Stanza XXIII. line 402. St. James or Santiago of Spain. Cp. 'Piers
the Plowman,' i. 48 (with Prof. Skeat's note), Chaucer's Prologue,
465, and Southey's 'Pilgrim to Compostella,' valuable both for its
poetic beauty and its ample notes. In regard to the cockleshell,
Southey gives some important information in extracts from 'Anales de
Galicia,' and he says--

     'For the scallop shows in a coat of arms
        That of the bearer's line.
      Some one, in former days, hath been
        To Santiago's shrine.'

line 403. Montserrat, a mountain, with a Benedictine abbey on it, in
Catalonia. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood cherish a myth to
the effect that the fantastic peaks and gorges of the mountain were
formed at the Crucifixion.

lines 404-7. Scott annotates as follows:--

'Sante Rosalie was of Palermo, and born of a very noble family, and,
when very young, abhorred so much the vanities of this world, and
avoided the converse of mankind, resolving to dedicate herself
wholly to God Almighty, that she, by divine inspiration, forsook her
father's house, and never was more heard of, till her body was found
in that cleft of a rock, on that almost inaccessible mountain, where
now the chapel is built; and they affirm she was carried up there by
the hands of angels; for that place was not formerly so accessible
(as now it is) in the days of the Saint; and even now it is a very
bad, and steepy, and break-neck way. In this frightful place, this
holy woman lived a great many years, feeding only on what she found
growing on that barren mountain, and creeping into a narrow and
dreadful cleft in a rock, which was always dropping wet, and was her
place of retirement, as well as prayer; having worn out even the
rock with her knees, in a certain place, which is now open'd on
purpose to show it to those who come here. This chapel is very
richly adorn'd; and on the spot where the saint's dead body was
discover'd, which is just beneath the hole in the rock, which is
open'd on purpose, as I said, there is a very fine statue of marble,
representing her in a lying posture, railed in all about with fine
iron and brass work; and the altar, on which they say mass, is built
just over it.'--Voyage to Sicily and Malta, by Mr. John Dryden, (son
to the poet,) p. 107.

Stanza XXIV. line 408. The national motto is 'St. George for Merrie
England.' The records of various central and eastern English towns
tell of a very ancient custom of 'carrying the dragon in procession,
in great jollity, on Midsummer Eve.' See Brand's 'Popular
Antiquities,' i. 321. In reference to the 'Birth of St George' and
his deeds, see Percy's 'Reliques.'

line 409. Becket (1119-70), Archbishop of Canterbury. See
'Canterbury Tales' and Aubrey de Vere's 'St. Thomas of Canterbury:
a dramatic poem.'

line 410. For Cuthbert, see below, II. xiv. 257. Bede (673-735), a
monk of Jarrow on Tyne; called the Venerable Bede; author of an
important 'Ecclesiastical History' and an English translation of St.
John's Gospel.

lines 419-20. Lord Jeffrey's sense of humour was not adequate to the
appreciation of these two lines, which he specialised for
condemnation.

Stanza. XXV. line 421. Gramercy, from Fr. grand merci, sometimes
used as an emphatic exclamation, although fundamentally implying the
thanks of the speaker.

line 430 still = always. Cp., inter alia, 440 and 452 below. See
'STILL vexed Bermoothes,' Tempest, i. 2. 229, and cp. Hamlet, ii. 2.
42,--

     'Thou STILL hast been the father of good news.'

Stanza XXVI. line 452. Scott quotes from Rabelais the passage in
which the monk suggests to Gargantua that in order to induce sleep
they might together try the repetition of the seven penitential
psalms. 'The conceit pleased Gargantua very well; and, beginning the
first of these psalms, as soon as they came to Beati quorum they
fell asleep, both the one and the other.' Cp. Chaucer's Monk and the
character of Accidia in 'Piers the Plowman,' Passus V.

line 453. ave, an address to the Virgin Mary, beginning 'Ave Maria';
creed, a profession of faith, beginning with Credo. It has been
objected to this line that the creed is not an essential part of the
rosary, and that ten aves and one paternoster would have been more
accurate. It should, however, be noticed that both Friar John and
young Selby know more of other matters than the details of religious
devotion.

Stanza XXVII. line 459. 'A PALMER, opposed to a PILGRIM, was one who
made it his sole business to visit different holy shrines;
travelling incessantly, and subsisting by charity:  whereas the
Pilgrim retired to his usual home and occupations, when he had paid
his devotions at the particular spot which was the object of his
pilgrimage. The Palmers seem to have been the Quaestionarii of the
ancient Scottish canons 1242 and 1296. There is in the Bannatyne MS.
a burlesque account of two such persons, entitled, "Simmy and his
Brother." Their accoutrements are thus ludicrously described (I
discard the ancient spelling):--

     "Syne shaped them up, to loup on leas,
        Two tabards of the tartan;
      They counted nought what their clouts were
        When sew'd them on, in certain.
      Syne clampit up St. Peter's keys,
        Made of an old red gartane;
      St. James's shells, on t'other side, shews
        As pretty as a partane
                            Toe,
      On Symmye and his brother."'--SCOTT.

With this account of the Palmer, cp. 'Piers the Plowman,' v. 523:--

     'He bare a burdoun ybounde . with a brode liste,
      In a withewyndes wise . ywounden aboute.
      A bolle and a bagge . he bare by his syde;
      An hundredth of ampulles . on his hatt seten,
      Signes of Synay . and shelles of Galice;
      And many a cruche on his cloke . and keyes of Rome,
      And the vernicle bifore . for men shulde knowe,
      And se bi his signes . whom he soughte hadde.'

In connexion with this, Prof. Skeat draws attention to the romance
of Sir Isumbras and to Chaucer's Prol. line 13.

line 467. Loretto, in Ancona, Italy, is the site of a sanctuary of
the Virgin, entitled Santa Casa, Holy House, which enjoys the
reputation of having been the Virgin's residence in Nazareth, and
the scene of the Annunciation, &c.

