt 
 in a letter written on 20 Dec. 181 1; and during its composition 
 
 10 — 2
 
 148 NOTES p. 
 
 he was supplied by Morritt with much local and historical in- 
 formation. 
 
 The date of the story is July 1644. On 3 July, the battle of 
 Marston moor had been fought. The knight of Rokeby has joined 
 the royal army, while his brother-in-law, Philip of Mortham, the 
 owner of an estate upon the side of the Greta, has fought with 
 Fairfax upon the side of the parliament. Oswald Wycliffe, who 
 holds Barnard Castle for the parliament, is next heir to Mortham, 
 and has bribed a soldier of fortune, Bertram Risingham, who is 
 an old companion of Mortham's in foreign travel and is fighting 
 under his command, to kill him treacherously. Bertram arrives 
 at Barnard Castle by night, where Oswald is anxiously awaiting 
 him. He has slain Mortham in the confusion of the battle, when 
 the parliamentary forces were broken by prince Rupert's charge, 
 and has escaped before the issue is certain. The lands of Mortham 
 go to Oswald, while Bertram claims the hidden treasure brought 
 by Philip from his wanderings in South America. Unwilling to 
 trust his accomplice, he proposes to seek the treasure and take 
 it with him to his home in Northumberland. Oswald sends with 
 him as a guide his own son and heir Wilfrid, a poetic youth, who, 
 by his father's design and his own inclination, is a suitor for the 
 hand of Matilda, the heiress of Rokeby. In canto 11 Bertram and 
 Wilfrid set out together. In the dark glen of the Greta Bertram 
 realises that they are being dogged and pursues the form of their 
 follower up the steep bank below Mortham tower. There it 
 vanishes, and, beside the tomb which is supposed to contain the 
 treasure, Bertram first ascribes his vision to the ghost-story 
 associated with the place, and then, struck by conscience, reveals 
 the fact that the shape was that of Mortham himself, and that 
 he has slain him. Wilfrid, horror-stricken, calls for help and 
 draws his sword upon Bertram, but is saved from his unequal 
 foe by the sudden interposition of Mortham, who is really alive. 
 Mortham allows Bertram to escape, but charges Wilfrid to keep 
 his secret and disappears. Meanwhile, news has come to Barnard 
 Castle that the king has lost the day and the knight of Rokeby 
 has been sent as a prisoner to Oswald's charge. As Wilfrid stands
 
 55 NOTES 149 
 
 alone in the early summer morning before the deserted Mortham 
 tower, Oswald and his men, with whom is the messenger Red- 
 mond, Rokeby's page, arrive. Wilfrid tells his father of Bertram's 
 confession and escape. Oswald says that pursuit is vain; but 
 Redmond, in spite of the hostility between Mortham and Rokeby, 
 leads some of his followers to track the fugitive, and Oswald feels 
 himself forced to promise a reward to the slayer of Bertram, who 
 must not be brought back alive. He is relieved to see them return 
 without result, and tells Wilfrid the news of Rokeby's capture. 
 The prisoner's ransom is to be the marriage of Matilda to the 
 heir of Wycliffe. 
 
 Canto III follows the fortunes of Bertram. Hard beset by his 
 pursuers and harbouring thoughts of revenge against Oswald, 
 Wilfrid and Redmond, he is lying hidden in the woods of Scargill 
 beside the Greta, when he meets another ruffian, Guy Denzil, 
 formerly one of Rokeby's men-at-arms, and now the captain of a 
 band of freebooters who make their head-quarters in a cave in 
 Brignall banks, just across the river. Here Denzil guides Bertram, 
 and, amid the revelry of their companions, reveals to him that 
 the treasure of Mortham is no longer there. Mortham, in his 
 widowed soUtude, has learned to confide in his niece Matilda and 
 has made her heiress to his treasure, which is now in a vault at 
 Rokeby. They plan an attack upon the house, to carry off Matilda 
 and the plunder. A spy brings the news that Matilda has been 
 seen in the glen of Thorsgill, attended by Wilfrid and Redmond. 
 
 The scene in canto iv changes to Thorsgill, and a digression 
 explains the origin of the page Redmond O'Neale, the grandson 
 of an Irish chieftain. During the rebelhon of the O'Neales, the 
 grandfather had taken sir Richard Rokeby and Mortham 
 prisoners and treated them kindly; and at the end of his Hfe he 
 sent the boy to England, to be brought up by Rokeby. Matilda 
 and Redmond were educated together and are in love with each 
 other; but, when Oswald first pressed his son's suit, sir Richard 
 favoured it and the two lovers were separated. On the outbreak 
 of war, however, Rokeby swore that no rebel's son should wed 
 his heir, and Redmond has behaved gallantly beside his master
 
 150 NOTES p. 
 
 at Marston moor. In Thorsgill Matilda tells Redmond and Wilfrid 
 the story of the treasure confided to her charge by Mortham and 
 reads them, from a scroll which he has given her, the narrative 
 of his tragic life, the tale of his false friend, his accidental murder 
 of his own wife with the shaft levelled at her supposed lover, the 
 abduction of his infant son, his wanderings abroad and his return 
 to avenge his wife's death upon the traitor. Mercy, however, has 
 prevailed over vengeance, and the scroll concludes with the com- 
 mission of the treasure to Matilda in trust for his lost heir: if it 
 is unclaimed within three years, it will pass to her uncondition- 
 ally. During part of the tale, Bertram and Denzil have been 
 lying hid close by, and twice a chance movement of Matilda's 
 has shielded Redmond from Bertram's carbine. They hear an 
 armed force in the dell and go back to their cave without hearing 
 the end of Mortham's scroll. Matilda, determining that her place 
 is with her father in captivity, entrusts the treasure to Wilfrid. 
 The soldiers who now arrive have been opportunely told of the 
 ambush laid by the freebooters and have come out of their way 
 to bring help. The carbine, left behind by Bertram and Denzil, 
 is discovered; and, while Matilda goes to Rokeby under Red- 
 mond's escort, Wilfrid goes to find men to help him convey her 
 and her treasure to Barnard Castle. 
 
 In canto v Wilfrid arrives at Rokeby by moonlight: he and 
 Redmond have laid aside their rivalry to join in aiding Matilda. 
 A wandering harper comes to the hall-door. In spite of the 
 porter's unwillingness, Matilda and the two youths, lovers of song 
 and poets themselves, admit him to the hall, where he plays 
 before the household. He is actually Edmund of Winston, the 
 youngest and most daring of Denzil's band, whose songs have 
 been heard already in canto iii. Matilda takes the harp and sings 
 a farewell to Rokeby, which causes Edmund to relent. He delays 
 to give the signal for the robbers and tries to gain time for Wil- 
 frid's men to arrive. But Bertram is already in the hall with his 
 band. In the confusion which follows, Wilfrid carries Matilda in 
 safety through a secret passage to the wood outside, but returns 
 to seek and help Redmond. A furious fight takes place in the
 
 55 NOTES 151 
 
 hall between the robbers and the troops from Barnard Castle. 
 Wilfrid is wounded, but Redmond leads the rescuers to victory: 
 Denzil and Edmund are taken alive, the rest of the marauders 
 are slain except Bertram, who once more escapes through the 
 thick of his enemies. While the castle of Rokeby, set on fire, is 
 toppling to ruin, Redmond rides to Barnard Castle with Matilda 
 and the almost lifeless Wilfrid. 
 
 Three nights later, in canto vi, Edmund, who has escaped from 
 imprisonment, makes his way back to the robbers' cave. Here 
 he digs in the floor and, as he unearths and opens a steel casket, 
 his shoulder is seized by Bertram, who compels him to tell the 
 story of his escape. Edmund has been freed by the treachery of 
 Oswald Wycliffe, who, anxious to get Rokeby more closely into 
 his power, has suborned Denzil and Edmund to bear witness to a 
 supposed royalist conspiracy for seizing Barnard Castle. Rokeby, 
 hitherto a prisoner at large, has been thrown into chains, and 
 Oswald has ordered all suspected cavaliers to appear next day at 
 noon in the abbey church of Egglestone at the foot of Thorsgill. 
 But, while Oswald is giving these commands, a letter has been 
 brought him, in which he reads that Mortham is still alive. The 
 letter upbraids him with his treachery, but Mortham will allow 
 Oswald to have his lands, provided that Oswald restores him his 
 heir. At this point, Denzil discloses the fact that Redmond is the 
 heir of Mortham. His mother was an O'Neale: his Irish grand- 
 father took him away and sent him back to Rokeby. The proof 
 is the casket which Denzil found on the night when Redmond 
 was brought to the hall. Edmund, whom Denzil alleges to be 
 his son and gives as a pledge for his own safety, has been sent 
 to find the casket and to deliver a treacherous letter from Wycliffe 
 to Mortham in his hiding-place. Bertram takes the letter from 
 Edmund and tears it in pieces; but Edmund has already deter- 
 mined to tell Mortham the truth, and has very little care for 
 the safety of the ruffian Denzil, whose life depends upon him. 
 Bertram, who has been throughout the tool of Oswald in his 
 designs on Mortham, now will do all he can to undo the wrong. 
 He will not look upon Mortham's face, but sends him a message
 
 152 NOTES pp. 55- 
 
 of repentance and tells him to get together his troops at Richmond 
 and lead them to meet Oswald at Egglestone. Meanwhile, Oswald 
 has discovered that Denzil, in declaring Edmund his son, has 
 lied to him, and suspects that Edmund has been sent to warn 
 Mortham of the truth. He orders Denzil to execution and flatters 
 himself that he can outwit any attempt on Mortham's part. A 
 scaffold has been reared at Egglestone abbey, on which Rokeby 
 and Redmond will suffer, unless Matilda consents to marry 
 Wilfrid. But Rokeby, face to face with death, refuses to counten- 
 ance his daughter's marriage with the son of a traitor; and, while 
 Redmond offers his own life as a substitute for Rokeby's, Matilda 
 casts the burden of her decision upon Wilfrid, who generously 
 surrenders his suit and dies at her feet. Oswald, with his hopes 
 thus baffled, in fury orders the instant death of Rokeby and 
 Redmond; but at this point Bertram rides into the abbey ruins 
 and shoots his former accomplice. He himself is borne down and 
 killed by Wycliffe's men; and, now that Nemesis has done her 
 work and every obstacle is removed, Mortham arrives to greet 
 his lost son; and, in the course of the next month, Redmond and 
 Matilda are betrothed. 
 
 Scott, in his preface to the edition of 1830, recognised that the 
 comparative failure of Rokeby was due, in the first place, to the 
 fact that the public was less interested in Cavaliers and Round- 
 heads than in Highlanders, and, secondly, to the want of novelty 
 in the form of the poem. The popularity of Rokeby has never been 
 great : the story, though well planned, is unreal and its characters 
 conventional; and the verse is fluent to the point of being undis- 
 tinguished. In two points, however, it preserves the level of the 
 earlier narratives. Its descriptive and landscape passages are 
 beautiful and faithful, and it contains some of the lightest and 
 most graceful lyrics which Scott wrote. 
 
 I. Dawn and Sunrise 
 
 From canto 11, i-iii. The dawn of the morning when Bertram, 
 guided by Wilfrid, is on his way to Mortham, described from the 
 neighbourhood of Barnard Castle. The castle, which gives its
 
 56 NOTES 153 
 
 name to the town, is on the edge of a steep cHff on the left bank 
 of the Tees, in county Durham. It was founded by Bernard 
 BaHol in the twelfth century, from whom it derived its title of 
 Bernard's castle. In 1644, the date of the poem, it had been dis- 
 mantled for some years: it then belonged to sir Henry Vane, the 
 owner of Raby castle, whose grandson Christopher was created 
 baron Barnard of Barnard Castle. The property and title 
 descended to his heirs, represented by the present lord Barnard. 
 
 6. Brusleton and Houghton height] The hills of Brusselton 
 and Houghton (Houghton-le-Side) are some ten to twelve miles 
 north-east of Barnard Castle, between Darlington and Bishop 
 Auckland. 
 
 7. the rich dale] The broad expanse of lower Teesdale, which 
 widens out below Barnard Castle and Rokeby. 
 
 1 1 . Stanmore] The bleak ridge of Stainmore common — the 
 stony moor — which, rising west of Barnard Castle, divides the 
 valley of the Tees from that of the Eden. 
 
 12. Lunedale wild] The Lune rises in Lune forest, at the 
 foot of Mickle fell, and enters the Tees near Middleton-in-Tees- 
 dale, north-west of Barnard Castle. Kelton fell is on the south 
 side of Lunedale. 
 
 13. Gilmanscar] Near Gilmonby, in the parish of Bowes. 
 
 14. Arkingarth] Arkengarthdale moor is south of Stainmore, 
 and forms its continuation, separating the basin of the Tees from 
 the valley of the Swale. The view, as described, embraces an 
 amphitheatre of hills from the Lune on the north-west to the 
 Swale on the south-west. 
 
 15. a livelier t'wilight] The twilight of dawn, with its 
 promise of the coming day, following the uncertain light which 
 heralds daybreak. 
 
 16. banner'd walls] Cf. ' the banner'd towers of Doune,' 
 1. 23, p. 145 above, and Bridal of Triermain, i, xiii: 'But the grey 
 walls no banners crown'd.' 
 
 26. Brackenbury's dungeon-tower] For ' dungeon-tower ' 
 see note on 'the donjon keep,' 1. 4, p. 119 above. Brackenbury's 
 tower is a rectangular tower on the outer wall of the castle en-
 
 154 NOTES pp. 56- 
 
 closure, on the side next the town. It belongs to the earliest part 
 of the castle, but was not the 'dungeon-tower' or keep. Sir 
 Robert Brackenbury, killed at Bosworth, was a favourite of 
 Richard III, who succeeded to Barnard Castle by his marriage 
 with Anne Neville and did much to repair it. 
 
 30. That mighty trench of living stone] The Tees 'flows in 
 a deep trench of solid rock, chiefly limestone and marble ' (Scott) . 
 
