cerned in the like performance, for this had disordered him to a high degree. He confessed it ingenuously, and with an air of great remorse, and seemed to be very penitent under a just sense of so great a crime he declared this about five years since, and is still living in the Lewis for any thing I know."Description of the Western Isles, p. 110. See also PENNANT's Scottish Tour, vol. ii. p. 361.

NOTE 2 U.

The choicest of the prey we had,

When swept our merry-men Gallangad.-P 211.

I know not if it be worth observing, that this passage is taken almost literally from the mouth of an old Highland Kern or Ketteran, as they were called. He used to narrate the merry doings of the good old time when he was follower of Rob Roy MacGregor. This leader, on one occasion, thought proper to make a descent upon the lower part of the Loch Lomond district, and summoned all the heritors and farmers to meet at the Kirk of Drymen, to pay him black-mail, i. e. tribute for forbearance and protection. As this invitation was supported by a band of thirty or forty stout fellows, only one gentleman, an ancestor, if I mistake not, of the present Mr. Grahame of Gartmore, ventured to decline compliance. Rob Roy instantly swept his land of all he could drive away, and among the spoil was a bull of the old Scottish wild breed, whose ferocity occasioned great plague to the Ketterans. "But ere we had reached the Row of Dennan," said the old man, "a child might have scratched his ears." The circumstance is a minute one, but it paints the times when the poor beeve was compelled

"To hoof it o'er as many weary miles,

With goading pikemen hollowing at his heels,
As e'er the bravest antler of the woods."

NOTE 2 V.

Ethwald.

That huge cliff, whose ample verge
Tradition calls the Hero's Targe.-P. 211.

There is a rock so named in the Forest of Glenfinlas, by which a tumultuary cataract takes its course. This wild place is said in former times to have afforded refuge to an outlaw, who was supplied with provisions by a woman, who lowered them down from the brink of the precipice above. His water he procured for himself, by letting down a flagon tied to a string, into the black pool beneath the fall.

Raven

NOTE 2 W.

That, watching while the deer is broke,

His morsel claims with sullen croak?-P. 211. Broke-Quartered.-Every thing belonging to the chase was matter of solemnity among our ancestors; but nothing was more so than the mode of cutting up, or, as it was technically called, breaking, the slaughtered stag. The forester had his allotted portion; the hounds had a certain allowance; and, to make the division as general as possible, the very birds had their share also. "There is a little gristle," says Turberville, "which is upon the spoone of the brisket, which we call the raven's bone; and I have seen in some places a raven so wont and accustomed to it, that she would never fail to croak and cry for it all the time you were in breaking up of the deer, and would not depart till she had it." In the very ancient

1 This anecdote was, in former editions, inaccurately ascribed to George Macgregor of Glengyle, called Ghlune Dhu, or Black-knee, a relation of

metrical romance of Sir Tristrem, that peerless knight, who is! said to have been the very deviser of all rules of chase, did not omit the ceremony:

"The rauen he yaue his yiftes Sat on the fourched tre."

Sir Tristrem.

The raven might also challenge his rights by the Book of St. Albans; for thus says Dame Juliana Berners :

"Slitteth anon

The bely to the side, from the corbyn bone;

That is corbyn's fee, at the death he will be."

Jonson, in "The Sad Shepherd," gives a more poetical account of the same ceremony:

"Marian.-He that undoes him,

Doth cleave the brisket bone, upon the spoon
Of which a little gristle grows-you call it—
Robin Hood.-The raven's bone.
Marian.-Now o'er head sat a raven

On a sere bough, a grown, great bird, and hoarse,
Who, all the while the deer was breaking up,
So croak'd and cried for't, as all the huntsmen,
Especially old Scathlock, thought it ominous."

NOTE 2 X.