Stanza XXVIII. line 483. haggard wild is a twofold adj. in the
Elizabethan fashion, like 'bitter sweet,' 'childish foolish,' and
other familiar examples.

line 490. Science appears to support this theory. See various
examples in Sir Erasmus Wilson's little work, 'Healthy Skin.' Many
of the cases are within the writer's own knowledge, and all the
others are historical or otherwise well authenticated. He mentions
Sir T. More the night before his execution; two cases reported by
Borellus; three by Daniel Turner; one by Dr. Cassan; and in a note
he recalls John Libeny, a would-be assassin of the Emperor of
Austria, 'whose hair turned snow-white in the forty-eight hours
preceding his execution.' See 'Notes and Queries,' 6th S. vols. vi.
to ix., and 7th S. ii. Not only fear but sorrow is said to cause the
hair to turn white very suddenly. Byron makes his Prisoner of
Chillon say that his white hairs have not come to him

                      'In a single night,
      As men's have grown from sudden fears.'

Stanza XXIX. line 506. 'St. Regulus (Scottice, St. Rule), a monk of
Patrae, in Achaia, warned by a vision, is said, A. D. 370, to have
sailed westward, until he landed at St. Andrews, in Scotland, where
he founded a chapel and tower. The latter is still standing; and,
though we may doubt the precise date of its foundation, is certainly
one of the most ancient edifices in Scotland. A cave, nearly
fronting the ruinous castle of the Archbishops of St. Andrews, bears
the name of this religion person. It is difficult of access; and the
rock in which it is hewed is washed by the German Ocean. It is
nearly round, about ten feet in diameter, and the same in height. On
one side is a sort of stone altar; on the other an aperture into an
inner den, where the miserable ascetic, who inhabited this dwelling,
probably slept. At full tide, egress and regress are hardly
practicable. As Regulus first colonised the metropolitan see of
Scotland, and converted the inhabitants in the vicinity, he has some
reason to complain that the ancient name of Killrule (Cella Reguli)
should have been superseded, even in favour of the tutelar saint of
Scotland. The reason of the change was, that St. Rule is said to
have brought to Scotland the relics of Saint Andrew.'--SCOTT.

line 509. 'St. Fillan was a Scottish saint of some reputation.
Although Popery is, with us, matter of abomination, yet the common
people still retain some of the superstitions connected with it.
There are in Perthshire several wells and springs dedicated to St.
Fillan, which are still places of pilgrimage and offerings, even
among the Protestants. They are held powerful in cases of madness;
and, in some of very late occurrence, lunatics have been left all
night bound to the holy stone, in confidence that the saint would
cure and unloose them before morning. [See various notes to the
Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.]'--SCOTT.

line 513. Cp. Macbeth, v. 3. 40:--

     'Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased?'

and Lear, iii. 4. 12:--

                  'The tempest in my mind
      Doth from my senses take all feeling else
      Save what beats there.'

Stanza XXX. line 515. With 'midnight draught,' cp. Macbeth's
'drink,' ii. 1. 31, and the 'posset,' ii. 2. 6. See notes to these
passages in Clarendon Press Macbeth.

Stanza XXXI. line 534. 'In Catholic countries, in order to reconcile
the pleasures of the great with the observances of religion, it was
common, when a party was bent for the chase, to celebrate mass,
abridged and maimed of its rites, called a hunting-mass, the brevity
of which was designed to correspond with the impatience of the
audience.'--Note to 'The Abbot,' new edition.

line 538. Stirrup-cup, or stirrup-glass, is a parting-glass of
liquor given to a guest when on horseback and ready to go.


INTRODUCTION TO CANTO SECOND.

The Rev. John Marriott, A. M., to whom this introductory poem is
dedicated, was tutor to George Henry, Lord Scott, son of Charles,
Earl of Dalkeith, afterwards fourth Duke of Buccleuch and sixth of
Queensberry. Lord Scott died early, in 1808. Marriott, while still
at Oxford, proved himself a capable poet, and Scott shewed his
appreciation of him by including two of his ballads at the close of
the 'Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.' The concluding lines of
this Introduction refer to Marriott's ballads.

line 2. 'Ettrick Forest, now a range of mountainous sheep-walks, was
anciently reserved for the pleasure of the royal chase. Since it was
disparked, the wood has been, by degrees, almost totally destroyed,
although, wherever protected from the sheep, copses soon arise
without any planting. When the King hunted there, he often summoned
the array of the country to meet and assist his sport. Thus, in
1528, James V "made proclamation to all lords, barons, gentlemen,
landward-men, and freeholders, that they should compear at
Edinburgh, with a month's victuals, to pass with the King where he
pleased, to danton the thieves of Tiviotdale, Annandale, Liddisdale,
and other parts of that country; and also warned all gentlemen that
had good dogs to bring them, that he might hunt in the said country
as he pleased:  The whilk the Earl of Argyle, the Earl of Huntley,
the Earl of Athole, and so all the rest of the gentlemen of the
Highland, did, and brought their hounds with them in like manner, to
hunt with the King, as he pleased.

'"The second day of June the King past out of Edinburgh to the
hunting, with many of the nobles and gentlemen of Scotland with him,
to the number of twelve thousand men; and then past to Meggitland,
and hounded and hawked all the country and bounds; that is to say,
Crammat, Pappert-law, St. Mary-laws, Carlavirick, Chapel,
Ewindoores, and Langhope. I heard say, he slew, in these bounds,
eighteen score of harts." -PITSCOTTIE'S History of Scotland, folio
edition, p. 143.

'These huntings had, of course, a military character, and attendance
upon them was part of the duty of a vassal. The act for abolishing
ward or military tenures in Scotland, enumerates the services of
hunting, hosting, watching and warding, as those which were in
future to be illegal.'--SCOTT.

lines 5-11. Cp. Wordsworth's 'Thorn':--

     'There is a Thorn--it looks so old,
      In truth, you'd find it hard to say
      How it could ever have been young,
      It looks so old and grey.'