 38. marble grey] Scott quotes Leland's mention of the 
 marble in the gorge of the Tees at Egglestone, which was quarried 
 by local 'marbelers,' who partly wrought it and partly sold it 
 unwrought to others. 
 
 43. Staindrop] Staindrop, in co. Durham, is a village 
 five miles east of Barnard Castle, on the road to Darlington and 
 on the edge of the park of Raby castle. The brook is called the 
 Langley beck. The church of Staindrop was made collegiate by 
 Ralph Neville, first earl of Westmorland, the Westmoreland of 
 Shakespeare's Henry V, whose beautiful monument is in the south 
 aisle. 
 
 44. Raby's battled towers] For ' battled ' see note on 1. 4, 
 p. 1 19 above. The magnificent castle of Raby, on the northern slope 
 of the vale of Tees, overlooking 'the rich dale' of 1. 7 above, was 
 one of the chief strongholds of the Nevilles, who forfeited it by 
 the attainder of the sixth earl of Westmorland in 1569. It was 
 bought from the Crown by sir Henry Vane in the time of James I, 
 and the building, a great part of which is of the fourteenth 
 century, is still inhabited by his descendants. 
 
 45. Egliston] Egglestone abbey, the ruins of which are on 
 the right bank of the Tees, south-east of Barnard Castle, was 
 founded for Premonstratensian canons in the twelfth century. 
 The 'rural brook' is the Thorsgill beck, which meets the Tees 
 here. See note on 1. 50 below. 
 
 46. Balder] The Balder rises in Stainmore and joins the Tees 
 midway between Barnard Castle and Middleton-in-Teesdale. 
 Balder was the mythical Scandinavian sun-god, the son of Odin, 
 slain by the mistletoe shaft with which his blind brother Hodur 
 had been armed by the treacherous Lok.
 
 57 NOTES 155 
 
 47. Greta] The Greta, which also rises in Stainmore, enters 
 the Tees at the foot of Rokeby park. The meeting of the rivers 
 is the subject of one of Turner's beautiful drawings of Yorkshire 
 scenery, which illustrate Whitaker's History of Richmondshire. 
 
 49. Lune] See note on 1. 12 above. 
 
 50. Thorsgill] Scott had already accounted for the Thorsgill 
 beck in 1. 45 above. It is possible that in that passage he con- 
 founded Egglestone with Cotherstone (the stone of St Cuthbert, 
 one of the traditional resting-places of the saint's coffin: see note 
 on 11. 3-26, p. 123 above), which is north of Barnard Castle, and 
 may have been thinking of the local stream, the Crook beck. 
 
 52. Deepdale] The Deepdale beck, flowing through a narrow 
 wooded glade, joins the Tees just above Barnard Castle. 
 
 53. dim-wood glen] Cf. 1. 16, p. 130 above. 
 
 54. Roslin's magic glade] The glen of the North Esk at 
 Rosslyn: see introd. note and note on 1. 32, pp. 112, 113 above. 
 Scott, writing to George Ellis, 8 July, 1809, says: 'The banks of 
 the Tees resemble, from the height of the rocks, the glen of 
 Roslin, so much and justly admired.' 
 
 57. Cartland's Crags] Cartland crags are a series of pre- 
 cipitous rocks in the gorge of the Mouse water, a tributary of the 
 Clyde, close to Lanark. They are well described by Dorothy 
 Wordsworth in her Journals: she visited them with her brother 
 and Coleridge on 21 Aug. 1803. 
 
 59. Albin] Scotland. Albin=:the mountainous country. 
 Scott implies that, though the scenery of Teesdale may be as 
 beautiful as that of Scotland, yet it lacks the unique charm of 
 his native land, where ' every field has its battle, and every 
 rivulet its song.' 
 
 64. thy champion brave] William Wallace, who, at the 
 beginning of his exploits against England, took refuge from the 
 governor of Lanark among the caves of Cartland crags. See 
 Scott, Tales of a Grandfather, series i, ch. vii.
 
 156 NOTES pp. 57- 
 
 II. Edmund's Songs 
 From canto iii, xvi-xviii, xxviii, xxx. Sung by the young 
 outlaw, Edmund of Winston, in the cave on Brignall banks. 
 
 (I) 
 
 1. Brignal banks] The wooded left bank of the Greta. 
 The village of Brignal stands above the river, about a mile from 
 Greta Bridge, famous in Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby, which is at 
 the south-east corner of Rokeby park. 
 
 2. Greta -woods] The right bank of the Greta, opposite 
 Brignal, is covered with the woods of Scargill, mentioned in 
 Macaulay's lines on the exiled cavalier, who 
 
 Heard in Laverna Scargill's whispering breeze, 
 And pin'd by Arno for his lovelier Tees. 
 
 5. Dalton-hall] Dalton is a village about six miles south 
 of Rokeby. 
 
 14. to-wn] In the old sense of ' an inhabited place,' applied 
 to any village irrespective of its size. Cf. Chaucer, Cant. Tales, 
 A 478: 'a povre Persoun of a toun.' 'Tower and town' here 
 represent civilised life as opposed to the freebooter's haunts of 
 'dale and down.' Scott used the phrase 'tower and town' as a 
 conventional ornament: e.g. Marmion, i, xi: 'Tamworth tower 
 and town'; Bridal of Triermain, i, xvii: 'Carlisle tower and town.' 
 
 27. ranger] An official sworn to range, i.e walk about, a 
 park, in order to prevent trespass. At a hunt the ranger's duty 
 was to beat the woods for a deer and report where he had lodged 
 or harboured one. 
 
 37. musketoon] Fr. mousqueton, a small musket or hand- 
 gun, shorter in the barrel than an ordinary musket. 
 
 41. tuck] The beat of a drum, from ioquer, a variant of Fr. 
 toucher. 
 
 43. wlien the beetle sounds his hum] I.e. at nightfall. Cf. 
 Shakespeare, Macbeth, in, ii, 42: 
 
 ere to black Hecate's summons 
 The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums 
 Hath rung night's yawning peal.
 
 6 1 NOTES 157 
 
 47. mickle] Much. 
 
 51. The fiend] Will o' the wisp. 
 
 (2) 
 
 The song was suggested to Scott by a reminiscence of an old 
 
 Jacobite ballad, the third stanza of which, borrowed in 11. 15-20, 
 
 runs: 
 
 He turn'd him round and right about, 
 
 All on the Irish shore. 
 
 He gave his bridle-reins a shake. 
 
 With, Adieu for evermore. 
 
 My dear ! 
 
 Adieu for evermore ! 
 
 7. the Lincoln green] The colour of the doublet worn by 
 huntsmen and foresters. Cf. The Lady of the Lake, iv, xvi: 'His 
 hunting suit of Lincoln green.' 
 
 12. fain] Fain to burst into flower. 
 
 (3) 
 
 I. AUen-a-Dale] I.e. Allen of the Dale. English surnames 
 such as Dale, Moore, are abbreviated forms of 'o' the Dale,' 'o' 
 the Moor,' in which they frequently occur in old documents. 
 
 7. The Baron of Ravensworth] Ravensworth castle, be- 
 tween Richmond and Barnard Castle, was the seat of the Fitz- 
 hughs. It came by marriage in the reign of Henry VII to the 
 family of Fiennes, lords Dacre of the South (1. 12) ; but they had 
 ceased to own it a century before the date of Rokeby. 
 
 8. Arkindale] Arkengarthdale. See note on 1. 14, p. 153 
 above. 
 
 13. belted] The sword-belt or cincture was one of the insignia 
 of an earl and a knight. 
 
 18. Rere-cross on Stanmore] The Rey-cross or Rere-cross 
 is a fragment of an old cross beside the Roman road which 
 crosses Stainmore forest, close to the border-line of Yorkshire 
 and Westmorland. The name is said to mean the King's cross, 
 and, according to one tradition, it was originally put up in the
 
 158 NOTES pp. 6l- 
 
 eleventh century to mark the boundary between England and 
 the district conquered by Malcolm Canmore. 
 
 21. Richmond] Richmond castle, on a cliff above the Swale, 
 was founded by Alan, earl of Brittany, to whom the Conqueror 
 granted the great tract of land, comprising north-east Yorkshire 
 and parts of Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire, which 
 was known as Richmondshire or the honour of Richmond. 
 
 III. Thorsgill 
 
 From canto iv, i-iii. See notes on 11. 45, 50, pp. 154, 155 above. 
 
 I. Denmark's raven] The raven was the standard of the 
 Danish leaders Hingwar and Hubba. The Danes invaded North- 
 umbria in 867, conquering the district east of the Pennine chain. 
 
 4. Reged] The Celtic name for the district west of the Pen- 
 nine chain, which remained unconquered by the Danes, and was 
 a debatable land until it was granted by William I to Malcolm 
 Canmore, who did fealty for it to him. See note on 1. 18, p. 157 
 above. Cf. Bridal of Triermain, i, xi: 'the harpers of Reged.' 
 
 8. Caldron and High-Force] Caldron Snout, on the borders 
 of Yorkshire, Westmorland and Cumberland, is a narrow sloping 
 chasm through which the Tees forces its way in a long water- 
 slide and cataract between basalt rock. High Force, six miles 
 further down the river, is the waterfall over which the river 
 escapes from the moors into the dale above Middleton. 
 
 10. Runic] Runes (literally whisperings) is the name applied 
 to the characters used in Scandinavian and certain Old English 
 inscriptions. Cf. Wordsworth, Joanna, 28; 'a Runic Priest,' and 
 see note in Selections from Wordsworth, pp. 119-20. 
 
 13. Balder] See note on 1. 46, p. 154 above. 
 
 15. Woden's Croft] Woden Croft is a farm on the right bank 
 of the Tees, above its confluence with the Balder. 
 
 16. the stern Father of the Slain] Odin, to whose hall of 
 Valhalla the slain in battle were borne by the Valkyries, the 
 'choosers of the slain.' See Gray's poem, The Fatal Sisters. 
 
 17. the Mace] The hammer of Thor, the son of Odin and 
 god of thunder.
 
 64 NOTES 159 
 
 19. Sifia] Sif, the wife of Thor. 
 
 20. Stratforth] Now called Startforth, opposite Barnard 
 Castle, on the right bank of the Tees. The name is the same as 
 Stratford, the ford on the street or Roman road, which ran from 
 the great northern road near Bishop Auckland to join the western 
 road over Stainmore and crossed the Tees at Barnard Castle. 
 
 23. Scald, or Kemper] A scald was a Scandinavian minstrel. 
 A kemper is a soldier or fighting-man, more usual in the form 
 'kemp.' Cf. the ballad of King Estmere in Percy's Reliques, 1. 126: 
 But in did come the kyng of Spayne 
 With kempds many a one, 
 
 and 1. 215: 'Downe then came the kemperye man.' 
 
 34. rath] More usually ' rathe.' Early: ' rather ' is the com- 
 parative of the kindred adverb 'rathe.' 
 
 38. Oberon] The allusions in this and the following lines are 
 to the fairy dramatis personae of Shakespeare's Midsummer- 
 Night's Dream. 
 
 59. Urbino] Raffaelle Sanzio (1483-1520), born at Urbino 
 in the Italian marches. Cf. Browning, Andrea del Sarto, 105: 
 'The Urbinate who died five years ago.' Scott compares the 
 variety of the trees in the wood to the masterly grouping of 
 figures in Raffaelle's famous cartoon of St Paul preaching at 
 Athens, one of the series executed for pope Leo X in 1515 and 
 1 5 16, as designs for tapestries. Seven out of the ten cartoons, 
 including this one, were in Charles I's collection at Hampton 
 court palace, and were removed in 1865 to the South Kensington 
 museum. 
 
 IV. Evening 
 
 From canto v, i, ii. Towler or Toller hill, from which the view 
 is described, is a hill round which the river bends on the right 
 bank of the Tees, a mile and a half above Barnard Castle. 
 
 7. the tower of Bowes] The village of Bowes stands, from 
 900 to 1000 feet above the sea, on the eastern slope of Bowes 
 moor, part of Stainmore forest, four miles W.S.W. of Barnard 
 Castle. It is the site of the Roman station of Lavatrae, near the
 
 i6o NOTES pp. 64- 
 
 junction of the Roman road mentioned in the note on 1. 20, p. 159 
 above, with the main western road which comes through Rokeby 
 and crossed Stainmore to Brough in Westmorland. The tower of 
 Bowes is a great rectangular keep, the only remaining portion of 
 a stronghold of the earls of Brittany and Richmond (see note on 
 1. 21, p. 158 above), probably built in the later part of the twelfth 
 century. 
 
 22. Her guardian streams] The Greta and the Tees. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM THE BRIDAL OF TRIERMAIN 
 
 The Bridal of Triermain ; or, The Vale of St John : a Lover's Tale, 
 was written by Scott contemporaneously with Rokeby and was 
 published anonymously about the same time. It is a romantic 
 lay supposed to be sung by an imaginary minstrel, Arthur, to his 
 lady-love Lucy. The scene is laid in Cumberland, a district which 
 already had provided abundant material for Wordsworth and 
 Coleridge and had been visited by Scott in the summer of 1797, 
 when he met his future wife at Gilsland. 
 
 Sir Roland de Vaux, the baron of Triermain, near Gilsland, 
 has a vision of a lady with an eagle's feather in her hair whom he 
 determines to make his bride. He sends his page Henry to the 
 seer Lyulph, whose traditional dwelling was on the banks of 
 Ullswater, to discover whether she is mortal and may be won. 
 Lyulph tells a tale which fills the greater part of canto i and 
 canto II. She is Gyneth, the daughter of king Arthur and Guen- 
 dolen, the lady of the magic castle in the vale of St John near 
 Keswick. Taught by her mother, she appeared at Arthur's court 
 at Cariisle and demanded his protection. He promised her hand 
 to the winner of a tournament, as he had previously sworn to 
 her mother that his knights should battle for her a whole summer's 
 day; but, repenting of his decision, asked her to stop the fight 
 when it grew too hot and accept a bridegroom of his choice. She, 
 however, refused to comply; and the fight which followed ended 
 in the slaughter of many of the best knights of the Round table.
 
