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NOTE XIV.

Coir-nan-Uriskin.-St. XXV. p. 97.

This is a very steep and most romantic hollow in the mountain of Benvenue, overhanging the southeastern extremity of Loch-Katrine. It is surrounded with stupendous rocks, and overshadowed with birchtrees, mingled with oaks, the spontaneous production of the mountain, even where its cliffs appear denuded of soil. A dale in so wild a situation, and amid a people whose genius bordered on the romantic, did not remain without appropriate deities. The name literally implies the Corri, or Den, of the Wild or Shaggy Men. Perhaps this, as conjectured by Mr. Alexander Campbell,* may have originally only implied its being the haunt of a ferocious banditti. But tradition has ascribed to the Urisk, who gives name to the cavern, a figure between a goat and a man; in short, however much the classical reader may be startled, precisely that of the Grecian Satyr. The Urisk seems not to have inherited, with the form, the petulance of the sylvan deity of the classics: his occupations, on the contrary, resembled those of Milton's lubbar fiend, or of the Scottish Brownie, though he differed from both in name and appearance. "The Urisks," says Dr. Graham, "were a sort of lubberly supernaturals, who, like the Brownies, could be gained over by kind atten

* Journey from Edinburgh, 1802, p.109..

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tion, to perform the drudgery of the farm, and it Iwas believed that many of the families in the Highlands had one of the order attached to it. They were supposed to be dispersed over the Highlands, each in his own wild recess, but the solemn stated meetings of the order were regularly held in this cave of Benvenew. This current superstition, no doubt, alludes to some circumstance in the ancient history of this country."-Scenery on the Southern Confines of Perthshire, 1806. p. 19.

It must be owned that the Coir, or den, does not, in its present state, meet our ideas of a subterranean grotto, or cave, being only a small and narrow cavity, among huge fragments of rocks, rudely piled together. But such a scene is liable to convulsions of nature, which a Lowlander cannot estimate, and which may have choaked up what was originally cavern. At least the name and tradition authorize the author of a fictitious tale, to assert its having been such at the remote period in which his scene is laid.

NOTE XV.

The wild pass of Beal'-nam-Bo.

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St. XXVII. p. 98. Bealach-nam-Bo, or the pass of cattle, is a most magnificent glade, overhung with aged birch trees, a little higher up the mountain than the Coir-nanUriskin, treated of in the last note. The whole composes the most sublime piece of scenery that imagina

tion can conceive.

NOTE XVI.

A single page, to bear his sword,

Alone attended on his Lord.-St. XXVII. P. 98. A Highland chief being as absolute in his patriarchal authority as any prince, had a corresponding number of officers attached to his person. He had his body-guards, called Luicht-tach, picked from his clan, for strength, activity, and entire devotion to his person. These, according to their deserts, were sure to share abundantly in the rude profusion of his hospitality. It is recorded, for example, by tradition, that Allan Mac Lean, chief of that clan, happened upon a time to hear one of these favourite retainers observe to his comrade, that their chief grew old"Whence do you infer that? replied the other. "When was it," rejoined the first, "that a soldier of Allan's was obliged, as I am now, not only to eat the flesh from this bone, but even to tear off the inner skin, or filament?" The hint was quite sufficient, and Mac Lean next morning, to relieve his followers from such dire necessity, undertook an inroad on the mainland, the ravage of which altogether effaced the memory of his former expeditions for the like purpose.

Our officer of Engineers, so often quoted, has given us a distinct list of the domestic officers who, independent of Luicht-tach, or gardes de corps, belonged to the establishment of a Highland Chief. These are, 1. The Hench-man. See these notes, p. 246. 2. The Bard. See p. 223. 3. Bladier, or spokes

man. 4. Gillie-more, or Sword-bearer, alluded to in the text. 5. Gillie-casflue, who carried the chief, if on foot, over the fords. 6. Gillie-comstraine, who leads the chief's horse. 7. Gillie-Trushanarinslı, the baggage-man. 8. The piper. 9. The piper's gillie, or attendant, who carries the bag-pipe.* Although this appeared, naturally enough, very ridiculous to an English officer, who considered the master of such a retinue as no more than an English gentleman of 5001. a year, yet, in the circumstances of the chief, whose strength and importance consisted in the number and attachment of his followers, it was of the last consequence, in point of policy, to have in his gift subordinate offices, which called immediately round his person those who were most devoted to him, and, being of value in their estimation, were also the means of rewarding them.

* Letters from Scotland, vol. II, p.158.

NOTES TO CANTO FOURTH.

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NOTE I.

The Taghairm call'd, by which, afar,
Our sires foresaw the events of war.

St. IV. p. 106.

The Highlanders, like all rude people, had various superstitious modes of inquiring into futurity. One of the most noted was the Taghairm, mentioned in the text. A person was wrapped up in the skin of a newly-slain bullock, and deposited beside a waterfall, or at the bottom of a precipice, or in some other strange, wild, and unusual situation, where the scenery around him suggested nothing but objects of horror. In this situation he revolved in his mind the question proposed, and whatever was impressed upon him by his exalted imagination, passed for the inspiration of the disembodied spirits, who haunt these desolate recesses. In some of the Hebrides, they attributed the same oracular power to a large black stone by the sea-shore, which they approached

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