There is a special suggestion of antiquity in the wrinkled, lichen-
covered thorn of a wintry landscape, and thus it is a fitting object
to stir and sustain the poet's tendency to note 'chance and change'
and to lament the loss of the days that are no more. The exceeding
appropriateness of this in a narrative poem dealing with departed
habits and customs must be quite apparent. The thorn grows to a very
great age, and many an unpretentious Scottish homestead receives a
pathetic grace and dignity from the presence of its ancestral thorn-
tree.

line 15. The rowan is the mountain ash. One of the most tender and
haunting of Scottish songs is Lady Nairne's 'Oh, Rowan tree!'--

     'How fair wert thou in summer time, wi' a' thy clusters white,
      How rich and gay thy autumn dress, wi' berries red and
bright.'

line 27. There are some notable allusions in the poets to the
moonlight baying of dogs and wolves. Cp. Julius Caesar, iv. 3. 27:--

     'I had rather be a dog and bay the moon.'

See also Shield's great English song, 'The Wolf':--

     'While the wolf, in nightly prowl,
      Bays the moon with hideous howl!'

One of the best lines in English verse on the wolf--both skilfully
onomatopoeic and suggestively picturesque--is Campbell's, line 66 of
'Pleasures of Hope':--

     'The wolf's long howl from Oonalaska's shore.'

line 30. Cp. the movement of this line with line 3 in 'Sang of the
Outlaw Murray':--

     'There's hart and hynd, and dae and rae.'

line 31. 'Grene wode' is a phrase of the 'Robyn Hode Ballads.' Cp.:-
-

     'She set her on a gode palfray,
      To GRENE WODE anon rode she.'

line 32. The ruins of Newark Castle are above the confluence of the
Ettrick and the Yarrow, on the latter river, and a few miles from
Selkirk. Close by is Bowhill, mentioned below, 73. See Prof. Minto's
'Lay of the Last Minstrel' (Clarendon Press), pp. 122-3. In the days
of the 'last minstrel' it was appropriate to describe this 'riven'
relic as 'Newark's stately tower.'

line 33. James II built Newark as a fortress.

line 41. The gazehound or greyhound hunts by sight, not scent. The
Encyclopedic Dictionary quotes Tickell 'On Hunting':--

     'See'st thou the GAZEHOUND! how with glance severe
      From the close herd he marks the destined deer.'

line 42. 'Bratchet, slowhound.'--SCOTT. The older spelling is
brachet (from BRACH or BRACHE), as:--

     'BRACHETES bayed that best, as bidden the maystarez.'
                                 Sir Gaw. and the Green Knyght,
1603.

In contrast with the gazehound the brachet hunts by scent.

line 44. Cp. Julius Caesar, iii. I. 273, 'Let slip the dogs of war.'

line 48. Harquebuss, arquebus, or hagbut, a heavy musket. Cp. below,
V. 54.

line 49. Cp. Dryden's 'Alexander's Feast,' 'The vocal hills reply.'

line 54. Yarrow stream is the ideal scene of Border romance. See the
Border Minstrelsy, and cp. the works of Hamilton of Bangour, John
Leyden, Wordsworth's Yarrow poems, the poems of the Ettrick
Shepherd, Prof. Veitch, and Principal Shairp. John Logan's 'Braes of
Yarrow' also deserves special mention, and many singers of Scottish
song know Scott Riddell's 'Dowie Dens o' Yarrow.'

line 61. Holt, an Anglo-Saxon word for wood or grove, has been a
favourite with poet's since Chaucer's employment of it (Prol. 6):--

     'Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breethe
      Enspired hath in every HOLTE and heethe
      The tendre croppes.'

See Dr. Morris's Glossary to Chaucer's Prologue, &c. (Clarendon
Press).

line 68. Cp. Wordsworth's two Matthew poems, 'The Two April
Mornings' and 'The Fountain'; also Matthew Arnold's 'Thyrsis'--

     'Too rare, too rare grow now my visits here!
      But once I knew each field, each flower, each stick;
        And with the country-folk acquaintance made
      By barn in threshing-time, by new-built rick,
        Here, too, our shepherd-pipes we first assay'd.'

line 82. Janet in the ballad of 'The Young Tamlane' in the Border
Minstrelsy. The dissertation Scott prefixed to this ballad is most
interesting and valuable.

line 84. See above, note on Rev. J. Marriott.

line 85. Scott was sheriff-substitute of Selkirkshire. As the law
requires residence within the limits of the sheriffdom, Scott dwelt
at Ashestiel at least four months of every year. Prof. Veitch, in
his descriptive poem 'The Tweed,' writes warmly on Ashestiel, as
Scott's residence in his happiest time:--

     'Sweet Ashestiel! that peers 'mid woody braes,
      And lists the ripple of Glenkinnon's rill--
      Fair girdled by Tweed's ampler gleaming wave--
      His well loved home of early happy days,
      Ere noon of Fame, and ere dark Ruin's eve,
      When life lay unrevealed, with hopeful thrill
      Of all that might be in the reach of powers
      Whose very flow was a continued joy--
      Strong-rushing as the dawn, and fresh and fair
      In outcome as that morning of the world,
      Which gilded all his kindled fancy's dream!'

line 88. Harriet, Countess of Dalkeith, afterwards Duchess of
Buccleuch. A suggestion of hers led to the composition of the 'Lay
of the Last Minstrel.' See Prof. Minto's Introduction to Clarendon
Press edition of the poem, p. 8.

lines 90-93. 'These lines were not in the original MS.'--LOCKHART.

line 106. 'The late Alexander Pringle, Esq., of Whytbank--whose
beautiful seat of the Yair stands on the Tweed, about two miles
below Ashestiel.'--LOCKHART.

line 108. 'The sons of Mr. Pringle of Whytbank.'--LOCKHART.

line 113. Cp. VI. 611, below.

line 115. 'There is, on a high mountainous ridge above the farm of
Ashestiel, a fosse called Wallace's Trench.'--SCOTT.

line 124. Cp. Gray's 'Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College,'
especially lines 6l-2:--

     'These shall the fury Passions tear,
         The vultures of the mind.'

lines 126-33. Cp. Wordsworth variously, particularly in the Matthew
poems, the Ode on Intimations of Immortality, and Tintern Abbey,
especially in its last twenty-five lines:--

                  'Therefore let the moon
      Shine on thee in thy solitary walk,' &c.

line 143. Cp. I Kings xix. 12.

lines 147-73. 'This beautiful sheet of water forms the reservoir
from which the Yarrow takes its source. It is connected with a
smaller lake, called the Loch of the Lowes, and surrounded by
mountains. In the winter, it is still frequented by flights of wild
swans; hence my friend Mr. Wordsworth's lines:--

     "The swan on sweet St. Mary's lake
      Floats double, swan and shadow."