 66 NOTES l6l 
 
 Merlin condemned Gyneth for her disastrous pride to sleep in the 
 vale of St John until a knight, as bold as any of Arthur's, comes 
 to awake her. She has appeared in visions to many knights, who 
 have undertaken the quest of finding her in her hidden castle, 
 but hitherto none has been worthy. In canto iii, sir Roland goes 
 to keep vigil in the vale of St John beside the castle-like rock 
 which is Gyneth's enchanted abode. One night he has a fleeting 
 vision of the castle, but in the morning he sees only the heaped 
 rocks of the mysterious mound. A second mocking vision, seen 
 through mist, rouses his anger. Flinging his axe at a crag, he 
 breaks away a fragment of rock and discovers a winding stair 
 which leads him to a place where he sees the castle before him in 
 substantial form. He breaks open the door, which is closed behind 
 him by an unseen arm, swims the inner moat and passes through 
 the deserted hall to a gallery where his way is barred by four 
 Lybian damsels, each holding a tiger in leash. He encounters this 
 ordeal safely, and, having conquered danger, refuses the tempta- 
 tions of wealth, pleasure and pride of empire, offered by further 
 bands of damsels as he pursues his quest. Followed by songs of 
 praise from his temptresses, he at last enters the bower where 
 Gyneth sleeps. As she wakes, the magic castle crumbles to 
 pieces, and he bears her home as his mortal bride. 
 
 On its first appearance, the poem was generally regarded as 
 an imitation of Scott by an unknown writer, a mystification 
 which was helped by the previous appearance of anonymous 
 fragments, purporting to be imitations of living writers, in the 
 Edinburgh Annual Register for 1809. The magic setting of the 
 tale differentiates it from Scott's previous romances in verse and 
 from Rokeby, and the metre is more broken and varied than in 
 the poems written after The Lay of the Last Minstrel; but the 
 purely chivalric passages, the detailed descriptions and the 
 spirited stanzas in which Scott employs his knowledge of local 
 topography with his usual skill justify Lockhart's praise of the 
 poem. ' His genius pervades and animates it beneath a thin and 
 playful veil, which perhaps adds as much of grace as it takes 
 away of splendour . . . and I think there is at once a lightness and 
 
 T.S. II
 
 l62 NOTES pp. 66- 
 
 a polish of versification beyond what he has elsewhere attained' 
 {Life of Scott, ch. xxv). Lockhart objected, however, with some 
 justice to 'the contemptuous satire of the frivolities of modern 
 life' in the introductions to the cantos. 
 
 I. The Magic Castle 
 
 From canto i, xiii-xv. Lyulph tells the story of Arthur's 
 journey 'from merry Carlisle, when Pentecost was o'er,' in search 
 of adventure. The vale of St John, down which the St John's 
 beck flows from its source in Thirlmere to join the Glenderamakin 
 at Threlkeld, is at the northern end of Thirlmere. The Castle rock, 
 on which Scott founded his tale, is not far from the lake, near the 
 main road from Ambleside to Keswick. 
 
 7. rampire] Rampart, in its earliest sense an artificial 
 mound or embankment of earth made for military purposes, and 
 applied later to the stone defences raised on such mounds. In 
 Lincolnshire the main road from Lincoln to the Humber, which 
 follows the line of the old Roman military road, is called the ' old 
 Ramper,' and the word 'ramper' is commonly used for any main 
 road, by association with the older military highways. In the 
 present case, the rampire is the curtain wall encircling a castle. 
 
 8. keep] See note on 1. 27, p. no above. 
 12. Nimrod] See Genesis x. 8-10. 
 
 14. balanc'd] Drawbridges across moats were usually bal- 
 anced by weights and pulleys, the beams of the bridge working 
 on pivots fixed in the ground just outside the gatehouse of the 
 castle. When the drawbridge was not in use, it was drawn up 
 and left leaning at an angle above the moat. In this instance 
 Scott makes the drawbridge depend from balance-beams (see 
 1. 61) fixed above the castle gateway. 
 
 18. prong'd portcullis] The portcuUis (Fr. porte=a. door, 
 and coulisse =a groove), which protected the timber doorway of a 
 castle, was a movable framework of iron bars like a gridiron, the 
 vertical bars of which ended in spikes. It was fixed in grooves at 
 the sides of the gateway and was worked up and down by a
 
 70 NOTES 163 
 
 windlass on the upper floor of the gatehouse. See 11. 59, 60 
 below. 
 
 20. no banners] See note on 1. 16, p. 153 above. 
 
 33. battled] Embattled, as in 1. 4, p. 1 19 above, and frequently 
 in Scott's poems. 
 
 46. the -wold] ' Wold ' is used in its old sense of an open and 
 uncultivated tract of country, the old English weald (cf. German 
 Wald). Cf. The Lord of the Isles, i, xxvi: ' Shunn'd by the pilgrim 
 on the wold.' The word is now applied to hilly land, just as the 
 synonym ' forest ' has generally lost its sense of bareness and un- 
 cultivation; but it was originally used of a barren tract of land, 
 irrespective of height or undulation. 
 
 51. the blessed rood] The cross (old English v6d), the em- 
 blem borne by Arthur on his shield. 
 
 63. The vaulted arch] The stone-vaulted passage through 
 the ground-floor of the gatehouse. 
 
 66. Caliburn] Excalibur, Arthur's magic sword. 
 
 II. The Enchanted Goblet 
 
 From canto 11, viii-x. Arthur departs from the magic castle, 
 where for three months he has been subject to the enchantment 
 of Guendolen. 
 
 9-1 1. The construction is loose and rather awkward. The sense 
 is, of course, 'the Lybian steed of Arthur, who had doffed his 
 luxurious Persian garments, and was clad in steel armour,' etc. 
 'Lybian' is incorrect spelling for 'Libyan,' i.e. African, Arab. 
 
 14. pleasures by] Pleasures past. The sigh is one of penitence 
 mingled with regret that his pleasure has come to an end. 
 
 32. Genii] Spirits, the djinns or genies of eastern mythology. 
 The magic element in Scott's legend, within its outer covering of 
 a medieval castle, is coloured by reminiscences of eastern story 
 and resembles the setting of a tale in the Arabian Nights or of 
 Beckford's romance Vathek. 
 
 49. the reed] The arrow: cf. the similar use of Lat. arundo 
 = a reed, arrow. 
 
 57. donjon] See note on 1. 4, p. 119 above.
 
 i64 NOTES pp. 70- 
 
 III. The Defenceless Border 
 
 From canto in, i. Sir Roland de Vaux, preoccupied with the 
 quest of which he has learned the secret from Lyulph's tale, 
 leaves Triermain and wanders round the enchanted rock in the 
 vale of St John. Meanwhile the Border is powerless to defend 
 itself against Scottish raids. 
 
 1. Bewcastle] Bewcastle, famous for the Anglian cross in 
 its churchyard, is the moorland parish north of Triermain, border- 
 ing on Scotland. The Hold is the castle from which the parish 
 takes its name, said to have been founded soon after the conquest 
 by Bueth, lord of Gilsland, and dismantled during the civil wars. 
 
 2. Speir-Adam] Spadeadam waste, as it is now called, is a 
 moor on the south side of Bewcastle fells. The farm of Spadeadam 
 is north of Triermain, on the line of the Roman road which led 
 northwards from the station of Amboglanna (Birdoswald) on the 
 
 Roman wall. 
 
 3. Harley-burn] The stronghold alluded to is Featherstone 
 castle in Northumberland, which stands opposite the junction of 
 the Hartley burn with the South Tyne above Haltwhistle. The 
 parish of Hartleyburn borders upon Cumberland, close to Gils- 
 land. 
 
 5-9. While the men of Northumberland and Cumberland, in 
 De Vaux's absence, cannot leave their fortresses, the raiders from 
 the neighbouring Scottish dales are free for their work of invasion. 
 Liddesdale (see note on 11. 3°, 31. P- loS above) is the valley of the 
 Liddel, which rises in the Cheviots above Hawick and waters 
 south Roxburghshire, flowing into the Esk and forming, in the 
 lower part of its course, the border between England and Scotland. 
 For Teviot (1. 6) and Eskdale (1. 8) see note on 1. 14, p. 102 above. 
 The Tarras and the Ewes waters (1. 7) are tributaries of the Esk 
 in Dumfriesshire; the Ewes meets it at Langholm and the Tarras 
 about two miles south. 
 
 II. de Vaiix] The family of Vaux {de Vallibus) were the 
 Norman lords of Gilsland and founders of the castle of Triermain^ 
 which remained in a younger branch of the family after the male
 
 71 NOTES 165 
 
 line of the elder branch had died out. Coleridge introduced 
 ' Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine ' into the second part of Christa- 
 bel, which was written some years before Scott's poem but not 
 published till later. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM THE LORD OF THE ISLES 
 
 The Lord of the Isles was contemplated by Scott during a visit 
 to the western Highlands in the summer of 18 10, but the idea 
 was laid aside for other work. Most of the poem was written in 
 the winter of 1814, and it was published on 18 January 1815. 
 Scott broke new ground, both as regards the scenery of a great 
 part of the work, which is laid in the islands of western Scotland 
 and the Hebrides, and in the historical setting, which is furnished 
 by the adventures of Robert Bruce and culminates in the battle 
 of Bannockburn (13 14). 
 
 The poem opens at the castle of Ardtornish, on the coast of the 
 sound of Mull, where Edith, sister of the lord of Lorn, is awaiting 
 the coming of Ronald, lord of the Isles, to celebrate their espou- 
 sals. While all rejoice, Edith knows that Ronald does not return 
 her love and, as she watches Ronald's galleys approach the 
 castle, she communicates her fears to her foster-mother Morag. 
 She sees a small bark contending against wind and tide in the 
 distance. This contains the outlaw king, Robert Bruce, with his 
 brother Edward and sister Isabel. They are forced to put to 
 shore and seek hospitality at Ardtornish as nameless strangers. 
 In canto 11 the nuptial banquet is proceeding, when the unknown 
 guests are announced. Lorn is the bitter enemy of Bruce, who 
 had slain the Red Comyn, his kinsman by marriage, and is in 
 treaty with the king of England, whose envoy, Argentine, is 
 present at the feast. The bearing of the strangers lays them open 
 at once to suspicion and Argentine prompts the minstrel to sing 
 a ballad in praise of the house of Lorn and in defiance of Bruce 
 which Edward resents. They are discovered and Lorn and his 
 followers threaten them with death, while the lord of the Isles, 
 who is secretly in love with Isabel, defends them in the name of
 
 l66 NOTES p. 
 
 hospitality, and Isabel pleads with Argentine, in the name of old 
 friendship, to stop the brawl. While all is in confusion, the abbot 
 of lona arrives to bless the espousals. Amid the wranghng, while 
 Edith joins Isabel in her prayers for the Bruces' safety and 
 Argentine demands them as prisoners of the English king, the 
 abbot is about to pronounce his anathema upon Bruce. The 
 exiled monarch, however, speaks boldly on his own behalf, 
 arraigning Argentine and Lorn as traitors, and the abbot's curse 
 is turned into a blessing. 
 
 In canto iii the friendship of Lorn and Ronald is broken and 
 Lorn prepares to leave Ardtornish, where Bruce remains with 
 the lord of the Isles. Now that the match between Ronald and 
 Edith is at an end. Lorn has sworn to give his sister in marriage 
 to an English baron, Clifford ; but Edith is found to have left the 
 castle and to have escaped with Morag to sanctuary at lona 
 under the abbot's protection. As Lorn and his friends depart, 
 Argentine demands reparation from Bruce for his charge of 
 treachery and gives him his glove to wear in his helmet, so that 
 he may recognise him in battle. After nightfall, Ronald and his 
 chieftains seek Bruce and swear allegiance to him. It is decided, 
 in the interests of Bruce's safety, that he and Ronald shall go to 
 the isle of Skye, while Edward and Isabel return for shelter to 
 Ireland. Ronald and Bruce, with a page, leave their galley on the 
 coast of Skye to go hunting. Near Loch Coruisk they meet five 
 hunters wearing badges of the house of Lorn, who tell them that 
 their ship has fled at the approach of a southern vessel. They are 
 constrained to spend the night in the strangers' cabin, where they 
 find a captive youth, supposed to be dumb, and are warned of 
 danger by his signs. Explaining that they are on a pilgrimage 
 and under vow, they eat and sleep armed at one end of the hut 
 and keep watch in turns. During the night their hosts, who know 
 Bruce's identity and have purposely laid the snare for him, 
 attack them and kill the page; but Bruce and Ronald slay the 
 ruffians and leave the hut in safety, taking the captive boy with 
 them. As they return to their galley, in canto iv, they are met 
 by Edward Bruce, who has followed them to call the king to the
 
 71 NOTES 167 
 
 head of his army. The Scots are ready to march, and Edward I 
 has died by the Solway, on his way to Scotland. Ronald accom- 
 panies Bruce and sends a galley to summon his island fleet to 
 assemble at Brodick bay in Arran. On the way Ronald pleads 
 for Isabel's hand, reminding Bruce that his troth with Edith has 
 been broken by Lorn : Bruce promises to do what he can : Isabel 
 is upon the isle of Arran in a nunnery, but her afiEections have 
 already been engaged by an unknown knight seen at a tourna- 
 ment. Meanwhile, the dumb boy stands by and weeps: Edward 
 Bruce offers to make him his page, but Bruce says that he is too 
 tender and retiring for such an occupation and suggests that he 
 should take shelter in St Bride's nunnery with Isabel. They land 
 at Loch Ranza, where, at the sound of Bruce's bugle, his followers 
 rally round him. He visits Isabel in her nunnery, where she has 
 determined to take the vows: she recognises that the knight of 
 the tournament and Ronald are one, but Ronald has broken his 
 troth to her and pledged it to the maid of Lorn and she will not 
 hear of his suit, unless he lays before her his spousal ring, freely 
 yielded back by Edith. At this the young captive, who has been 
 brought by Bruce to the convent and is a witness of the inter- 
 view, flings his arms round Isabel's neck, which Bruce takes as 
 a sign of his gratitude for the refuge provided for him. Leaving 
 him behind, the king returns to his camp. 
 
