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APPENDIX.

NOTE A.

His Wazed Lord Ronald's beltane-tree.-P. 589.

THE fires ghted by the Highlanders, on the first of May, in compliance with a custom derived from the Pagan times, are termed The Beltane-tree. It is a festival celebrated with various superstitious rites, both in the north of Scotland and in Wales.

NOTE B.

The seer's prophetic spirit found.-P. 590.

I can only describe the second sight, by adopting Dr. Johnson's definition, who calls it "An impression, either by the mind upon the eye, or by the eye upon the mind, by which things distant and future are perceived and seen as if they were present." To which I would only add, that the spectral appearances, thus presented, usually presage misfortune; that the faculty is painful to those who suppose they possess it; and that they usually acquire it while themselves under the sure of melancholy.

NOTE C.

Will good St. Oran's rule prevail ?-P. 591.

pres

St. Oran was a friend and follower of St. Columba, and was buried at Icolmkill. His pretensions to be a saint were rather dubious. According to the legend, he consented to be buried alive, in order to propitiate certain demons of the soil, who obstructed the attempts of Columba to build a chapel. Columba caused the body of his friend to be dug up, after three days had elapsed; when Oran, to the horror and scandal of the assistants, declared, that there was neither a God, a judgment, nor a future state! He had no time to make further discoveries, for Columba caused the earth once more to be shovelled over him with the utmost despatch. The chapel, however, and the cemetery, was called Relig Ouran; and, in memory of his rigid celibacy, no female was permitted to pay her devotions, or be buried in that place. This is the rule alluded to in the poem.

75

NOTE D.

And thrice St. Fillan's powerful prayer.-P. 592.

St. Fillan has given his name to many chapels, holy fountains, &c., in Scotland. He was, according to Camerarius, an Abbot of Pittenweem, in Fife; from which situation he retired, and died a hermit in the wilds of Glenurchy, A. D. 649. While engaged in transcribing the Scriptures, his left hand was observed to send forth such a splendor, as to afford light to that with which he wrote; a miracle which saved many candles to the convent, as St. Fillan used to spend whole nights in that exercise. The 9th of January was dedicated to this saint, who gave his name to Kilfillan, in Renfrew, and St. Phillans, or Forgend, in Fife. Lesley, lib. 7, tells us, that Robert the Bruce was possessed of Fillan's miraculous and luminous arm, which he enclosed in a silver shrine, and had it carried at the head of his army. Previous to the Battle of Bannockburn, the king's chaplain, a man of little faith, abstracted the relic, and deposited it in a place of security, lest it should fall into the hands of the English. But, lo! while Robert was addressing his prayers to the empty casket, it was ob served to open and shut suddenly; and, on inspection, the saint was found to have himself deposited his arm in the shrine as an assarance of victory. Such is the tale of Lesley. But though Bruce little needed that the arm of St. Fillan should assist his own, he dedicated to him, in gratitude, a priory at Killin, upon Loch Tay.

In the Scots Magazine for July, 1802, there is a copy of a very curious crown grant, dated 11th July, 1487, by which James III. confirms, to Malice Doire, an inhabitant of Strathfillan, in Perthshire, the peaceable exercise and enjoyment of a relic of St. Fillan, being apparently the head of a pastoral staff called the Quegrich, wh he and his predecessors are said to have possessed since the days of Robert Bruce. As the Quegrich was used to cure diseases, this document is probably the most ancient patent ever granted for a quack medicine. The ingenious correspondent, by whom it is furnished, farther observes, that additional particulars, concerning St. Fillan, are to be found in BELLENDEN'S Boece, Book 4, folio ccxiii., and in PENNANT'S Tour in Scotland, 1772, pp. 11, 15. See a note on the lines in the first canto of Marmion.

"Thence to St. Fillan's blessed well,
Whose spring can phrensied dreams dispel,
And the crazed brain restore," &c.-EB

The Eve of St. John.

The Eve of St. John.

THE Baron of Smaylho'me rose with day,
He spurr'd his courser on,
Without stop or stay, down the rocky way,
That leads to Brotherstone.

He went not with the bold Buccleuch,
His banner broad to rear;

He went not 'gainst the English yew,
To lift the Scottish spear.