Near the lower extremity of the lake are the ruins of Dryhope tower,
the birth-place of Mary Scott, daughter of Philip Scott of Dryhope,
and famous by the traditional name of the Flower of Yarrow. She was
married to Walter Scott of Harden, no less renowned for his
depredations than his bride for her beauty. Her romantic appellation
was, in latter days, with equal justice, conferred on Miss Mary
Lilias Scott, the last of the elder branch of the Harden family. The
author well remembers the talent and spirit of the latter Flower of
Yarrow, though age had then injured the charms which procured her
the name. The words usually sung to the air of "Tweedside,"
beginning "What beauties does Flora disclose," were composed in her
honour.'--SCOTT.

Quoting from memory, Scott gives 'sweet' for STILL in Wordsworth's
lines. Mr. Aubrey de Vere, in 'Essays Chiefly on Poetry,' ii. 277,
reports an interview with Wordsworth, in which the poet, referring
to St. Mary's Lake, says:  'The scene when I saw it, with its still
and dim lake, under the dusky hills, was one of utter loneliness;
there was one swan, and one only, stemming the water, and the
pathetic loneliness of the region gave importance to the one
companion of that swan--its own white image in the water.' For a
criticism, deeply sympathetic and appreciative, of Scott's
description of St. Mary's Loch in calm, see Prof. Veitch's 'Feeling
for Nature in Scottish Poetry,' ii. 196. The scene remains very much
what it was in Scott's time, 'notwithstanding that the hand of the
Philistine,' says Prof. Veitch, 'has set along the north shore of
St. Mary's, as far as his power extended, a strip of planting.'

line 177. 'The chapel of St. Mary of the Lowes {de lacubus} was
situated on the eastern side of the lake, to which it gives name. It
was injured by the clan of Scott, in a feud with the Cranstouns; but
continued to be a place of worship during the seventeenth century.
The vestiges of the building can now scarcely be traced; but the
burial-ground is still used as a cemetery. A funeral, in a spot so
very retired, has an uncommonly striking effect. The vestiges of the
chaplain's house are yet visible. Being in a high situation, it
commanded a full view of the lake, with the opposite mountain of
Bourhope, belonging, with the lake itself, to Lord Napier. On the
left hand is the tower of Dryhope, mentioned in a preceding note.'--
SCOTT.

line 187. See 'Il Penseroso,' line 167.

line 197. Cp. Thomson's 'Winter,' line 66:--

     'Along the woods, along the moorish fens,
      Sighs the sad genius of the coming storm;
      And up among the loose disjointed cliffs,
      And fractured mountains wild, the brawling brook
      And cave, presageful, send a hollow moan,
      Resounding long in listening fancy's ear.'

line 204. 'At one corner of the burial-ground of the demolished
chapel, but without its precincts, is a small mound, called Binrams
Corse, where tradition deposits the remains of a necromantic priest,
the former tenant of the chaplainry. His story much resembles that
of Ambrosio in "The Monk," and has been made the theme of a ballad
by my friend Mr. James Hogg, more poetically designed the Ettrick
Shepherd. To his volume, entitled "The Mountain Bard," which
contains this, and many other legendary stories and ballads of great
merit, I refer the curious reader.'--SCOTT.

line 239. 'Loch-skene is a mountain lake, of considerable size, at
the head of the Moffat-water. The character of the scenery is
uncommonly savage; and the earn, or Scottish eagle, has, for many
ages, built its nest yearly upon an islet in the lake. Loch-skene
discharges itself into a brook, which, after a short and precipitate
course, falls from a cataract of immense height and gloomy grandeur,
called, from its appearance, the "Grey Mare's Tail." The "Giant's
Grave," afterwards mentioned, is a sort of trench, which bears that
name, a little way from the foot of the cataract. It has the
appearance of a battery designed to command the pass.'--SCOTT.

Cp. 'Loch Skene,' a descriptive and meditative poem by Thomas Tod
Stoddart, well known as poet and angler on the Borders during the
third quarter of the nineteenth century:--

     'Like a pillar of Parian stone,
      That in some old temple shone,
      Or a slender shaft of living star,
      Gleams that foam-fall from afar;
      But the column is melted down below
      Into a gulf of seething snow,
      And the stream steals away from its whirl of hoar,
      As bright and as lovely as before.'


CANTO SECOND.

lines 1-6. The earlier editions have a period at the end of line 5,
and neither Scott himself nor Lockhart changed that punctuation.
But, undoubtedly, the first sentence ends with line 11, 'roll'd' in
the second line being a part, and not a finite verb. Mr. Rolfe is
the first to punctuate the passage thus.

line 9. 'The Abbey of Whitby, in the Archdeaconry of Cleaveland, on
the coast of Yorkshire, was founded A. D. 657, in consequence of a
vow of Oswy, King of Northumberland. It contained both monks and
nuns of the Benedictine order; but, contrary to what was usual in
such establishments, the abbess was superior to the abbot. The
monastery was afterwards mined by the Danes, and rebuilded by
William Percy, in the reign of the Conqueror. There were no nuns
there in Henry the Eighth's time, nor long before it. The ruins of
Whitby Abbey are very magnificent.'--SCOTT.

line 10. 'Lindisfarne, an isle on the coast of Northumberland, was
called Holy Island, from the sanctity of its ancient monastery, and
from its having been the episcopal seat of the see of Durham during
the early ages of British Christianity. A succession of holy men
held that office:  but their merits were swallowed up in the
superior fame of St. Cuthbert, who was sixth bishop of Durham, and
who bestowed the name of his "patrimony" upon the extensive property
of the see. The ruins of the monastery upon Holy Island betoken
great antiquity. The arches are, in general, strictly Saxon, and the
pillars which support them, short, strong, and massy. In some
places, however, there are pointed windows, which indicate that the
building has been repaired at a period long subsequent to the
original foundation. The exterior ornaments of the building, being
of a light sandy stone, have been wasted, as described in the text.
Lindisfarne is not properly an island, but rather, as the Venerable
Bede has termed it, a semi-isle; for, although surrounded by the sea
at full tide, the ebb leaves the sands dry between it and the
opposite coast of Northumberland, from which it is about three miles
distant.'--SCOTT.