 At the beginning of canto v, Isabel finds the spousal ring with 
 a letter on the floor of her cell and divines that the captive is 
 Edith in disguise, when she finds that he is not in the nunnery. 
 Bruce has already left Loch Ranza for the meeting-place at 
 Brodick ; but she sends father Augustine, the chaplain, after him, 
 begging him to send back the boy. Edward Bruce, however, has 
 found him and sent him to the mainland, to announce the king's 
 arrival to his tenants in the earldom of Carrick. Ronald promises 
 to protect the boy and asks the chaplain to beg Isabel for some 
 token which he may wear in battle. The army crosses to Carrick 
 by night; but the English Clifford, for whom Lorn has destined 
 Edith, occupies Bruce's castle at Turnberry, and Bruce's sub- 
 jects are afraid to rise on his behalf. True to his promise, Ronald
 
 i68 NOTES pp. 71- 
 
 guards the disguised Edith, whose disguise no one but Isabel has 
 yet discovered. She faints during the night-march, and Ronald 
 hides her in a hollow oak, where she is found and taken prisoner 
 to Clifford. Lorn is with him, and she hears him tell her own 
 story, how, on her way to lona, she has been captured by pirates. 
 When Lorn sees the supposed boy, he at once advises that he 
 should be hanged upon the hollow oak. The execution is about to 
 take place, when Bruce and his men break from their ambuscade : 
 Ronald rescues the prisoner, Clifiord is slain. Lorn escapes in his 
 galley, and Bruce regains his castle and sends messengers to warn 
 Scotland of his victorious return. 
 
 An interval of some years separates the last canto from the 
 rest. Isabel has taken the vows at St Bride's and Edith, her dis- 
 guise removed, is with her. Scotland has gradually been won 
 back and Bruce is besieging the English in their last stronghold 
 at Stirling. Lorn has died in England, and Edith, heiress to his 
 lands, which are entrusted to Ronald's care, is a ward of the 
 Scottish Crown. Ronald has resigned his pretensions to the hand 
 of Isabel and is now ready to marry Edith. Bruce sends to St 
 Bride's, requesting that Edith should be sent to him in her old 
 disguise of a dumb boy, to act as his page and to try Ronald's 
 penitence for his broken troth. She arrives upon the field of 
 Bannockburn, where Bruce has just slain sir Henry Boune 
 (Bohun). At dawn the battle is renewed. Edith watches the 
 doubtful conflict from a neighbouring hill and, as the English 
 rally for the last time under Argentine, she breaks her silence 
 with a prayer for the victory of her country. Encouraged by the 
 supposed miracle of her restored speech, the Scots beat back the 
 English. Argentine, covering the retreat of king Edward, receives 
 his death-wound from the lord of Colonsay : he has lost his chance 
 of combat with Bruce, from whom he receives a chivalrous fare- 
 well. At the end of the battle, Ronald and Edith are married in 
 the abbey church of Cambuskenneth. 
 
 The Lord of the Isles, though written hastily at a time when 
 
 Scott was already engaged upon his work of prose romance, 
 
 bounds in passages of spirited narrative and description, which,
 
 72 NOTES 169 
 
 on their own merits, are not inferior to his earUer work. At the 
 same time, the whole work was cast in a mould which was already- 
 familiar to his public: his old material was presented in a new 
 setting to an audience which already had found the novelty it 
 wanted in Byron's narratives in verse, and his power of chivalrous 
 narrative, adorned with topographical allusion, could not regain 
 the popularity which his earliest poems had won. As usual, Scott 
 treated history with some freedom, weaving traditions of Bruce's 
 adventures into an imaginary tale without regard to chronology. 
 
 I. Autumn on Tweedside 
 
 These Spenserian stanzas, characteristic of the tender sentiment 
 with which Scott invests his favourite scenery, form the intro- 
 duction to the poem. 
 
 2. Somerville] The Pavilion of Alwyn, the seat of John 
 Southey, fifteenth baron Somerville (1765-18 19), is on the left 
 bank of the Tweed, between Galashiels and Melrose. Lord 
 Somerville was an intimate friend of Scott's, who learned much 
 from him in the art of planting an estate. Shortly before the 
 publication of The Lord of the Isles, Scott brought out a history 
 of the Somerville family, entitled Memorie of the Somervilles. 
 
 7. cushat] The wood-pigeon. 
 
 9. Ettrick] See note on 1. 74, p. 106 above. 
 
 10. Gala] Gala water, which gives its name to Galashiels, 
 joins the Tweed a little below Abbotsford. Gala house belonged 
 to Scott's kinsman, John Scott of Gala, whose property lay 
 immediately across the Tweed, opposite Abbotsford. 
 
 23. the red leaf] Cf. Coleridge, Christabel, 49: ' The one red 
 leaf, the last of its clan,' etc. 
 
 33. his bugle] An appropriate image for the month of No- 
 vember, the beginning of the full hunting season. Cf . the November 
 landscape in Keble, Christian Year, 23d Sunday after Trinity, 6: 
 Now the tired hunter winds a parting note. 
 And Echo bids good-night from every glade. 
 38. Albyn] See note on 1. 59, p. 155 above.
 
 170 NOTES pp. 73- 
 
 39. the rough West] The ' wild West-wind,' the ' breath of 
 Autumn's being.' 
 
 41. Coolin's hills] The Cuchullin or Cuillin hills, a wild 
 range of jagged peaks in south-west Skye, which form the back- 
 ground of the scene described by Scott in cantos 11 and iii. 
 
 42. the Seer of Skye] Cf. Collins, Ode on the popular super- 
 stitions of the Highlands of Scotland, 53 sqq. : 
 
 'Tis thine to sing, how, framing hideous spells. 
 In Sky's lone isle, the gifted wizard-seer, 
 Lodg'd in the wintry cave, with Fate's fell spear. 
 
 Or in the depth of Uist's dark forest dwells, 
 
 and 97, 98: 
 
 The Seer, in Sky, shriek'd as the blood did flow. 
 When headless Charles warm on the scaffold lay. 
 
 43. Reay] The country of the Clan Mackay, stretching from 
 the western border of Caithness to the west coast and comprising 
 a large part of Sutherland. 
 
 44. Harries] Harris, the southern part of the isle of Lewis in 
 the western Hebrides. 
 
 lona] The island of lona is the burial-place of the early kings 
 of Scotland and other monarchs and Highland chieftains, in- 
 cluding the independent princes known as the lords of the Isles. 
 Angus Og, the lord to whom Scott gives the more euphonious 
 name of Ronald, is said, in a document quoted in a note by Scott, 
 to have been buried in Islay: the same note records the benefac- 
 tions of his descendants to lona and their burial there in St Oran's 
 churchyard. 
 
 II. The Brooch of Lorn 
 
 The minstrel's song at the bridal feast in canto 11, xi-xiii. It 
 is founded upon the story of the battle of Dairy (the king's field) 
 in 1306. Bruce, after the murder of his rival John Comyn in the 
 Greyfriars' church at Dumfries, was crowned king of Scotland at 
 Scone on 29 March 1306. On 19 June he was defeated at Methven 
 by an English force under the earl of Pembroke and was forced 
 to escape with a small band of followers. They made their way
 
 74 NOTES 171 
 
 through the hills of Breadalbane (see note on 1. 18, p. 142 above) ; 
 but were met in Glendochart (see note on 1. 2, p. 138 above), on 
 the borders of Argyllshire, by John McDougal, lord of Lorn, 
 Comyn's brother-in-law. After a severe engagement, Bruce was 
 again defeated. It was said that, as he was making good his 
 retreat up a narrow pass, he overpowered Lorn in a single combat. 
 Lorn was rescued by two of his vassals who dragged Bruce away 
 by his mantle. He killed them with his battle-axe, but the 
 mantle and the brooch which held it remained in their grasp, and 
 the brooch was preserved as a trophy by the house of Lorn. 
 
 14. Dwarf's s-wart hands] The trolls or gnomes of northern 
 mythology were supposed to inhabit mountain-caves, where they 
 mined and hammered metal into magic forms. 
 
 16. England's love, or France's fear?] I.e. did the brooch 
 come as a present from England, the ally of Bruce's enemies, or 
 as a propitiatory gift from France, the enemy of England and 
 the supporter of Bruce's claims? 
 
 17. nothing] Adverbial, with the sense ' in no wise.' 
 
 27. Bendourish fell] Ben Douran or Ben Doran (3526 ft), 
 one of the highest summits of the part of the Grampians on the 
 edge of Perthshire and Argyllshire. 
 
 28. Douchart's sounding dell] Glendochart. 
 
 29. Teyndrum] Tyndrum is a wild mountain parish which 
 includes Glendochart and the source of the Tay. The village of 
 Tyndrum is at the head of the Fillan water (see note on 1. 2, 
 p. 138 above), the upper part of the Dochart. 
 
 33. the Douglas brand] Sir James Douglas, lord of Douglas, 
 known as 'the good lord James,' the most famous and devoted 
 of Bruce's adherents. He died in 1330, fighting in Spain against 
 the Moors, while on a pilgrimage to the Holy land in charge of 
 Bruce's heart, a mission which gave the house of Douglas its 
 armorial bearings of a crowned heart. 
 
 34. Campbell] Another of Bruce's followers, the ancestor of 
 the house of Breadalbane. 
 
 35. Kirkpatrick's bloody dirk] After the quarrel between 
 Bruce and Comyn in the church at Dumfries (see introductory
 
 172 NOTES pp. 74- 
 
 note), Bruce met, upon the threshold of the church, sir James 
 Lindsay and sir Roger Kirkpatrick, laird of Closeburn. They 
 asked him 'What tidings?' He answered, 'Bad tidings: I doubt 
 I have slain the Red Comyn.' Thereupon Kirkpatrick, exclaiming 
 ' I mak sicker' (i.e. I will make sure), rushed into the church with 
 Lindsay and dispatched the wounded man. 
 
 37. Barendown] Scott derived the names of Barendown and 
 De la Haye (1. 38) from the Brus, a metrical chronicle by John 
 Barbour, archdeacon of Aberdeen (d. 1395), who mentions 'Schyr 
 William the Baroundoun ' and ' Schyr Gilbert de la Haye ' among 
 the fugitives from the battle of Methven. Gilbert Hay, lord of 
 Errol and high constable of Scotland, was the ancestor of the 
 earls of Erroll. 
 
 III. Loch Coruisk 
 
 From canto iii, xii-xvi. For Bruce's landing in Skye, see 
 introd. note. The scene described is perhaps the wildest and 
 grandest in the British isles. Loch Coruisk (Gael. Coire-uisge, 
 i.e. the corrie or hollow of water) is a small lake surrounded by 
 the barren peaks of the Cuillin hills (see note on 1. 41, p. 170 
 above) and separated only by a narrow isthmus from the sea at 
 Loch Scavaig. Scott visited it on 25 August 1814 and has left a 
 minute prose description of it in the diary printed by Lockhart 
 in his Life of Scott. ' Upon the whole,' he writes, 'though I have 
 seen many scenes of more extensive desolation, I never witnessed 
 any in which it pressed more deeply upon the eye and the heart 
 than at Loch Corriskin; at the same time that its grandeur 
 elevated and redeemed it from the wild and dreary character of 
 utter barrenness.' This is the opinion also recorded in the intro- 
 duction to canto IV of The Lord of the Isles, 11. 19-27, in which 
 Scott says of the Highlands : 
 
 Such are the scenes, where savage grandeur wakes 
 An awful thrill that softens into sighs; 
 Such feelings rouse them by dim Rannoch's lakes. 
 In dark Glencoe such gloomy raptures rise:
 
 77 NOTES 173 
 
 Or, farther, where, beneath the northern skies. 
 Chides wild Loch-Eribol his caverns hoar — 
 But, be the minstrel judge, they yield the prize 
 Of desert dignity to that dread shore 
 That sees grim Coolin rise, and hears Coriskin roar. 
 
 3. Mull] Bruce and Ronald sailed from Ardtornish, which is 
 in Morven, the peninsula between Loch Linnhe and Loch Sunart, 
 through the sound of Mull, which separates the island of Mull 
 from the mainland, into the open sea. 
 
 4. Ardnamurchan] The peninsula north of Loch Sunart, on 
 the borders of Argyllshire and Inverness-shire. 
 
 13. his shiver 'd crest] The Cuillin hills are composed of the 
 hard granitic rock called hypersthene. 'The tops of the ridge,' 
 says Scott in his diary, ' apparently inaccessible to human foot, 
 were rent and split into the most tremendous pinnacles.' 
 
 16. Scavigh bay] Loch Scavaig, on the south coast of Skye. 
 
 17. calmer heaven] I.e. they were delayed by a calm from 
 landing until sunset. 
 
 21. Strathnardill and Dunskye] Strathnardill is an old 
 form of Strathaird, the name of the narrow peninsula on the east 
 side of Loch Scavaig. By Dunskye Scott appears to mean the 
 portion of the island west of Loch Scavaig, between Soay sound 
 and Loch Brittle. 
 
 31. bolts] Arrows. 
 
 34. a wild stream] The Scavaig, the outlet of Loch Coruisk, 
 called by Scott a 'huddling and riotous brook.' 
 
 47. by my halidome] By my holy dame, i.e. St Mary. 
 
 64. Benmore] Several mountains in Scotland bear this name 
 (the great mountain). Scott evidently refers to the mountain 
 (3843 ft) in Perthshire, on the south side of Glendochart, near 
 the scene of Bruce's defeat by John of Lorn. 
 