Which spills the foremost foeman's life. That party conquers in the strife.-P. 212. Though this be in the text described as a response of the Taghairm, or Oracle of the Hide, it was of itself an augury frequently attended to. The fate of the battle was often anticipated in the imagination of the combatants, by observing which party first shed blood. It is said that the Highlanders under Montrose were so deeply imbued with this notion, that, on the morning of the battle of Tippermoor, they murdered a defenceless herdsman, whom they found in the fields, merely to secure an advantage of so much consequence to their party.

NOTE 2 Y.

Alice Brand.-P. 213.

This little fairy tale is founded upon a very curious Danish ballad, which occurs in the Kæmpe Viser, a collection of heroic songs, first published in 1591, and reprinted in 1695, inscribed by Anders Sofrensen, the collector and editor, to I have been favored with a Sophia, Queen of Denmark. literal translation of the original, by my learned friend Mr. Robert Jamieson, whose deep knowledge of Scandinavian antiquities will, I hope, one day be displayed in illustration of the history of Scottish Ballad and Song, for which no man The story will remind the possesses more ample materials. readers of the Border Minstrelsy of the tale of Young Tamlane. But this is only a solitary and not very marked instance of coincidence, whereas several of the other ballads in the same collection find exact counterparts in the Kæmpe Viser. Which may have been the originals, will be a question for future antiquaries. Mr. Jamieson, to secure the power of literal translation, has adopted the old Scottish idiom, which approaches so near to that of the Danish, as almost to give word for word, as well as line for line, and indeed in many verses the orthography alone is altered. As Wester Haf, mentioned in the first stanzas of the ballad, means the West Sea, in opposition to the Baltic, or East Sea, Mr. Jamieson

Rob Roy, but, as I have been assured, not addicted to his predatory excesses. Note to Third Edition,

As mends for Eline his huswife ;Thou's be my heartis dear."

32.

"Thou nobil knyght, we thank now God That has freed us frae skaith;

Sae wed thou thee a maiden free,
And joy attend ye baith!

33.

"Sin' I to thee nae maik can be My dochter may be thine; And thy gud will right to fulfill, Lat this be our propine."

34.

"I thank thee, Eline, thou wise woman;

My praise thy worth sall ha'e; And thy love gin I fail to win, Thou here at hame sall stay."

35.

The husbande biggit now on his öe,

And nae ane wrought him wrang; His dochter wore crown in Engeland, And happy lived and lang.

36.

Now Eline, the husbande's huswife, has Cour'd a' her grief and harms;

She's mither to a noble queen

That sleeps in a kingis arms.

GLOSSARY.

ST. 1. Wold, a wood; woody fastness.

Husbande, from the Dan. hos, with, and bonde, a
villain, or bondsman, who was a cultivator of the
ground, and could not quit the estate to which he
was attached, without the permission of his lord.
This is the sense of the word, in the old Scottish
records. In the Scottish " Burghe Laws," trans-
lated from the Reg. Majest. (Auchinleck MS. in
the Adv. Lib.), it is used indiscriminately with the
Dan. and Swed, bonde.
Bigg, build,
Ligg, lie.

Skaith, harm.

8. Nighed, approached.

9. Youls, howls.

Toots. In the Dan. tude is applied both to the

howling of a dog, and the sound of a horn.

Scraighs, screams.

10. Laidly, loathly; disgustingly ugly.

Grim, fierce.

11. Winnock, window.

Mint, aim at.

12. Coost, cast.

Chalmer, chamber

n Maist, most.

Ava, of all.

13. Norwart, northward.

Trow, believe.

14. Braids, strides quickly forward. Wad, would.

15. Canny, adroit.

Mony, many.

Weel-waled, well chosen.

17. An, if.

Bide, abide.

Lemman, mistress.

18. Nae-gate, nowise.

19. Couth, could, knew how to.

Lat be, let alone.

Gude, goods; property.

20. Aneath, beneath.

Dwalling-stead, dwelling-place.

21. Sary, sorrowful.

Rede, counsel; consultation.