The monastery, of which the present ruins remain, was built, between
1093 and 1120, by Benedictine monks under the direction of William
Carileph, Bishop of Durham. There were sixteen bishops in Holy
Island between St. Aidan (635 A. D.) and Eardulph (875 A. D.). The
Christians were dispersed after the violent inroad of the Danes in
868, and for two centuries Lindisfarne suffered apparent relapse.
Lindisfarne (Gael. farne, a retreat) signifies 'a place of retreat
by the brook Lindis.' The name Holy Island was given by Carileph's
monks, to commemorate, they said, 'the sacred blood which had been
shed by the Danes.' See Raine's 'History of North Durham,' F. R.
Wilson's 'Churches of Lindisfarne,' and Mr. Keeling's 'Lindisfarne,
or Holy Island:  its History and Associations.'

line 17. Cp. Coleridge's 'Ancient Mariner':--

     'The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
      The farrow followed free.'

line 20. For Saint Hilda, see below, note on line 244.

Stanza II. line 33. sea-dog, the seal.

line 36. still. Cp. above, I. 430.

line 44. A Novice is one under probation for a term extending to at
least a year, and it may extend to two or three years, after which
vows are either taken or declined.

Stanza IV. line 70. Benedictine school. St. Benedict founded his
order--sometimes, because of their dark garb, called Black Friars--
in the beginning of the sixth century. Benedict of Aniana, in the
eighth century, reformed the discipline of the order.

line 74. Cp. Chaucer's Prioress in the Prologue:--

     'And sikerly sche was of gret disport,
      And ful plesaunt, and amyable of port.'

Stanza V. line 90. Cp. Spenser's Una, 'Faery Queene,' I. iv:--

     'A lovely Ladie rode him faire beside.
                   * * *
      As one that inly mournd, so was she sad,
      And heavie sat upon her palfrey slow.'

Stanza VI. With this 'brown study,' cp. Wordsworth's 'Reverie of
Poor Susan.'

Stanza. VII. line 114. Reference to the lion of 'Faery Queene,' I.
iii:--

     'Forsaken Truth long seekes her love,
      And makes the Lyon mylde.'

line 124. bowl and knife. Poisoning and stabbing.

Stanza VIII. Monk-Wearmouth. A monastery, founded here in 674 A. D.,
was destroyed by the Danes in the ninth century, and restored after
the Norman Conquest. For Tynemouth, see below, 371, Seaton-Delaval,
the seat of the Delavals, who by marriage came into possession of
Ford Castle. Widderington. It was a 'squyar off Northombarlonde,
Ric. Wytharynton,' that showed notable valour and persistent
endurance at Chevy Chase:--

     'For Wetharryngton my harte was wo,
      That ever he slayne shulde be;
      For when both his leggis wear hewyne in te,
      He knyled and fought on hys kne.'

Butler, fully appreciating this doughty champion, uses him in a
descriptive illustration, 'Hudibras,' I. iii. 95:--

     'As Widdrington, in doleful dumps,
      Is said to fight upon his stumps.'

Widderington Castle, with the exception of one tower, was destroyed
by fire. Warkworth Castle is about a mile from the mouth of the
Alne, and is the seat of the Duke of Northumberland. Bamborough, the
finest specimen of a feudal castle in the north of England, is said
to have been founded by King Ida about the middle of the sixth
century. Lord Crewe, Bishop of Durham, purchased the Bamborough
estates between 1709 and 1720, and left them for charitable
purposes. This charity maintains, inter alia, a national school in
the village of Bamborough, and an officer to fire a cannon from the
dangerous rocks every fifteen minutes in foggy weather, besides
providing for the education of thirty girls within the castle walls.

Stanza IX. line 164. battled. See above, I. 4.

Stanza X. line 173. Pointed or Gothic architecture came in towards
the end of the twelfth century.

Stanza XII. line 215. Suppose we = Let us suppose. This is an
Elizabethanism. Cp. Macbeth, i. I. 10:--

     'Hover through the fog and filthy air,'

where hover = hover we.

Stanza XIII. line 234. Scott quotes from 'A True Account,'
circulated at Whitby, concerning the consequences of a boar-hunt on
Eskdale-side, belonging to the Abbot of Whitby. The boar, being hard
pressed, made for a hermitage and died just within the door. Coming
up, the three leaders--William de Bruce, Lord of Uglebarnby, Ralph
de Percy, Lord of Smeaton, and a freeholder named Allatson--in their
disappointment and wrath set upon the hermit, whom they fatally
wounded. When the abbot afterwards came to the dying hermit, and
told him his assailants would suffer extreme penalty for their
ruthless conduct, the hermit asked the gentlemen to be sent for, and
said he would pardon them on certain conditions. 'The gentlemen
being present bade him save their lives.--Then said the hermit, "You
and yours shall hold your lands of the Abbot of Whitby, and his
successors, in this manner:  That, upon Ascension-day, you, or some
of you, shall come to the wood of the Stray-heads, which is in
Eskdale-side, the same day at sun-rising, and there shall the
abbot's officer blow his horn, to the intent that you may know where
to find him; and he shall deliver unto you, William de Bruce, ten
stakes, eleven strout stowers, and eleven yethers, to be cut by you,
or some of you, with a knife of one penny price:  and you, Ralph de
Percy, shall take twenty-one of each sort, to be cut in the same
manner; and you, Allatson, shall take nine of each sort, to be cut
as aforesaid, and to be taken on your backs and carried to the town
of Whitby, and to be there before nine of the clock the same day
before mentioned. At the same hour of nine of the clock, if it be
full sea, your labour and service shall cease; and if low water,
each of you shall set your stakes to the brim, each stake one yard
from the other, and so yether them on each side with your yethers;
and so stake on each side with your strout stowers, that they may
stand three tides, without removing by the force thereof. Each of
you shall do, make, and execute the said service, at that very hour,
every year, except it be fall sea at that hour; but when it shall so
fall out, this service shall cease. You shall faithfully do this, in
remembrance that you did most cruelly slay me; and that you may the
better call to God for mercy, repent unfeignedly of your sins, and
do good works. The officer of Eskdale-side shall blow, Out on you!
Out on you! Out on you! for this heinous crime. If you, or your
successors, shall refuse this service, so long as it shall not be
full sea at the aforesaid hour, you or yours shall forfeit your
lands to the Abbot of Whitby, or his successors. This I entreat, and
earnestly beg, that you may have lives and goods preserved for this
service:  and I request of you to promise, by your parts in Heaven,
that it shall be done by you and your successors, as is aforesaid
requested; and I will confirm it by the faith of an honest man."--
Then the hermit said, "My soul longeth for the Lord:  and I do as
freely forgive these men my death, as Christ forgave the thieves on
the cross." And, in the presence of the abbot and the rest, he said
moreover these words:  "In manus tuos, Domine, commendo spiritum
meum, a vinculis enim mortis redemisti me, Domine veritatis, Amen."-
-So he yielded up the ghost the eighth day of December, anno Domini
1159, whose soul God have mercy upon. Amen.