 65. Glencroe] The valley between Loch Long and Loch Fyne 
 in Argyllshire. 
 
 66. Cruchan-Ben] Ben Cruachan, the great mountain (3689 
 ft) between Loch Awe and Loch Etive, on the south side of which 
 the Awe flows through the pass of Brander. In 1308 Bruce
 
 174 NOTES PP- 77- 
 
 revenged himself upon John of Lorn for the defeat of Dairy by 
 hemming him round in the pass of Brander, where most of the 
 men of Lorn were slain or drowned. 
 
 90. the Druid's stone] Scott alludes to the logan or rocking 
 stones which, in granite districts (e.g. in Cornwall and on Dart- 
 moor) are found balanced upon the rocks below — a natural 
 phenomenon which, like others that seem to indicate human 
 agency, was at one time supposed to be the work of the Druids. 
 
 117. old. Guchullin] A chieftain in the Ossianic poems. The 
 name of the hills, however, is in Gaelic, A Chuilionn (the ridges), 
 and there appears to be no ground for the derivation from 
 Cuchullin. 
 
 122. -were] Were here. 
 
 123. His maidens] Torquil, the lord of Dunvegan on the 
 north-west coast of Skye, plays a prominent part in the dispute 
 at Ardtornish in canto 11. Dunvegan castle, the seat of the 
 Macleods, was visited by Scott in 1814. Macleod's maidens are 
 three isolated basaltic rocks in the sea, close to the south point 
 of Duirinish, the north-western portion of the island. Scott, 
 describing a stormy night at Dunvegan, says that the rocks, 
 covered with foam, 'seemed no bad representatives of the 
 Norwegian goddesses, called Choosers of the Slain, or Riders of 
 the Storm.' 
 
 124. my noble Liege] Ronald is addressing Bruce in the 
 third person. 
 
 125. his Nurse] Torquil's nurse. Scott alludes to the water- 
 fall known as the Nurse of Rorie Mhor, near Dunvegan castle. 
 Roderick Macleod, called More (the great), lived in the reign of 
 James VI : the name was given to the waterfall ' because that 
 chief slept best in its vicinity.' 
 
 129. Corryvrekin] The rocky strait of Corryvreckan [Coire- 
 bhreacain, the speckled hollow or caldron), separates the north 
 end of the isle of Jura from the isle of Scarba. The tide runs 
 through it at a tremendous pace in 'a succession of whirlpools.' 
 The Hag (1. 130) is the personified spirit of the place.
 
 8l NOTES 175 
 
 IV. The Voyage to Arran 
 
 From canto iv, x, xi. The earlier part of the voyage from Skye 
 is described in vii-ix; stanzas vii and ix, beginning with the Une 
 'Merrily, merrily bounds the bark,' are varied in x and xi. The 
 whole passage is a signal instance of Scott's power of describing 
 rapidity of movement and his abandonment to the joy of 
 recapitulating the names of places, each of which had for him its 
 own romantic charm and historical associations. 
 
 5. Mull] See note on 1. 3, p. 173 above. Bruce and Ronald, 
 on their southward journey, sail outside Mull, through the channel 
 between it and the isles of Coll and Tiree. Ulva and Little 
 Colonsay (1. 6) he between Mull and Staffa. 
 
 8. Staffa] Staffa (the isle of columns), so called because of 
 the pillar-like formation of its basaltic rocks, similar to those of 
 the Giants' causeway in the north of Ireland, lies south of the 
 small archipelago off the coast of Mull, which hems it in when it 
 is approached from the north. 
 
 9. all unknown] Staffa, which is uninhabited, was unknown 
 to all but the fishers of the neighbouring islands, until it was dis- 
 covered by sir Joseph Banks during his voyage to Iceland in 
 1772. 
 
 13. that wondrous dome] Fingal's cave, at the south end 
 of Staffa. 
 
 27. lona] lona lies about six miles south of Staffa. Scott 
 contrasts the ruined cathedral church of the diocese of the Isles, 
 the work of human hands, with Nature's temple of Fingal's cave. 
 
 36. Loch-Tua] The strait between Mull and Ulva. 
 
 37. Tiree] See note on 1. 5 above. The island lies south-west 
 of Coll (1. 38), the laird of which entertained Johnson and Boswell 
 during their tour in the Hebrides. 
 
 39. Columba's isle] lona or Hy, known as Icolmkill (the 
 island of Columb of the church), from the monastery founded by 
 St Columb, the apostle of Scotland, in 563. 
 
 45. Lochbuie] Loch Buy, on the south coast of Mull, was the 
 seat of the head of a branch of the Maclaines.
 
 176 NOTES pp. 81- 
 
 47. Hay] The islands mentioned in 11. 47-52 lie off the coast 
 of southern Argyllshire. The small island of Scarba (see note on 
 1. 129, p. 174 above). Jura and Tslay lie in a line from north to 
 south, divided from each other by narrow sounds. Colonsay, 
 not the smaller island referred to in 1. 6, is outside the group, 
 west of Jura. 
 
 59. Levsen] John Leyden (1775-1811), a scholar to whose 
 researches Scott was greatly indebted for material for his Border 
 Minstrelsy , was the author of a ballad entitled Macphail of 
 Colonsay, and the Mermaid of Corrievrekin. Leyden left Scotland 
 to practise as a surgeon in India, where he made great progress 
 in the study of Oriental languages. He died at Cornells in the 
 island of Java in 181 1. 
 
 V. The Death of Argentine 
 
 From canto vi, xxxii-xxxiv. Sir Giles Argentine, says Scott, 
 'was one of the most accomplished knights of the period. He 
 had served in the wars of Henry of Luxemburg' [the emperor 
 Henry VII] 'with such high reputation, that he was, in popular 
 estimation the third worthy of the age. Those to whom fame 
 assigned precedence over him were Henry of Luxemburg him- 
 self and Robert Bruce. Argentine had warred in Palestine, en- 
 countered thrice with the Saracens and had slain two antagonists 
 in each engagement: an easy matter, he said, for one Christian 
 knight to slay two pagan dogs.' Scott founded the story of his 
 death upon the tradition that he and Aymer de Valence, earl of 
 Pembroke, were chosen to guard Edward II at Bannockburn: 
 when he saw Edward safely in retreat, he said ' God be with you, 
 sir: it is not my wont to fly,' and met his death as described in 
 the poem. The Argenteyns, who took their name from Argentan 
 in Normandy, the place of their origin, were lords of Horseheath 
 in Cambridgeshire. 
 
 9. Saint James] The patron saint of pilgrims. His name 
 was an appropriate war-cry for Argentine, who had been a
 
 84 NOTES 177 
 
 pilgrim and crusader in Palestine. The shrine of St James was at 
 Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Cf. note on 1. 107, p. 99 above. 
 
 15. Colonsay's fierce lord] ' Macduffith, lord of Colonsay ' 
 {Lord of the Isles, canto 11, xvii). For Colonsay see note on 1. 47, 
 p. 176 above. 
 
 23. cuish] The cuisse is the steel piece of armour which 
 defends the thighs. Its development belongs to a period rather 
 later than the battle of Bannockburn, when plate-armour was 
 in its infancy. 
 
 38. The kind, the noble, and the brave] These qualities, 
 'the three chief requisites of a noble knight,' were taken by Scott 
 from the rhyming Latin poem on Bannockburn by Robert 
 Baston, a Carmelite friar, who, engaged by Edward II to sing 
 his victory was taken prisoner by Bruce and compelled to cele- 
 brate his master's defeat. He says of Argentine : 
 
 Nobilis Argenten, pugil inclyte, dulcis Egidi, 
 Vix scieram mentem cum te succumbere vidi, 
 
 i.e. 'Noble Argentine, famed warrior, courteous Giles, I was 
 well-nigh out of my mind when I saw thee fall.' 
 
 44. couch his lance] Lay his lance in rest preparatory to 
 charging. 
 
 51. Lord £arl] Argentine addresses Bruce, whom he regards 
 as a rebel to his own king, by his title of earl of Carrick. The house 
 of Bruce or Brus, came from Bruis in Normandy. The founder of 
 the race, from whom the king of Scotland was descended in the 
 eighth generation, received lands from the Conqueror in North 
 Yorkshire. His son was granted the lordship of Annandale by 
 David I of Scotland in 1124. Bruce's father married Marjory, 
 countess of Carrick; the south part of Ayrshire, and the earldom 
 of Carrick passed to Bruce himself on his mother's death in 1292. 
 Bruce's claim to the crown of Scotland was founded upon the 
 marriage of his great-grandfather to Isabel, niece of king William 
 the Lion. 
 
 53. our meeting] The combat challenged by Argentine 
 during the quarrel at Ardtornish, described in canto 11. 
 
 T.s. 12
 
 178 NOTES pp. 84- 
 
 65. Ninian's convent] St Ninian's, locally known as St 
 Ringan's, is the church of the parish in which Bannockburn is 
 situated. Scott converts it into a monastery. 
 
 66. late- wake] Vigils of the dead, at which the offices known 
 as Placebo and Dirige from the opening words of their psalms 
 were chanted. The word is properly 'lyke-wake,' i.e. watchings 
 over a corpse (Old English lie, which similarly appears in ' lych- 
 gate'), and the first part has nothing to do with 'late.' 
 
 HELLVELLYN 
 
 Written in 1805 after an ascent of Helvellyn in company with 
 Wordsworth and sir Humphrey Davy. The event alluded to in 
 the poem is the death of a young man called Charles Gough, who 
 lost his way and perished on Helvellyn in April 1805. His remains 
 were discovered on 22 July in the same year, guarded by his 
 terrier, who had managed to keep herself alive. Wordsworth's 
 poem Fidelity refers to the same incident. 
 
 5. Striden-edge] The Striding edge and Catchedicam (1. 6) 
 are the precipitous ridges on the north-east side of Helvellyn, 
 flanking the hollow in which the Red tarn lies beneath the 
 summit of the mountain. Cf. Wordsworth, Fidelity, 17-21: 
 
 It was a cove, a huge recess. 
 
 That keeps, till June, December's snow; 
 
 A lofty precipice in front, 
 
 A silent tarn below. 
 1 6. the hill-fox and the raven] Cf . Wordsworth, Fidelity, 1,2: 
 
 A barking sound the Shepherd hears, 
 
 A cry as of a dog or fox, 
 and 26, 27 
 
 The crags repeat the raven's note 
 
 In symphony austere. 
 21. requiem] Service for the dead. See note on 1. 4, p. 146 
 above. 
 
 27. scutcheons] Shields with armorial bearings. Cf. note on 
 1. 25, p. 108 above.
 
 90 NOTES 179 
 
 THE PALMER 
 
 This short ballad was written in 1806. The scene is a ranger's 
 lodge in the forest of Ettrick. 
 
 9. Palmer] A pilgrim from the Holy land, so called from the 
 palm-branch which he carried in token of his wanderings. See 
 Marmion, 1, xxiii, xxiv, for the description of the visits of the 
 palmer of the tale to various holy places. 
 
 14, 15. Cf. The Gray Brother, 106, p. 5 above. For the custom 
 of bringing back pardons and relics from abroad see Chaucer's 
 description of the pardoner in Cant. Tales, A 669 sqq., with his 
 wallet 'bret-ful of pardoun come from Rome al hoot' and his 
 various relics. 
 
 17. her form] The hiding-place of a hare in grass, so called 
 from the form or impression of the body left in it. 
 
 33. The Ranger] See note on 1. 27, p. 156 above. 
 
 HUNTING SONG 
 
 Written in 1808 as part of the conclusion added by Scott to 
 the unfinished romance of Queenhoo Hall by Joseph Strutt 
 (1749-1802) and printed in the general preface to Waverley (1814). 
 
 THE SPINDLE SONG 
 
 Sung by Meg Merrilies to her spindle in Ellangowan castle, 
 after the birth of the young heir in Guy Mannering (181 5), ch. iv. 
 
 ON THE MASSACRE OF GLENCOE, 1692 
 
 The metrical form of these eloquent lines, published in 1814, 
 was clearly suggested by Campbell's noble lyric of Hohenlinden, 
 which had been published'in 1802. For the massacre of Glencoe 
 see Macaulay, Hist. England, ch. xviii: the massacre of the Mac- 
 donalds on 13 Feb. 1691-2, ostensibly due to the chief of the 
 clan's failure to take the oath of allegiance to WiUiam III within 
 the prescribed time, was really an act of revenge instigated by 
 John, earl of Breadalbane, whose lands the clan had plundered. 
 
 12 — 2
 
 l8o NOTES pp. 90- 
 
 3. the desert of Glencoe] Glencoe (the glen of weeping) is 
 near the northern border of Argyllshire, opening out of Loch 
 Leven, an arm of Loch Linnhe. Macaulay describes it as 'the 
 most dreary and melancholy of all the Scottish passes, the very 
 Valley of the Shadow of Death.' 
 
 11. the erne] The golden eagle. 
 
 22. snood.] A fillet for binding the hair. 
 
 25. Cf . St Matth. xxvi. 23 : ' He that dippeth his hand with me 
 in the dish, the same shall betray me.' 
 
 JOCK OF HAZELDEAN 
 
 The first stanza of this ballad, written in 18 16, was taken from 
 an ancient source. Hazeldean, now called H^assendean, is in 
 Roxburghshire, north of Hawick. The speaker who tempts the 
 lady with the offer of his son's hand is a Northumberland laird: 
 Errington or Elrington and Langley (11. 11, 12) are on the south 
 side of the Tyne valley, between Hexham and Haltwhistle. The 
 theme much resembles that of Allen-a-Dale (p. 157 above). 
 
 7. she loot] She let. 
 
 19. manag'd] Trained, controlled. 
 
 29. bower and ha'] See note on ' bower,' 1. 2, p. 102 above. 
 
 PIBROCH OF DONUIL DHU 
 
 Written in 1816. For 'pibroch' see note on 1. 15, p. 141 above. 
 Donuil Dhu, Donald the Black, was a chieftain of the Campbell 
 or Conuil clan. 
 