SMAYLHO ME, or Smallholm Tower, the scene of the following ballad, is situated on the northern boundary of Roxburghshire, among a cluster of wild rocks, called Sandiknow'-Crags, the property of Hugh Scott, Esq., of Harden [now Lord Polwarth]. The tower is a high square building, surrounded by an outer wall, now ruinous. The circuit of the outer court, being defended on three sides, by a precipice and morass, is accessible only from the west, by a steep and rocky path. The apartments, as is usual in a Border keep, or fortress, are placed one above another, and communicate by a narrow stair; on the roof are two bar- Yet his plate-jack was braced, and his helmet tizans, or platforms, for defence or pleasure. The inner door of the tower is wood, the outer an iron gate; the distance between them being nine feet, the thickness, namely, of the wall. From the elevated situation of Smaylho'me Tower, it is seen many miles in every direction. Among the crags by which it is surrounded, one, more eminent, is called the Watchfold, and is said to have been the station of a beacon, in the times of war with England. Without the tower-court is a ruined chapel. Brotherstone is a heath, in the neighborhood of Smaylho'me Tower.

This ballad was first printed in Mr. LEWIS's Tales of Wonder. It is here published, with some additional illustrations, particularly an account of the battle of Ancram Moor; which seemed proper in a work upon Border antiquities. The catastrophe of the tale is founded upon a well-known Irish tradition. This ancient fortress and its vicinity formed the scene of the Editor's infancy, and seemed to claim from him this attempt to cele

brate them in a Border tale."

1 "This place is rendered interesting to poetical readers, by its having been the residence, in early life, of Mr. Walter Scott, who has celebrated it in his Eve of St. John.' To it he probably alludes in the introduction to the third canto of Marmion.

Then rise those crags, that mountain tower,
Which charmed my fancy's wakening hour.""
Scots Mag. March, 1809.

2 The following passage, in Dr. HENRY MORE'S Appendix to the Antidote against Atheism, relates to a similar phenomenon:- I confess, that the bodies of devils may not be only warm, but sindgingly hot, as it was in him that took one of Melancthon's relations by the hand, and so scorched her, that

1 The farm-house in the immediate vicinity of Smailholm.

was laced,

And his vaunt-brace of proof he wore;
At his saddle-gerthe was a good steel sperthe,
Full ten pound weight and more.

The Baron return'd in three days space,
And his looks were sad and sour;
And weary was his courser's pace,

As he reach'd his rocky tower.

He came not from where Ancram Moor
Ran red with English blood;
Where the Douglas true, and the bold Buccleuch,
'Gainst keen Lord Evers stood.

Yet was his helmet hack'd and hew'd,
His acton pierced and tore,

His axe and his dagger with blood imbrued,—
But it was not English gore.

He lighted at the Chapellage,

He held him close and still;

she bare the mark of it to her dying day. But the examples of cold are more frequent; as in that famous story of Cantins, when he touched the arm of a certain woman of Pentoch, as she lay in her bed, he felt as cold as ice; and so did the spirit' claw to Anne Styles."--Ed. 1662, p. 135.

* See the Introduction to the third canto of Marmion...

"It was a barren scene, and wild,

Where naked cliffs were rudely piled;

But ever and anon between

Lay velvet tufts of softest green. ;

And well the lonely infant knew

Recesses where the wallflower grew," &c.-ED.

The plate-jack is coat-armor; the vaunt-brace, or wam brace, armor for the body; the sperthe, a ba tle-axe.

See Appendix, Note A.

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"The grave is deep and dark-and the corpse is And she was aware of a knight stood there

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In sleep the lady mourn'd, and the Baron toss'd And for evermore that lady wore and turn'd,

1 Eildon is a high hill, terminating in three conical summits, directly above the town of Melrose, where are the admired ruins of a magnificent monastery Eildon-tree is said to be the spot

A covering on her wrist.

where Thomas the Rhymer uttered his prophecies. See p. 57

2 Mertoun is the beautiful seat of Lord Polwarth. Trysting-place-Place of rendezvous,

There is a nun in Dryburgh bower,

Ne'er looks upon the sun;
There is a monk in Melrose tower,
He speaketh word to none.

1 See Appendix, Note B.

"The next of these compositions was, I believe, the Eve of St John, in which Scott re-peoples the tower of Smailholm, the awe-inspiring haunt of his infancy; and here he touches, for the first time, the one superstition which can still be appealed to with full and perfect effect; the only one which lingers in minds long since weaned from all sympathy with the nachinery of witches and goblins. And surely this mystery was never touched with more thrilling skill than in that noble

That nun, who ne'er beholds the day,'
That monk, who speaks to none--
That nun was Smaylho'me's Lady gay,
That monk the bold Baron.

ballad. It is the first of his original pieces, too, in which he uses the measure of his own favorite Minstrels; a measure which the monotony of mediocrity had long and successfully been laboring to degrade, but in itself adequate to the expres sion of the highest thoughts, as well as the gentlest emotions; and capable, in fit hands, of as rich a variety of music as any other of modern times. This was written at Mertoun-house in the autumn of 1799."-Life of Scott, vol. ii. p. 26. Ses ante, p. 568.