'"This service," it is added, "still continues to be performed with
the prescribed ceremonies, though not by the proprietors in person.
Part of the lands charged therewith are now held by a gentleman of
the name of Herbert."'--SCOTT.

line 244. Edelfled 'was the daughter of King Oswy, who, in gratitude
to Heaven for the great victory which he won in 655, against Penda,
the pagan King of Mercia, dedicated Edelfleda, then but a year old,
to the service of God, in the monastery of Whitby, of which St.
Hilda was then abbess. She afterwards adorned the place of her
education with great magnificence.'--SCOTT.

line 251. 'These two miracles are much insisted on by all ancient
writers who have occasion to mention either Whitby or St. Hilda. The
relics of the snakes, which infested the precincts of the convent,
and were at the abbess's prayer not only beheaded but petrified, are
still found about the rocks, and are termed by Protestant
fossilists, Ammonitae.

'The other miracle is thus mentioned by Camden:  "It is also
ascribed to the power of her sanctity, that these wild geese, which,
in the winter, fly in great flocks to the lakes and rivers unfrozen
in the southern parts, to the great amazement of every one, fall
down suddenly upon the ground, when they are in their flight over
certain 'neighbouring fields hereabouts:  a relation I should not
have made, if I had not received it from several credible men. But
those who are less inclined to heed superstition, attribute it to
some occult quality in the ground, and to somewhat of antipathy
between it and the geese, such as they say is betwixt wolves and
scyllaroots:  for that such hidden tendencies and aversions, as we
call sympathies and antipathies, are implanted in many things by
provident Nature for the preservation of them, is a thing so
evident, that everybody grants it." Mr. Chariton, in his History of
Whitby, points out the true origin of the fable, from the number of
sea-gulls that, when flying from a storm, often alight near Whitby;
and from the woodcocks, and other birds of passage, who do the same
upon their arrival on shore, after a long flight.'--SCOTT.

Stanza XIV. line 257. 'St. Cuthbert was, in the choice of his
sepulchre, one of the most mutable and unreasonable saints in the
Calendar. He died A. D. 688, in a hermitage upon the Farne Islands,
having resigned the bishopric of Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, about
two years before. {1}  His body was brought to Lindisfarne, where it
remained until a descent of the Danes, about 793, when the monastery
was nearly destroyed. The monks fled to Scotland, with what they
deemed their chief treasure, the relics of St. Cuthbert. The Saint
was, however, a most capricious fellow-traveller; which was the more
intolerable, as, like Sinbad's Old Man of the Sea, he journeyed upon
the shoulders of his companions. They paraded him through Scotland
for several years, and came as far west as Whithorn, in Galloway,
whence they attempted to sail for Ireland, but were driven back by
tempests. He at length made a halt at Norham; from thence he went to
Melrose, where he remained stationary for a short time, and then
caused himself to be launched upon the Tweed in a stone coffin,
which landed him at Tilmouth, in Northumberland. This boat is finely
shaped, ten feet long, three feet and a half in diameter, and only
four inches thick; so that, with very little assistance, it might
certainly have swam:  it still lies, or at least did so a few years
ago, in two pieces, beside the ruined chapel at Tilmouth. From
Tilmouth, Cuthbert wandered into Yorkshire; and at length made a
long stay at Chester-le-street, to which the bishop's see was
transferred. At length, the Danes continuing to infest the country,
the monks removed to Rippon for a season; and it was in return from
thence to Chester-le-street, that, passing through a forest called
Dunholme, the Saint and his carriage became immovable at a place
named Wardlaw, or Wardilaw. Here the Saint chose his place of
residence; and all who have seen Durham must admit, that, if
difficult in his choice, he evinced taste in at last fixing it. It
is said, that the Northumbrian Catholics still keep secret the
precise spot of the Saint's sepulture, which is only intrusted to
three persons at a time. When one dies the survivors associate to
them, in his room, a person judged fit to be the depositary of so
valuable a secret.'--SCOTT.

'The resting-place of the remains of this Saint is not now matter of
uncertainty. So recently as 17th May, 1827,--1139 years after his
death--their discovery and disinterment were effected. Under a blue
stone, in the middle of the shrine of St. Cuthbert, at the eastern
extremity of the choir of Durham Cathedral, there was then found a
walled grave, containing the coffins of the Saint. The first, or
outer one, was ascertained to be that of 1541, the second of 1041;
the third, or inner one, answering in every particular to the
description of that of 698, was found to contain, not indeed, as had
been averred then, and even until 1539, the incorruptible body, but
the entire skeleton of the Saint; the bottom of the grave being
perfectly dry, free from offensive smell, and without the slightest
symptom that a human body had ever undergone decomposition within
its walls. The skeleton was found swathed in five silk robes of
emblematical embroidery, the ornamental parts laid with gold leaf,
and these again covered with a robe of linen. Beside the skeleton
were also deposited several gold and silver insignia, and other
relics of the Saint.