 12. Inverlochy] The mouth of the Lochy river at the head 
 of Loch Linnhe, near Fort William. 
 
 19, 20. Cf. the incidents in the summoning of the clans by the 
 Fiery cross in The Lady of the Lake, iii, xv-xxiii. 
 
 REBECCA'S HYMN 
 
 Sung by the Jewess Rebecca in her prison at Templestowe, 
 before her interview with the Templar, sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert, 
 in Ivanhoe (1819-20), ch. xxxix. The poem is largely a cento of
 
 96 NOTES l8l 
 
 quotations from Scripture; for 11. 1-2 see Ps. cxiv. i, 2; 11. 5-8, 
 Ex. xiii. 21 and Ps. cv. 39; 11. 9-12, Ex. xv. 20 and Ps. Ixviii. 25; 
 11. 13-16, Ps. xliv. 9 sqq.; 1. 24, St John v. 35; 11. 25, 26, Ps. 
 cxxxvii, 2-4; 11. 29-32, Ps. 1. 13 and li. 16, 17. 
 
 COUNTY GUY 
 
 The song of the 'Lady of the Lute,' the countess Isabelle of 
 Croye, overheard by Quentin Durward at the castle of Plessis- 
 16s-Tours in Quentin Durward (1823), ch. iv. County =count.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abbotsford, 114, 169 
 
 Achray, loch, 133, 139, 143, 
 
 144 
 Admiral, The, 131 
 airy, 130 
 Albany, Murdoch, duke of, 145 
 
 — Robert, duke of, 145 
 Albert, Lord, 99 
 
 Albin, 155 
 Albyn, 169 
 Aldhan, Bishop, 123 
 Alexander III, 116 
 Alfred's falchion, 124 
 Alfred the great, 124 
 all unknown, 175 
 Allan-Bane, 133 ff., 146 
 Allan-Bane's Lament, 146 
 AUen-a-Dale, 157, 180 
 Alne, the, 121 
 Alnmouth, 121 
 Alnwick, 104, 121 
 altar's pale, 113 
 Ahvyn, Pavilion of, 169 
 Ambleside, no, 162 
 Ambuscade, The, 144 
 Ancrum moor, battle of, 108 
 Angus, earls of, 117, 127-37, 
 
 143 
 
 — Lady, 117 
 Annandale, 177 
 Arabian Nights, 163 
 Ardnamurchan, 173 
 Ardoch, river, 145 
 Ardtornish, 165, 173-7 
 Argentan, 176 
 
 Argentine, Sir Giles, 165-8, 176, 
 
 177 
 Arkengarthdale, 157 
 Arkindale, 157 
 Arkingarth, 153 
 
 armed, 145 
 Arran, isle of, 167 
 Artemis, priest of, 97 
 Arthur, king, 160-3 
 Ashestiel, 114, 132 
 Athens, 97 
 Athol, 143 
 Auchendinny, 98 
 Augustine, father, 167 
 Auld Reekie, 125 
 Autumn on Tweedside, 169 
 Avoid thee, Fiend ! 132 
 Awe, loch, 173 
 
 balanc'd, 162 
 
 Balder, 154, 158 
 
 Bale-fire, The, 109 
 
 Balfour, David, 125 
 
 Baliol, Bernard, 153 
 
 Bamborough, 121, 122 
 
 Bamburgh: see Bamborough 
 
 ban-dog, in 
 
 Banks, sir Joseph, 175 
 
 banner'd towers of Doune, 
 
 145 
 banner'd walls, 153 
 banners, no, 163 
 Bannochar: see Bennachra 
 Bannockburn, 130, 146, 165-8, 
 
 176-8 
 Barbed, 104 
 Barbour, John, archdeacon of 
 
 Aberdeen, 172 
 Barendown, 172 
 Barmoor, 129 
 Barnard Castle, 147-59 
 Baron of Ravensworth, The, 
 
 157 
 Baston, Robert, 177 
 
 battled, 119, 163
 
 i84 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Bayeux tapestry, 119 
 
 Bebba, 121 
 
 Beblowe rock, the, 122 
 
 Beckford, William, 163 
 
 Bede, Venerable, 120 
 
 beetle sounds his hum, when 
 
 the, 156 
 Bellenden, sir James, 98 
 Beltane, 142 
 belted, 157 
 
 — sword, 103 
 Ben A'an, 139, 141 
 
 — Cruachan, 173 
 
 — Douran, 171 
 Bendourish fell, 171 
 Benledi's living side, 144 
 Benmore, 173 
 Bennachra, 143 
 Benvenue, 134, 139. 141 
 Bertram, an archer, 137 
 Berwick, 118 
 
 Bethune (Beaton), Janet, 102 
 Beverley (de) , Constance, 1 1 5-7, 
 
 129-32 
 Bevis, Marmion's horse, 116 
 Bewcastle, 164 
 Birdoswaid, 164 
 Biscop, Benet, 120 
 Bishop Auckland, 153, 159 
 Bishop- Wearmouth, 120 
 Blackford hill, 117, 125 
 Black friars, 99 
 ■ — prince, 108 
 Blair Drummond, 146 
 Blake, sir Francis, 130 
 Blanche of Devan, 135 
 blast of bugle, 98 
 blessed rood, the, 163 
 Blount, 130 
 Blyth, 120, 121 
 Blythe and Wansbeck floods, 
 
 the, 121 
 Boat Song, 141 
 Bois-Guilbert (de), sir Brian, 
 
 180 
 bolts, 173 
 
 Boon, 140 
 
 Border, The Defenceless, 164 
 
 Borough muir, 98 
 
 Boswell, James, 175 
 
 Bosworth, 128, 154 
 
 Both well castle, 128 
 
 Bothwell's house, 146 
 
 Boune, sir Henry, 168 
 
 bower, 102 
 
 bower and ha', 180 
 
 Bowes moor, 159 
 
 — the tower of, 159, 160 
 bowne them, no 
 Brackenbury, sir Robert, 154 
 Brackenbury's dungeon-tower, 
 
 153 
 Brander, pass of, 173, 174 
 Branksome: see Branxholm 
 Branxholm, 100-9 
 Breadalbane, 142, 171 
 
 — John, earl of, 179 
 Breadalbane's boast, 146 
 Brian, 134, 135 
 
 Bride, St, of Bothwell, 128 
 Brignall banks, 149, 156 
 Brittany, earls of, 158, 159 
 Brittle, loch, 173 
 Brodick bay, 167 
 Brooch of Lorn, The, 170 
 Brough, Westmorland, 160 
 Browning, Robert, 141, 159 
 Bruce, Edward, 165-7 
 
 — Isabel, 165-8 
 
 — Robert, 130, 165-77 
 Bmis, 177 
 
 Brusleton and Houghton height, 
 
 153 
 Brusselton, 153 
 Buccleuch, loi, 103 
 
 — Anne, duchess of, 100 
 
 — dukes of, 98, 114 
 Bueth, lord of Gilsland, 164 
 bugle, his, 169 
 Burndale's ruin'd grange, 98 
 Buy, loch, 175 
 
 Byron, lord, 140, 169
 
 INDEX 
 
 185 
 
 Cadell, Robert, 132 
 
 Caen, 115 
 
 Caldron and High-Force, 158 
 
 — Snout, 158 
 Caledon, 139 
 Caledonia, in 
 Caliburn, 163 
 Callander, 144, 145 
 calmer heaven, 173 
 Cambuskenneth abbey, 136, 168 
 Campbell, 171 
 
 — clan, 180 
 
 — Thomas, 179 
 Canmore, Malcolm, 158 
 Cannobie Lee, 127 
 Canonbie, 127 
 Canterbury, 108 
 Carhonie, 145 
 
 Carlisle, 104, in, 160, 162 
 Carmelites, 99 
 Carnethy hill, 97 
 Carnethy's head, 98 
 Carrick, earldom of, 167, 177 
 
 — Marjory, countess of, 177 
 Carrs, the: see Kerrs 
 Carthusians, 107 
 Cartland's Crags, 155 
 Castell, John, prior of Durham, 
 
 122 
 castles are my King's alone. My, 
 
 128 
 Catchedicam, 178 
 cavin, no 
 
 Celano, Thomas of, 114 
 Cessford, 106 
 champion brave, thy, 155 
 Charles I, 159 
 
 — II, 103 
 Chatterton, 104 
 
 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 104, 156, 
 
 179 
 Chester, 132 
 Chester-le-Street, 123 
 Cheviot, 119 
 
 Cheviots, the, 106, 119, 129, 164 
 Chevy Chase, 121 
 
 Cistercian monks, 106, 107 
 Clan-Alpine, 133, 136, 142. 143 
 Clan-Alpine's shade, 146 
 Clare, the heiress, 115-8, 124, 
 
 128, 137 
 CHfford, 166-8 
 cloister-arches, the, 106 
 Closeburn, 172 
 Clyde, river, 143, 155 
 Cochrane, Robert, earl of Mar, 
 
 127, 128 
 Coilantogle, 138, 145 
 Coldstream, 123, 129 
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 102, 
 
 132, 155, 160, 165, 169 
 Coll, isle of, 175 
 Collins, William, 170 
 Colonsay, 176, 177 
 
 — Little. 175 
 
 — lord of, 168 
 Colonsay's fierce lord, 177 
 Colquhouns, the, 143 
 Columba's isle, 175 
 
 Comyn, John (Red Comyn), 
 
 165, 170-2 
 Conqueror, the, 124 
 Constance, 131 
 continent, 122 
 Coolin's hills, 170 
 Coquet, river, 105, 121 
 Coquet-isle, 121 
 corbells, 108 
 Corinth, 97 
 Cornells, 176 
 coronach, 144 
 correi, 144 
 Corryvrekin, 174 
 corslet laced, 103 
 Coruisk, loch, 166, 172, 173 
 Cotherstone, 155 
 couch his lance, 177 
 Cowton moor, 124 
 Craig- Forth, 146 
 Cranstoun, Henry, 100. loi, iii 
 Crawford, earls of, 113 
 Crianlarich, 138 
 
 12-
 
 i86 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Crichton castle, ii6, 117 
 Crook beck, 155 
 cross divine, he took the, 1 1 1 
 croupe, the, 127 
 Cruchan-Ben, 173 
 CuchulUn hills, 170, 172, 173 
 
 — old, 174 
 
 Cuillin hills: see CuchulUn hills 
 cuish, 177 
 cumber, 144 
 cushat, 169 
 custoiTi, the, 104 
 
 Dacre, Elizabeth, 104 
 
 — lord, 100, loi, 131 
 Dalkeith, Harriet, countess of, 
 
 99 
 Dalkeith, 98 
 
 Dairy, battle of, 170, 173 
 Dalton-hall, 156 
 Danes, the, 122-4, ^5^ 
 Dante, 106 
 
 dark presage, the, 131 
 dark-red pile, 122 
 darken'd roof. The, 107 
 Darlington, 153, 154 
 Dartmoor, 174 
 David I, 99, 106, 124, 177 
 
 — II, 108 
 Davies, sir John, 127 
 Davy, sir Humphrey, 178 
 Dawn and Sunrise, 152 
 Deanstown, 145 
 
 Death of Argentine, The, 176 
 
 — of Marmion, The, 130 
 deep defile, the, 129 
 
 — steeple, yon, 147 
 Deepdale, 155 
 Delaval, family of, 120 
 Deloraine, William of, 100, loi, 
 
 106, 127 
 demi-volte, 126 
 Denmark's raven, 158 
 Denzil, Guy, 149, 150-2 
 Dickens, Charles, 156 
 dight, 104 
 
 Dillon, Wentworth, 114 
 dim-wood, 130 
 
 — glen, 155 
 Dochart, 171 
 Doine, loch, 144 
 Dominicans, 99 
 donjon, 163 
 
 — keep, the, 119 
 Donuil Dhu, 180 
 Douchart's sounding dell, 171 
 Douglas and Marmion, 127 
 
 — brand, the, 171 
 
 — Gavin, 129 
 
 — house of, 105, 108, 117, 
 127-37, 146, 171 
 
 Doune, 145, 146, 153 
 
 — lord, 146 
 Druid's stone, the, 174 
 drum, his, 141 
 
 Drummond, William, 98, 113 
 Druridge bay, 121 
 
 Dry den, 113 
 Duirinish, 174 
 Dumbarton, 143 
 Dumfries, 170, 171 
 Dumpender Law, no 
 Dunbar, no 
 Duncraggan, 143, 144 
 Dunedin, 105, no 
 Dunholme, 123 
 Dunkeld, 129 
 
 Dunmail raise, cairn of, no 
 Dunskye, 173 
 Dunstanborough, 121 
 Dunvegan, 174 
 Durham, 99, 118-24 
 Durward, Quentin, 181 
 Dwarf's swart hands, 171 
 Dymokes, the, 115 
 Dysart, 112 
 
 Eadmer, 123 
 Eardulf, 123 
 Earl, lord, 177 
 earn, 109 
 earth-born castles, 139
 
 INDEX 
 
 187 
 
 east oriel, the, 108 
 Eden, river, 153 
 Edinburgh, 100, 105, no, 112, 
 117, 118, 125, 126, 129, 130 
 Edinburgh Annual Register, 161 
 Edith, 165-8 
 Edmund, 131 
 
 — of Winston, 150-6 
 Edmund's Songs, 156 
 Edward I, 116, 130, 167, 168 
 
 — II, 176, 177 
 
 Edwin, king of Northumbria, 
 
 105 
 Egelwin, bishop, 124 
 Egglestone, 15 1-5 
 EgUston, 154 
 Ellangowan castle, 179 
 Ellen, the Lady of the Lake, 
 
 133-47 
 Ellen's Song, 141 
 Elliot, 105 
 Ellis, George, 155 
 Emblems of punishment and 
 
 pride, 140 
 Enchanted Goblet, The, 163 
 England's love, or France's 
 
 fear? 171 
 English advance at Flodden, 
 
 The, 129 
 erne, the, 180 
 Errington, 180 
 Erroll, earls of, 172 
 Esk, river, 108, in, 126, 127, 
 