Forfairn, forlorn; lost; gone.

Tyne, (verb. neut.) be lost; perish.

22. Will of rede, bewildered in thought; in the Danish original "vildraadage;" Lat. "inops consilii ;" Gr. anopov. This expression is left among the desiderata in the Glossary to Ritson's Romances, and has never been explained. It is obsolete in the Danish as well as in English.

Fare, go.

23. Rud, red of the cheek.

Clem'd, in the Danish, klemt; (which in the north of England is still in use, as the word starved is with us;) brought to a dying state. It is used by our old comedians.

Harm, grief; as in the original, and in the old Teutonic, English, and Scottish poetry.

24. Waefu', woeful.

Moody, strongly and wilfully passionate.
Rew, take ruth; pity.

Unseely, unhappy; unblest.

Weird, fate.

Fa, (Isl. Dan. and Swed.) take; get; acquire; procure; have for my lot.-This Gothic verb answers, in its direct and secondary significations, exactly to the Latin capio; and Allan Ramsay was right in his definition of it. It is quite a different word from fa', an abbreviation of 'fall, or befall; and is the principal root in FANGEN, to fang, take, or lay hold of.

25. Fay, faith.

Mold, mould; earth.

Mat, mote; might.

Maun, must.

Mell, mix.

El, an elf. This term, in the Welch, signifies what has in itself the power of motion; a moving prin

1" Under be."-The original expression has been preserved here and elsewhere, because no other could be found to supply its place. There is just as much meaning in it in the translation as in the original; but it is a standard Danish ballad phrase; and as such, it is hoped, it will be allowed to pass.

ciple; an intelligence; a spirit; an angel. In the Hebrew it bears the same import.

26. Minted, attempted; meant; showed a mind, or intention to. The original is

"Hand mindte hende forst-og anden gang;

Hun giordis i hiortet sa vee:

End blef hand den lediste deif-vel

Mand kunde med öyen see.

Der hand vilde minde den tredie gang," &c.
Syth, tide; time.

Kyth, appear.

28. Stound, hour; time; moment.

29. Merry (old Teut. mere), famous; renowned; answering, in its etymological meaning, exactly to the Latin mactus. Hence merry-men, as the address of a chief to his followers; meaning, not men of mirth, but of renown. The term is found in its original sense in the Gael. mara, and the Welsh mawr, great; and in the oldest Teut. Romances, mar, mer, and mere, have sometimes the same signification. 31. Mends, amends; recompense.

33. Maik, match; peer; equal.

Propine, pledge; gift.

35. úe, an island of the second magnitude; an island of the first magnitude being called a land, and one of the third magnitude a holm.

36. Cour'd, recover'd.

THE GHAIST'S WARNING.

TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH KÆMPE VISER, p. 721. By the permission of Mr. Jamieson, this ballad is added from the same curious Collection. It contains some passages of great pathos.

Svend Dyring hand rider sig op under vẻ, (Vare jeg selver ung)

Der fæste hand sig saa ven en moẻ.
(Mig lyster udi lunden at ride,) &c.

Child Dyring has ridden him up under öe,1 (And O gin I were young!) There wedded he him sae fair a may.

(I' the greenwood it lists me to ride.)

Thegither they lived for seven lang year, (And O, &c.)

And they seven bairns hae gotten in fere. (I' the greenwood, &c.)

Sae Death's come there intill that stead, And that winsome lily flower is dead.

That swain he has ridden him up under öe, And syne he has married anither may.

He's married a may, and he's fessen her hame; But she was a grim and a laidly dame.

When into the castell court drave she,
The seven bairns stood wi' the tear in their ee.

The bairns they stood wi' dule and doubt;-
She up wi' her foot, and she kick'd them out.

9" Fair."-The Dan, and Swed, ren, væn, or venne, and the Gaël, bán, in the oblique cases bhán (ván), is the origin of the Scottish bonny, which has so much puzzled all the etymologists.