'(The Roman Catholics now allow that the coffin was that of St.
Cuthbert.)

'The bones of the Saint were again restored to the grave in a new
coffin, amid the fragments of the former ones. Those portions of the
inner coffin which could be preserved, including one of its rings,
with the silver altar, golden cross, stole, comb, two maniples,
bracelets, girdle, gold wire of the skeleton, and fragments of the
five silk robes, and seme of the rings of the outer coffin made in
1541, were deposited in the library of the Dean and Chapter, where
they are now preserved.'--LOCKHART.

For ample details regarding St. Cuthbert, see 'St. Cuthbert,' by
James Raine, M. A. (4to, Durham, 1828).

line 263. For 'fair Melrose' see opening of Canto II, 'Lay of the
Last Minstrel,' and Prof. Minto's note in the Clarendon Press
edition.

Stanza XV. line 292. 'Every one has heard, that when David I, with
his son Henry, invaded Northumberland in 1136, the English host
marched against them under the holy banner of St. Cuthbert; to the
efficacy of which was imputed the great victory which they obtained
in the bloody battle of Northallerton, or Cuton-moor. The conquerors
were at least as much indebted to the jealousy and intractability of
the different tribes who composed David's army; among whom, as
mentioned in the text, were the Galwegians, the Britons of Strath-
Clyde, the men of Teviotdale and Lothian, with many Norman and
German warriors, who asserted the cause of the Empress Maud. See
Chalmers's "Caledonia," vol. i. p. 622; a most laborious, curious,
and interesting publication, from which considerable defects of
style and manner ought not to turn aside the Scottish antiquary.

'Cuthbert, we have seen, had no great reason, to spare the Danes,
when opportunity offered. Accordingly, I find in Simeon of Durham,
that the Saint appeared in a vision to Alfred, when lurking in the
marches of Glastonbury, and promised him assistance and victory over
his heathen enemies; a consolation which, as was reasonable, Alfred,
after the battle of Ashendown, rewarded, by a royal offering at the
shrine of the Saint. As to William the Conqueror, the terror spread
before his army, when he marched to punish the revolt of the
Northumbrians, in 1096, had forced the monks to fly once more to
Holy Island with the body of the Saint. It was, however, replaced
before William left the north; and, to balance accounts, the
Conqueror having intimated an indiscreet curiosity to view the
Saint's body, he was, while in the act of commanding the shrine to
be opened, seized with heat and sickness, accompanied with such a
panic terror, that, notwithstanding there was a sumptuous dinner
prepared for him, he fled without eating a morsel (which the monkish
historian seems to have thought no small part both of the miracle
and the penance,) and never drew his bridle till he got to the river
Tees.'--SCOTT.

Stanza XVI. line 300. 'Although we do not learn that Cuthbert was,
during his life, such an artificer as Dunstan, his brother in
sanctity, yet, since his death, he has acquired the reputation of
forging those Entrochi which are found among the rocks of Holy
Island, and pass there by the name of St. Cuthbert's Beads. While at
this task, he is supposed to sit during the night upon a certain
rock, and use another as his anvil. This story was perhaps credited
in former days; at least the Saint's legend contains some not more
probable.'--SCOTT.

See in Mr. Aubrey de Vere's 'Legends of the Saxon Saints' a fine
poem entitled 'How Saint Cuthbert kept his Pentecost at Carlisle.'
The 'beads' are there referred to thus:--

     'And many an age, when slept that Saint in death,
      Passing his isle by night the sailor heard
      Saint Cuthbert's hammer clinking on the rock.'

The recognised name of these shells is still 'St. Cuthbert's beads."

Stanza XVII. line 316. 'Ceolwolf, or Colwulf, King of
Northumberland, flourished in the eighth century. He was a man of
some learning; for the venerable Bede dedicates to him his
"Ecclesiastical History." He abdicated the throne about 738, and
retired to Holy Island, where he died in the odour of sanctity.
Saint as Colwulf was, however, I fear the foundation of the penance-
vault does not correspond with his character; for it is recorded
among his memorabilia, that, finding the air of the island raw and
cold, he indulged the monks, whose rule had hitherto confined them
to milk or water, with the comfortable privilege of using wine or
ale. If any rigid antiquary insists on this objection, he is welcome
to suppose the penance-vault was intended by the founder for the
more genial purposes of a cellar.

'These penitential vaults were the Geissel-gewolbe of German
convents. In the earlier and more rigid times of monastic
discipline, they were sometimes used as a cemetery for the lay
benefactor of the convent, whose unsanctified corpses were then
seldom permitted to pollute the choir. They also served as places of
meeting for the chapter, when measures of uncommon severity were to
be adopted. But their most frequent use, as implied by the name,
was as places for performing penances, or undergoing punishment.'--
SCOTT.

Stanza XVIII. line 350. 'Antique chandelier.'--SCOTT.

Stanza XIX. line 371. 'That there was an ancient priory at Tynemouth
is certain. Its ruins are situated on a high rocky point; and,
doubtless, many a vow was made to the shrine by the distressed
mariners, who drove towards the iron-bound coast of Northumberland
in stormy weather. It was anciently a nunnery; for Virca, abbess of
Tynemouth, presented St. Cuthbert (yet alive) with a rare winding-
sheet, in emulation of a holy lady called Tuda, who had sent him a
coffin:  but, as in the case of Whitby, and of Holy Island, the
introduction of nuns at Tynemouth, in the reign of Henry VIII, is an
anachronism. The nunnery of Holy Island is altogether fictitious.
Indeed, St. Cuthbert was unlikely to permit such an establishment;
for, notwithstanding his accepting the mortuary gifts above
mentioned, and his carrying on a visiting acquaintance with the
abbess of Coldingham, he certainly hated the whole female sex; and,
in revenge of a slippery trick played to him by an Irish princess,
he, after death, inflicted severe penances on such as presumed to
approach within a certain distance of his shrine.'--SCOTT.

line 376. ruth (A. S. hreow, pity) in Early and Middle English was
used both for 'disaster' and 'pity.' These two shades of meaning are
illustrated by Spenser in F. Q., Bk. ii. I. Introd. to Canto where
Falsehood beguiles the Red Cross Knight, and 'workes him woefull
ruth,' and in F. Q. I. v. 9:

     'Great RUTH in all the gazers hearts did grow.'