 164 
 
 — Black, river, 103 
 
 — North, river, 112, 113, 155 
 
 — White, river, 103 
 Eskdale, 164 
 Eskdalemuir, 103 
 Eske's fair woods, 98 
 Etive, loch, 173 
 Ettrick, 106, III, 169 
 
 — forest, 102, 103, 106, 108, 
 
 114. 179 
 
 — water, 103, 106 
 Eure, lord, 108 
 
 Even she, 146 
 Evening, 159 
 ever-green Pine, the, 142 
 Ewes, 164 
 
 fain, 157 
 
 fair Castile, in, 107 
 
 Fairfax, 148 
 
 Falaise, 115 
 
 Falkirk, 130 
 
 Falkland palace, 133 
 
 Farewell, 147 
 
 Featherstone castle, 164 
 
 Fenwicks, the, 127 
 
 Ferniehirst, 106 
 
 Ferrers, family of, 115 
 
 fiend. The, 157 
 
 Fiennes, family of, 157 
 
 Fiery Cross, The, 143 
 
 Fife, 112, 126 
 
 Filland water, 171 
 
 Fingal's cave, 175 
 
 Finlas water, 143 
 
 FitzEustace, the page, 116, 
 
 130-2 
 FitzEustace's Song, 125 
 Fitzhughs, the, 157 
 Fitz- James, James, 133-45 
 Flambard, Ranulf, 118, 119 
 Flodden, 114-8, 124, 128, 129, 
 
 131 
 
 foliage-bound, 113 
 
 font, 144 
 
 Fontenay-le-Marmion (Calva- 
 dos), 115 
 
 forest race, the, 102 
 
 form, her, 179 
 
 Forsters, Fenwicks, and Mus- 
 graves, 127 
 
 — The, 127 
 Fort William, 180 
 Forth, Dark, 146 
 
 — firth of, 98, no, 112, 126 
 
 — river, 139, 142, 144, 146 
 fragments of an earlier world, 
 
 The, 141
 
 i88 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Froissart, 107 
 Fruin water, 143 
 Fyne, loch, 173 
 
 Gala, 169 
 Galashiels, 169 
 galliard, a, 127 
 Galloway, 124 
 
 — John of, 103 
 Galwegians, 124 
 Gartchonzie, 145 
 Gawain, 129 
 Genii, 163 
 George, St, 109 
 George's banner, St, 119 
 
 - — chapel, St, in 
 
 — red cross, St, 104 
 giants, like, 141 
 Gifford, 116, 118, 131 
 Gilbert the page, 109 
 Gilmanscar, 153 
 Gilmerton, 97, 98 
 Gilsland, 160, 164 
 glaive, 145 
 glances, 142 
 Glastonbury, 124 
 Glen Finglas, 144 
 
 — Fruin, 143 
 Glen-Luss and Ross-dhu, 143 
 Glencoe, massacre of, 179, 180 
 
 — the desert of, 180 
 Glencroe, 173 
 Glenderamakin, 162 
 Glendochart, 138, 171, 173 
 glist'ning streamers, 140 
 Goblin cave, 134 
 Gordale scar, 127 
 Gordons, the, 126 • 
 Gough, Charles, 178 
 Gowrie, 143 
 
 Graeme, Malcolm, 133-7, 142, 
 
 147 
 Graemes, the, in, 126 
 Grahams: see Graemes 
 Grampians, 171 
 Gray Friar, a, 99 
 
 Greta, river, 147-9, 155, 156, 
 160 
 
 — woods, 156 
 Grey, house of, 115 
 GreyJFriars' church, Dumfries, 
 
 170 
 
 Stirling, 147 
 
 guardian streams. Her, 160 
 Guendolen, 160-3 
 Gyneth, 160, 161 
 
 Haddington, no, 116 
 
 half- worn letters, some, 131 
 
 halidome, by my, 173 
 
 Hall, sir James, of Dunglas, 109 
 
 Haltwhistle, 164, 180 
 
 Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, 98 
 
 Hamilton, James, no 
 
 Hampton court palace, 159 
 
 Hare Stone, 98 
 
 Harley-burn, 164 
 
 harness, 103 
 
 Harold, 112 
 
 Harold's Song, 112 
 
 Harries, 170 
 
 Hassendean: see Hazeldean 
 
 haunted Woodhouselee, 98 
 
 Hawick, 102, 103, 164, 180 
 
 Hawthornden, cavern'd, 113 
 
 — classic, 98 
 Hay, Gilbert, 172 
 Haye (de la), 172 
 Hazeldean, 180 
 Hebrides, 170, 175 
 Helvellyn, 178 
 Henry II, 122 
 
 — VII, 131 
 
 — VIII. 118, 145 
 
 — ■ of Luxemburg, 176 
 
 — son of David I, 124 
 Hermitage castle, loi, 108, 128 
 Heron, lady, 126 
 
 Heron, lord, of Gilmerton, 97, 
 
 99 
 Herries, 145 
 Hexham, 180
 
 INDEX 
 
 189 
 
 Hexham, bishop of, 99 
 
 High-Force, 158 
 
 high, high mass, the, 97 
 
 hill-fox and the raven, the, 178 
 
 Hingwar, 158 
 
 holiest word, the, 97 
 
 Holy Island, 120, 122 
 
 — land, 171, 179 
 holy shrine, each, 105 
 Holyrood palace, 117, 126, 135 
 Horner, Gilpin, 99 
 Horseheath, Cambs., 176 
 Horsley, John, 120 
 Houghton, 153 
 
 Howard, Charles, earl of Car- 
 lisle, 104 
 
 — Edmund, 131 
 
 — Thomas, duke of Norfolk, 
 104 
 
 earl of Surrey, 114, 128, 
 
 129, 131 
 
 — William, loi, 104, 105 
 Hubba, 158 
 
 Humber, river, 162 
 
 Hy; see lona 
 
 Hymn for the Dead, 113 
 
 Ida, king of Northumbria, 122 
 
 idle lay, an, 147 
 
 idle?se, 102 
 
 Hay, 176 
 
 Inderawude, 99 
 
 Inverlochy, 180 
 
 Invocation, 138 
 
 lona, 166, 168, 170, 175 
 
 — abbot of, 166 
 Irthing, river, 104 
 
 Isabel, niece of William the 
 
 Lion, 177 
 Isabelle of Croye, 181 
 Islay, 170, 176 
 
 jack, 145 
 James I, 154 
 
 — II, 112, 128 
 
 — Ill, 112, 127 
 
 James IV, 114-7, 126-30, 145 
 
 — V, 105, I32ff., 146 
 
 — VI. 143, 174 
 Jarrow, 120 
 Java, island of, 176 
 Jedburgh, 104, 106 
 Jeddart staff, 104 
 Jed valley, 106 
 Jedwood-axe, 104 
 jennet, 107 
 Johnson, Samuel, 175 
 Jonson, Ben, 98 
 Jura, isle of, 174, 176 
 
 Katherine of Aragon, 118 
 
 Katrine, loch, 132-44 
 
 Keble, John, 169 
 
 keep, no, 162 
 
 Keir, 146 
 
 Kelso, 103, 106 
 
 Kelton fell, 153 
 
 Kemper, 159 
 
 Kensington, South, museum, 
 
 159 
 Kerrs, the, 105, 106 
 Keswick, no, 140, 160, 162 
 kind, the noble, and the brave, 
 
 The, 177 
 Kirkcaldy, 112 
 Kirkpatrick, sir Roger, 172 
 Kirkpatrick's bloody dirk, 171 
 
 ladder, his, 141 
 
 Ladye, the, 102 
 
 lady's voice, a, 132 
 
 lake, the, 144 
 
 Lammermuir hills, no 
 
 Lanark, 128, 155 
 
 Lancaster, Thomas, earl of, 121 
 
 Langholm, 164 
 
 Langley, 180 
 
 — beck, 154 
 Lanrick castle: see Lendrick 
 
 castle 
 Lanrick mead, 134, 144 
 lanim. no
 
 190 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Lasswade, 97, 98 
 late-wake, 178 
 Lauder, church of, 127 
 
 — bridge of, 128 
 Lavatrae, 159 
 
 Lay of Havelok the Dane, 104 
 Lay of the Imprisoned Hunts- 
 man, 147 
 Layton, sir Brian, 108 
 Leland, 154 
 Lendrick castle, 145 
 Lennel, 129 
 
 Lennox and Leven-glen, 143 
 Leny, river, 144 
 Leo X, pope, 159 
 letter forg'd, a, 129 
 Leven, loch, 180 
 
 — river, 143 
 Lewis, isle of, 170 
 Leyden, 176 
 Lichfield cathedral, 118 
 Liddel, 108, 164 
 Liddesdale, loi, 108, 164 
 
 — the dark knight of, 108 
 Lincoln, 162 
 
 — green, the, 157 
 Lindesay, The, 126 
 Lindesay's heir. Lord, 113 
 Lindisfarne, abbot of, 115 
 
 — isle of, 115, 116, 122-4, 129, 
 
 131 
 
 Lindsay, sir David, 116, 126 
 
 — sir James, 172 
 
 — sir John, 113 
 Linlithgow, 98, no 
 Linnhe, loch, 173, 180 
 livelier twihght, a, 153 
 Lochbuie, 175 
 Lochinvar, 126 
 Lochy river, 180 
 Lockiiart, John Gibson, 114, 
 
 132, 161, 162, 172 
 Lodon, 124 
 Lomond, loch, 143 
 Long, loch, 173 
 Longtown, 103, 108, 126 
 
 loot, she, 180 
 
 lordly strand of Northumber- 
 land, The, 119 
 Lorn, lord of, 165-8 
 Lothian, 97, 106, no, 113, 124 
 
 — East, 126 
 
 — marquesses of, 99, 106 
 Lubnaig, loch, 144 
 Luffness, 145 
 
 Lufra, 136 
 Lune forest, 153 
 
 — river, 153, 155 
 Lunedale wild, 153 
 Luss, 143 
 
 Lutterworth, Leics., 115 
 Lybian, 163 
 
 Lyulph, 160, 162, 164 
 
 Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 
 
 156, 179, 180 
 Macdonalds, the, 179 
 McDougal, John, 171, 173 
 Macduffith, lord of Colonsay, 
 
 177 
 Mace, the, 158 
 Macgregors, the, 143 
 Mackay, Clan, 170 
 Mackenzie, Henry, 98 
 Maclaines, the, 175 
 Macleods, the, 174 
 Magic Castle, The, 162 
 magic maze, thy, 139 
 maidens. His, 174 
 Malcolm, king of Scotland, 122 
 Malise, 134, 143 
 manag'd, 180 
 Mar, earl of, 134-7 
 marble grey, 154 
 Margaret, dame, 133 
 Marmion, 11 4-1 32 
 Marston moor, 148, 150 
 Mary of Guise, no 
 Mary, queen of Scots, no, 132 
 Matilda, heiress of Rokeby, 148- 
 
 52 
 Medea, 97
 
 INDEX 
 
 IQI 
 
 meeting, our, 177 
 Melrose, 169 
 
 — abbey, 100, loi, 106-8, 
 113. 123 
 
 — battle of, 105 
 
 — by moonlight, 106 
 Melville, 98 
 
 Menteith and Breadalbane, 
 
 142 
 Menteith, 142, 143 
 Merlin, 161 
 Merrilies, Meg, 179 
 merry, 105 
 
 Methven, 143, 170, 172 
 mickle, 157 
 Mickle fell, 153 
 Middleton, 158 
 Middleton-in-Teesdale, 153, 
 
 154 
 mighty trench of living stone, 
 
 That, 154 
 monk of St Mary's aisle, 106 
 Monk-Wearmouth, 120 
 Monmouth, Anne, duchess of, 
 
 100, 103 
 
 — James, duke of, 100, 103 
 Montagu of Boughton, lord, 
 
 Henry, 114 
 Moors, the, 107, 171 
 Moray, 165, 166 
 
 — earls of, 134, 137, 146 
 
 — the regent, 98 
 More battle, 106 
 Morpeth, 121 
 Morris, William, 147 
 Morritt, John Bacon Sawrey, 
 
 147, 148 
 Mortham tower, 149 
 Morven, 173 
 mosque, 139 
 Mouse water, 155 
 Mowbray, Robert, 120, 122 
 Mull, 173, 175 
 
 — sound of, 165, 173 
 Murdoch, 134-6 
 Musgraves, the, loi, 127 
 
 musketoon, 156 
 Musselburgh, 98 
 
 narrow inlet, a, 140 
 Naworth castle, 104, 105 
 need-fire, 109 
 Netherby, 126, 127 
 Neville, Anne, 154 
 
 — Ralph, 154 
 Newark castle, 100 
 Newbattle, 99 
 
 — abbot of, 97 
 Nimrod, 162 
 Nine-and-twenty knights of 
 
 fame, 103 
 Ninian's convent, 178 
 noble Liege, my, 174 
 Nor' loch, 126 
 Norham, 123 
 
 — castle, 115, 1 17-9 
 Norhamshire, 119 
 Norman conquest, 120 
 Normand}', 176, 177 
 North Berwick, 128 
 
 Law, 126 
 
 Northallerton, 124 
 
 — battle of, 99 
 Norway, 112 
 nothing, 171 
 numbers flung, thy, 139 
 nuns, the, 120 
 