APPENDIX.

NOTE A.

BATTLE OF ANCRAM MOOR.-P. 594.

LORD EVERS, and Sir Brian Latoun, during the year 1544, committed the most dreadful ravages upon the Scottish frontiers, compelling most of the inhabitants, and especially the men of Liddesdale, to take assurance under the King of England. Upon the 17th November, in that year, the sum total of their depredations stood thus, in the bloody ledger of Lord Evers:

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192

403 816 10,386 12,492

whole family. The English penetrated as far as Melrose, which they had destroyed last year, and which they now again pillaged. As they returned towards Jedburgh, they were fol lowed by Angus at the head of 1000 horse, who was shortly after joined by the famous Norman Lesley, with a body of Fife-men. The English, being probably unwilling to cross the Teviot while the Scots hung upon their rear, halted upon Ancram Moor, above the village of that name; and the Scottish general was deliberating whether to advance or retire, when Sir Walter Scott, of Buccleuch, came up at full speed with a small but chosen body of his retainers, the rest of whom were near at hand. By the advice of this experienced warrior (te whose conduct Pitscottie and Buchanan ascribe the success of the engagement), Angus withdrew from the height which he occupied, and drew up his forces behind it, upon a piece of low flat ground, called Panier-heugh, or Paniel-heugh. The spare horses being sent to an eminence in their rear, appeared to the English to be the main body of the Scots in the act of 1,296 flight. Under this persuasion, Evers and Latoun hurried precipitately forward, and having ascended the hill, which their foes had abandoned, were no less dismayed than astonished to find the phalanx of Scottish spearmen drawn up, in firm array, upon the flat ground below. The Scots in their turn became the assailants. A heron, roused from the marshes by the tumult, soared away betwixt the encountering armies: "O!" exclaimed Angus," that I had here my white goss-hawk, that we might all yoke at once!"'—Godscroft. The English, breathless and fatigued, having the setting sun and wind full in their faces, were unable to withstand the resolute and desperate charge of the Scottish lances. No sooner had they begun to waver, than their own allies, the assured Borderers, who had been waiting the event, threw aside their red crosses, and, joining their countrymen, made a most merciless slaughter among the English fugitives, the pursuers calling upon each other to remember Broomhouse!"-LESLEY, p. 478.

200
850

MURDIN'S State Papers, vol. i. p. 51.

For these services Sir Ralph Evers was made a Lord of Par-, liament. See a strain of exulting congratulation upon his promotion poured forth by some contemporary minstrel, in vol. i. p. 417.

The King of England had promised to these two barons a feudal grant of the country, which they had thus reduced to a desert; upon hearing which, Archibald Douglas, the seventh Earl of Angus, is said to have sworn to write the deed of investiture upon their skins, with sharp pens and bloody ink, in resentment for their having defaced the tombs of his ancestors at Melrose.-Godscroft. In 1545, Lord Evers and Latoun again entered Scotland, with an army consisting of 3000 mercenaries, 1500 English Borderers, and 700 assured Scottish men, chiefly Armstrongs, Turnbulls, and other broken clans. In this second incursion, the English generals even exceeded their former cruelty. Evers burned the tower of Broomhouse, with its lady (a noble and aged woman, says Lesley), and her

1 The editor has found no instance upon record, of this family having taken assurance with England. Hence they usually suffered dreadfully from the English forays. In August, 1544 (the year preceding the battle), the whole lands belonging to Buccleuch, in West Teviotdale, were harried by Evers; the outworks, or barmkin, of the tower of Branxholm burned; sight Scotts slain, thirty made prisoners, and an immense prey of horses,

In the battle fell Lord Evers, and his son, together with Sir Brian Latoun, and 800 Englishmen, many of whom were per sons of rank. A thousand prisoners were taken. Among these was a patriotic alderman of London, Read by name who, having contumaciously refused to pay his portion of a

cattle, and sheep, carried off. The lands upon Kale Water, belonging to the same chieftain, were also plundered, and much spoil obtained; thirty Scotts slain, and the Moss Tower (a fortress near Eckford) smoked very sore. Thus Buccleuch had a long account to settle at Ancram Moor.MURDIN'S State Papers, pp. 45, 46.

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