Milton (Lycidas, 163) favours the poetical employment of the word,
which modern poets continue to use. Cp. Wordsworth, 'Ode for a
General Thanksgiving':--

     'Assaulting without RUTH
      The citadels of truth;'

and Tennyson's 'Geraint and Enid,' II. 102:--

                             'RUTH began to work
      Against his anger in him, while he watch'd
      The being he lov'd best in all the world.'

Stanza XX. line 385. doublet, a close-fitting jacket, introduced
from France in the fourteenth century, and fashionable in all ranks
till the time of Charles II. Cp. As You Like It, ii. 4. 6:--'Doublet
and hose ought to show itself courageous to petticoat.'

line 398. Fontevraud, on the Loire, 8 miles from Saumur, had one of
the richest abbeys in France. It was a retreat for penitents of both
sexes, and presided over by an abbess. 'The old monastic buildings
and courtyards, surrounded by walls, and covering from 40 to 50
acres, now form one of the larger prisons of France, in which about
2000 men and boys are confined, and kept at industrial occupations.'
See Chambers's 'Encyclopaedia,' s. v., and Chambers's Edinburgh
Journal, 2d. S, I. 104.

Stanza XXI. line 408. but = except that. Cp. Tempest, i. 2. 414:--

                            'And, but he's something stain'd
      With grief that's beauty's canker, thou might'st call him
      A goodly person.'

line 414. Byron, writing to Murray on 3 Feb., 1816, expresses his
belief that he has unwittingly imitated this passage in 'Parisina.'
'I had,' he says, 'completed the story on the passage from Gibbon,
which indeed leads to a like scene naturally, without a thought of
the kind; but it comes upon me not very comfortably.' Byron is quite
right in his assertion that, if he had taken this striking
description of Constance as a model for his Parisina, he would have
been attempting 'to imitate that which is inimitable.' See
'Parisina,' st. xiv:--

     'She stood, I said, all pale and still,
      The living cause of Hugo's ill.'

Stanza XXII. line 415. a sordid soul, &c. For such a character in
the drama see Lightborn in Marlowe's Edward II, and those trusty
agents in Richard III, whose avowed hardness of heart drew from
Gloucester the appreciative remark:--

     'Your eyes drop millstones, when fools' eyes drop tears.'
                                         Richard III, i. 3. 353.

Stanza XXIII. line 438. grisly, grim, horrible; still an effective
poetic word. It is, e.g., very expressive in Tennyson's 'Princess,'
sect. vi, where Ida sees

     'The haggard father's face and reverend beard
      Of GRISLY twine, all dabbled with the blood,' &c.

See below, III. 382.

Stanza XXV. line 468. 'It is well known, that the religious, who
broke their vows of chastity, were subjected to the same penalty as
the Roman vestals in a similar case. A small niche, sufficient to
enclose their bodies, was made in the massive wall of the convent; a
slender pittance of food and water was deposited in it, and the
awful words, VADE IN PACE, were the signal for immuring the
criminal. It is not likely that, in latter times, this punishment
was often resorted to; but among the ruins of the abbey of
Coldingham, were some years ago discovered the remains of a female
skeleton, which, from the shape of the niche, and position of the
figure, seemed to be that of an immured nun.'--SCOTT.

Lockhart adds:--'The Edinburgh Reviewer, on st. xxxii, POST,
suggests that the proper reading of the sentence is VADE IN PACEM--
not PART IN PEACE, but GO INTO PEACE, or eternal rest, a pretty
intelligible mittimus to another world.'

Stanza XXVII. line 506. my = 'of me,' retains the old genitive force
as in Elizabethan English. Cp. Julius Caesar, i. I. 55:--

                                    'In HIS way
      That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood.'

line 516. The very old fancy of a forsaken lover's revenge has been
powerfully utilized in D. G. Rossetti's fascinating ballad, 'Sister
Helen':--

     'Pale, pale her cheeks, that in pride did glow,
                                 Sister Helen,
      'Neath the bridal-wreath three days ago.'

     'One morn for pride and three days for woe,
                                 Little brother!'

Stanza XXVIII. line 520. plight, woven, united, as in Spenser F. Q.,
II. vi. 7:--

                                'Fresh flowerets dight
      About her necke, or rings of rushes PLIGHT.'

lines 524-40. The reference in these lines is to what was known as
the appeal to the judgment of God. On this subject, Scott at the
close of the second head in his 'Essay on Chivalry,' says, 'In the
appeal to this awful criterion, the combatants, whether personally
concerned, or appearing as champions, were understood, in martial
law, to take on themselves the full risk of all consequences. And,
as the defendant, or his champion, in case of being overcome, was
subjected to the punishment proper to the crime of which he was
accused, so the appellant, if vanquished, was, whether a principal
or substitute, condemned to the same doom to which his success would
have exposed the accused. Whichever combatant was vanquished he was
liable to the penalty of degradation; and, if he survived the
combat, the disgrace to which he was subjected was worse than death.
His spurs were cut off close to his heels, with a cook's cleaver;
his arms were baffled and reversed by the common hangman; his belt
was cut to pieces, and his sword broken. Even his horse shared his
disgrace, the animal's tail being cut off, close by the rump, and
thrown on a dunghill. The death-bell tolled, and the funeral service
was said for a knight thus degraded as for one dead to knightly
honour. And if he fell in the appeal to the judgment of God, the
same dishonour was done to his senseless corpse. If alive, he was
only rescued from death to be confined in the cloister. Such at
least were the strict roles of Chivalry, though the courtesy of the
victor, or the clemency of the prince, might remit them in
favourable cases.'