 Nurse, his, 174 
 
 — of Rorie Mhor, 174 
 
 Oberon, 159 
 
 Ochil mountains.. 126 
 
 Ochtertyre, 146 
 
 Og, Angus: see Ronald 
 
 O'Neale, Redmond, 149, 150-2 
 
 Orkney, earldom of, 112, 113 
 
 — isles, 112 
 
 Otterburn, battle of, 108, 117 
 Otterburne, the gallant Chief of, 
 108 
 
 pagod, 139
 
 192 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Palestine, 176 
 
 Palmer, 179 
 
 parent hill, their, 141 
 
 Pathhead, 112 
 
 pause, each according, 139 
 
 Peden, Alexander, 97 
 
 Pembroke, earl of, 170 
 
 Penicuik, 98 
 
 Pennant, Thomas, 142 
 
 Pennine chain, 158 
 
 Pentlands, 125 
 
 Pentland's mountains, 97 
 
 Percy, Henry (Hotspur), 108 
 
 Percys, the, 104 
 
 Perth, 126, 143 
 
 Philip of Mortham, 148-52 
 
 pibroch, 141, 143 
 
 Pittenweem, 138 
 
 'plain, 128 
 
 pleasures by, 163 
 
 Plessis-16s-Tours, castle of, 181 
 
 postern-door, 107 
 
 Preston bay, 126 
 
 Prestonpans, 126 
 
 prong'd portcullis, 162 
 
 Puiset, Hugh, 119 
 
 quatre-feuille, 107 
 
 Raby castle, 153, 154 
 Raby's battled towers, 154 
 rampire, 162 
 
 Ramsay, sir Alexander, 108 
 — John, 146 
 Randolph, sir Thomas, 130 
 ranger, 156 
 Ranger, The, 179 
 Rankle burn, 103 
 Ranza, loch, 167 
 rath, 159 
 Ravenscar, 127 
 Ravenscraig castle, 112 
 Ravensheugh: see Ravenscraig 
 Ravensworth castle, 157 
 Reay, 170 
 Rebecca, 180 
 
 red leaf, the, 169 
 
 reed, the, 163 
 
 Reged, 158 
 
 Regent, the, no 
 
 requiem, 146, 178 
 
 Rere-cross on Stanmore, 157 
 
 reveille, 141 
 
 ribbed aisle, each, 107 
 
 rich dale, the, 153 
 
 Richard III, 128, 154 
 
 Richmond, 152, 157, 158 
 
 — earls of, 160 
 
 Ride to Stirling, The, 145 
 
 Rievaulx, 106 
 
 Ripon, 99, 123 
 
 Rising of the North, 104 
 
 Risingham, Bertram, 148-52 
 
 Robert III, 145 
 
 Roderick Dhu, 133-46 
 
 Rokeby, 147-60 
 
 Roland, sir, 161 
 
 Rome, 179 
 
 Ronald, lord of the Isles, 165-75 
 
 Rosabelle, 112 
 
 rose-carv'd, 113 
 
 Roslin, 98 
 
 Roslin's magic glade, 155 
 
 Ross dhu, 143 
 
 Rosslyn, 112, 113, 155 
 
 — chapel, 112, 113 
 rough West, the, 170 
 Roxburgh castle, 108 
 Roxburghe, dukes of, 106 
 Rumble Churn, 121 
 Runic, 158 
 
 Rupert, prince, 148 
 rushy floor, the, 102 
 
 St Aidan, 122 
 
 — Albans, 120 
 
 — Andrew, 130 
 
 — Andrews, 129 
 
 — Bothan, 129 
 
 — Bride's chapel, 143 
 nunnery, 167, 168 
 
 — Bridget: see St Bride
 
 INDEX 
 
 193 
 
 114 
 
 177 
 
 St Clair : see Sinclair 
 
 — Columb, 175 
 
 — Cuthbert, 99, 122-4, "^55 
 
 — Cuthbert's daughters, 122 
 
 — Fillan, 138 
 
 — Francis, 99, 
 
 — Helen, 130 
 
 — Hilda, 120 
 
 — James, 176, 
 the divine, 99 
 
 — John of Beverly, 99, 116, 
 124 
 
 vale of, 160-4 
 
 — Mary, 173 
 
 — Mary and St Oswin priory, 
 120 
 
 — Michael, 109 
 
 — of Holy Island, The, 122 
 
 — Oran's churchyard, 170 
 
 — Peter, 99, 124 
 
 — Peter's day, 97 
 
 — Ringan's : see Ninian's con- 
 vent 
 
 — the, 122 
 
 — Wilfrid, 99, 124 
 sand, 132 
 
 Santiago de Compostela, 99, 177 
 
 Sanzio, Raffaelle, 159 
 
 Saracens, the, 176 
 
 Sark, III 
 
 Saxon, 144 
 
 Scald, 159 
 
 Scarba isle of, 174, 176 
 
 Scarborough, 127 
 
 Scargill, 149, 156 
 
 scaur, 127 
 
 Scavaig, loch, 172, 173 
 
 Scavigh bay, 173 
 
 Scone, 170 
 
 Scotland's dauntless king, and 
 
 heir, 124 
 Scott, Charles William, 99 
 
 — house of, 103 
 
 — John, 169 
 
 — Margaret, 100, iii 
 
 — Michael, 100, loi, 106, 109 
 
 Scott, sir Walter, character- 
 istics : ability to inspire poetic 
 interest, 119; ballad poetry, 
 early, 97; border history, 
 knowledge of, 100; cavalier 
 treatment of history, 106; 
 descriptive power, 137, 145, 
 152, 161, 169, 175; dramatic 
 force, 138; eloquence, 118; 
 emotion, 125; history, free- 
 dom in treatment of, 169; in- 
 vention of characters and in- 
 cidents, 116; medieval hymns, 
 love of, 114; metre, loi, 161; 
 native country, love for, iii, 
 138, 155; picturesque, love of 
 the, 105; power of chivalrous 
 narrative, 169; reproductive 
 power, 114; sentiment, 169; 
 Spenserian stanzas, use of, 
 138, 169; topography, know- 
 ledge of Scottish, 145, 161 
 — works '.Bridal of Triermain, 
 The, 139, 153, 156, 158, 160- 
 5; Cadyow Castle, 98; County 
 Guy, 181; Glenfinlas : or Lord 
 Ronald's Coronach, 144; Gray 
 Brother, The, 97-9, 179; Guy 
 Mannering, 179; Hellvellyn, 
 178; Hunting Song, 179; 
 Ivanhoe, 180; Jock of Hazel- 
 dean, 180; Lady of the Lake, 
 The, 132-47, 157, 180; Lay 
 of the Last Minstrel, The, 97, 
 99, 105, III, 118, 127, 161; 
 Lord of the Isles, The, 138, 
 142, 163, 165-78; Marmion, 
 114-33, 137, 138, 144, 156, 
 1 79 ; Massacre of Glencoe, On 
 the, 179; Memorie of the 
 Somervilles, 1 69 ; Minstrelsy 
 of the Scottish Border, The, 97, 
 105, 126, 176; Monastery, The, 
 112; Palmer, The, 179; Pi- 
 broch of Donuil Dhn, 180; 
 Quentin Durward, iSi; Re-
 
 194 
 
 INDEX 
 
 becca's Hymn, i8o; Red- 
 gauntlet, 127; Rokeby, 147- 
 61; Spindle Song, The, 179; 
 Tales of a Grandfather, 155; 
 Waverley, 179 
 
 Scotts of Buccleuch, 103, 105 
 Harden, 103 
 
 Scrivelsby, Lines., 115 
 
 Scroop, or Howard, or Percy's 
 powers, 104 
 
 Scrope, Geoffrey le, 104 
 
 — Henry le, 104 
 Scropes of Bolton, 104 
 
 Masham, 104 
 
 scutcheons, 108, 178 
 sea-born beads. The, 124 
 Seaton-Delaval, 120 
 seedling gem, some, 143 
 Seer of Skye, the, 170 
 
 — the gifted, 112 
 Selkirk, 100, 106, iii 
 Shakespeare, William, 141, 154, 
 
 156, 159 
 shatter'd trunk. His, 140 
 sheen, 140 
 Shinar's plain, 139 
 shiver 'd crest, his, 173 
 shrieve, 131 
 shrive, 99 
 Sifia, 159 
 sign, yon, 132 
 Sinclairs, the, 112, 113 
 Sinclairtown, 112 
 Skipton, 127 
 Skye, isle of, 166, 170-5 
 slogan, 105, 143 
 smoke-wreaths, the, 125 
 snood, 180 
 Soay sound, 173 
 SoltraandDumpenderLaw, no 
 Solway firth, 103, 127, 167 
 
 — moss, battle of, in, 133 
 Somerville, 169 
 
 Song of Albert Graeme, The, in 
 Southey, John, 169 
 Spadeadam: see Speir-Adam 
 
 Speir-Adam, 164 
 Spenser, Edmund, 140 
 Staffa, 175 
 Staindrop, 154 
 Stainmore, 153-60 
 Stainthorpe: see Staindrop 
 Standard, battle of the, 124 
 Stanley, sir Edward, 131, 132 
 
 — Thomas, 131 
 Stanmore, 153 
 Startforth: see Stratforth 
 stern Father of the Slain, the, 
 
 158 
 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 125 
 Stewart, Henry, 145 
 
 — Murdoch, 128 
 
 Stirling, 126, 134-9, 145-7. 168 
 
 — Grey, 146 
 Stirlings, the, 146 
 Stormont, 143 
 Stratforlh, 159 
 Strath Gartney, 144 
 Strathaird, i 73 
 
 Strathearn, Malise, earl of, 112 
 Strathyre, 144 
 
 Strathnardill and Dunskye, 173 
 streamers light, the, 106 
 Striden-edge, 178 
 
 Strutt, Joseph, 179 
 
 Stumah, 144 
 
 sullen Till, the, 130 
 
 Sunart, loch, 173 
 
 Sunderland, 120 
 
 Surrey, earl of: see Howard, 
 
 Thomas 
 Surrey's camp, 128 
 Swale, river, 153, 158 
 Symeon of Durham, 124 
 
 Tamworth, 115 
 
 Tantallon castle, 117, 118, 126-9 
 
 targe, 145 
 
 tarn, 109 
 
 Tarras, 164 
 
 tasted well, she had not, in 
 
 Tay, liver, 142, 171
 
 INDEX 
 
 195 
 
 Tees, river, 124, 147, 153-60 
 Teesdale, 153, 155 
 Teith, river, 139, 144-6 
 Templestowe, 180 
 Teviot, 102, 103, 164 
 
 — stone, 103, III 
 Teviotdale, 105 
 Teyndrum, 171 
 these, 123 
 Thirlmere, 162 
 Thorsgill, 149 ff-, 154- 158 
 Threlkeld, 162 
 Thurland, 131 
 
 Till, river, 123, 129, 130 
 
 Tillmouth, 123 
 
 Tilmouth cell, 123 
 
 Tinlinn, Wat, loi 
 
 Tiree, isle of, 175 
 
 Toller hill : see Towler hill 
 
 Torquil, 174 
 
 Torry and Lendrick, 145 
 
 Towier hill, 159 
 
 town, 156 
 
 — mine own romantic, 125 
 Traprain Law, no 
 Triermain, 160, 164, 165 
 Triumphant Michael, 109 
 Trossachs, 133-41 
 
 Tua, loch, 175 
 tuck, 156 
 
 Tudor, Margaret, 145 
 Tunstall, sir Brian, 131 
 Turnberry, 167 
 
 Tweed, river, 103, 106, in, 118, 
 119, 123, 124, 129. 130. 169 
 Twizell, 129, 130 
 Tyndrum, 171 
 
 Tyne, river, 116, 120, 164, 180 
 Tynemouth, 123 
 
 — prioress of, 115 
 Tynemouths priory, 120, I2I 
 
 Ullswater, 160 
 Ulva, 175 
 uncof&n'd, 113 
 Urbino, 159 
 
 vain knight errant, the, 
 
 130 
 Valence (de), Aymer, 176 
 Vanbrugh, sir John, 120 
 Vane, sir Henry, 153, 154 
 variable, 131 
 vaulted arch. The, 163 
 Vaux (de), family of, 164 
 
 sir Roland, 160-5 
 
 Vennachar, loch, 134-45 
 
 Vergil, 131 
 
 Voil, loch, 144 
 
 Voyage to Arran, The, 175 
 
 Wallace, sir William, 130, 155 
 
 — wight, 130 
 Walter, Lord, 105 
 Wansbeck, river, 121 
 ward, no 
 Warden raid, 127 
 Wardlaw, 123 
 Warkworth, 104, 121 
 warrior oak, 140 
 Water-Sprite, the, 112 
 Wear, river, 120 
 Wearmouth, 120 
 Wensleydale, 104 
 were, 174 
 
 west, the, 126 
 Westminster, 130 
 Whitaker T. D., 155 
 Whitby, 115, 117, 120, 123, 
 127 
 
 — abbess of, 115, 116, 119, 
 120, 129 
 
 White friars, 99 
 
 — Lady, 112 
 Widderington, 121 
 Widdringtons, the, 121 
 wight, 102, 104 
 
 wild stream, a, 173 
 
 William I, 115, 124, 158, 177 
 
 — HI, 179 
 
 — of Saint Calais, 123 
 
 — the Lion, 177 
 
 Wilton (de), 115-8, 128, 129
 
 196 INDEX 
 
 Windsor castle, 1 10 Wordsworth, Dorothy. 132, 155 
 witch-elm that shades St Fil- — William, iii, 132, 158, 160. 
 
 lan's spring, the, 138 „7^''v« r^ ^A ..a ^^ 
 
 wizard elm, the, 147 ^^^w?; 5''^'' «^' ^^^^ 
 
 Woden's Croft, 158 - Wilfrid, 148-52 
 
 Toltyl^Cardinal, 118 Yarrow water, 100, 106, iii 
 
 wondrous blaze, a, 113 y^^ld the muse the day, 98 
 
 — dome, that, 175 ^ork, bishop of, 99 
 
 PRINTED IN ENGLAND BY J. B. PEACE, M.A. 
 AT THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A A 000 256 160 
 
 CENTRAL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 University of California, San Diego 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 jflN 2q 1975 
 
 
 IAN ?. 5 xrn 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 CI 39 
 
 UCSD Libr.