The Lady of the Lake
excommunicated, and interdicted persons, and withal so utterly ignorant
of letters, that it has been found by those who objected this to them,
that there were some who, having celebrated mass for ten years, were
still unable to read the sacramental service. We have also understood
there are persons among them who, although not ordained, do take upon
them the offices of priesthood, and, in contempt of God, celebrate the
divine and sacred rites, and administer the sacraments, not only
in sacred and dedicated places, but in those which are prophane and
interdicted, and most wretchedly ruinous, they themselves being attired
in ragged, torn, and most filthy vestments, altogether unfit to be used
in divine, or even in temporal offices. The which said chaplains do
administer sacraments and sacramental rites to the aforesaid manifest
and infamous thieves, robbers, depredators, receivers of stolen goods,
and plunderers, and that without restitution, or intention to restore,
as evinced by the act; and do also openly admit them to the rites of
ecclesiastical sepulchre, without exacting security for restitution,
although they are prohibited from doing so by the sacred canons, as well
as by the institutes of the saints and fathers. All which infers the
heavy peril of their own souls, and is a pernicious example to the other
believers in Christ, as well as no slight, but an aggravated injury,
to the numbers despoiled and plundered of their goods, gear, herds, and
chattels.'"
74. Benharrow. A mountain near the head of Loch Lomond.
77. Brook. See on i. 566 above.
81. The hallowed creed. The Christian creed, as distinguished from
heathen lore. The MS. has "While the blest creed," etc.
85. Bound. That is, of his haunts.
87. Glen or strath. A glen is the deep and narrow valley of a small
stream, a strath the broader one of a river.
89. He prayed, etc. The MS. reads:
"He prayed, with many a cross between,
And terror took devotion's mien."
91. Of Brian's birth, etc. Scott says that the legend which follows is
not of his invention, and goes on to show that it is taken with slight
variation from "the geographical collections made by the Laird of
Macfarlane."
102. Bucklered. Served as a buckler to, shielded.
114. Snood. Cf. i. 363 above. Scott has the following note here: "The
snood, or riband, with which as Scottish lass braided her hair, had an
emblematical signification, and applied to her maiden character. It was
exchanged for the curch, toy, or coif, when she passed, by marriage,
into the matron state. But if the damsel was so unfortunate as to lose
pretensions to the name of maiden, without gaining a right to that of
matron, she was neither permitted to use the snood, nor advanced to the
graver dignity of the curch. In old Scottish songs there occur many sly
allusions to such misfortune; as in the old words to the popular tune of
'Ower the muir amang the heather:'
'Down amang the broom, the broom,
Down amang the broom, my dearie,
The lassie lost her silken snood,
That gard her greet till she was wearie.'"
120. Or... or. For either... or, as often in poetry.
131. Till, frantic, etc. The MS. reads:
"Till, driven to frenzy, he believed
The legend of his birth received."
136. The cloister. Here personified as feminine.
138. Sable-lettered. "Black-letter;" the technical term for the "old
English" form of letter, used in the earliest English manuscripts and
books.
142. Cabala. Mysteries. For the original meaning of the word, see Wb.
144. Curious. Inquisitive, prying into hidden things.
148. Hid him. See on i. 142 above.
149. The desert gave him, etc. Scott says here: "In adopting the legend
concerning the birth of the Founder of the Church of Kilmallie, the
author has endeavored to trace the effects which such a belief was
likely to produce, in a barbarous age, on the person to whom it related.
It seems likely that he must have become a fanatic or an impostor, or
that mixture of both which forms a more frequent character than either
of them, as existing separately. In truth, mad persons are frequently
more anxious to impress upon others a faith in their visions, than they
are themselves confirmed in their reality; as, on the other hand, it
is difficult for the most cool-headed impostor long to personate an
enthusiast, without in some degree believing what he is so eager to have
believed. It was a natural attribute of such a character as the supposed
hermit, that he should credit the numerous superstitions with which the
minds of ordinary Highlanders are almost always imbued. A few of these
are slightly alluded to in this stanza. The River Demon, or River-horse,
for it is that form which he commonly assumes, is the Kelpy of the
Lowlands, an evil and malicious spirit, delighting to forebode and to
witness calamity. He frequents most Highland lakes and rivers; and one
of his most memorable exploits was performed upon the banks of Loch
Vennachar, in the very district which forms the scene of our action:
it consisted in the destruction of a funeral procession, with all its
attendants. The 'noontide hag,' called in Gaelic Glas-lich, a tall,
emaciated, gigantic female figure, is supposed in particular to haunt
the district of Knoidart. A goblin dressed in antique armor, and having
one hand covered with blood, called, from that circumstance, Lham-dearg,
or Red-hand, is a tenant of the forests of Glenmore and Rothiemurcus.
Other spirits of the desert, all frightful in shape and malignant in
disposition, are believed to frequent different mountains and glens of
the Highlands, where any unusual appearance, produced by mist, or the
strange lights that are sometimes thrown upon particular objects, never
fails to present an apparition to the imagination of the solitary and
melancholy mountaineer."
161. Mankind. Accented on the first syllable; as it is almost invariably
in Shakespeare, except in Timon of Athens, where the modern accent
prevails. Milton uses either accent, as suits the measure. We find both
in P. L. viii. 358: "Above mankind, or aught than mankind higher."
166. Alpine's. Some eds. misprint "Alpine;" also "horsemen" in 172
below.
168. The fatal Ben-Shie's boding scream. The MS. reads:
"The fatal Ben-Shie's dismal scream,
And seen her wrinkled form, the sign
Of woe and death to Alpine's line."
Scott has the following note here: "Most great families in the Highlands
were supposed to have a tutelar, or rather a domestic, spirit, attached
to them, who took an interest in their prosperity, and intimated, by its
wailings, any approaching disaster. That of Grant of Grant was called
May Moullach, and appeared in the form of a girl, who had her arm
covered with hair. Grant of Rothiemurcus had an attendant called
Bodach-an-dun, or the Ghost of the Hill; and many other examples might
be mentioned. The Ben-Shie implies the female fairy whose lamentations
were often supposed to precede the death of a chieftain of particular
families. When she is visible, it is in the form of an old woman, with
a blue mantle and streaming hair. A superstition of the same kind is, I
believe, universally received by the inferior ranks of the native Irish.
"The death of the head of a Highland family is also sometimes supposed
to be announced by a chain of lights of different colours, called
Dr'eug, or death of the Druid. The direction which it takes marks the
place of the funeral." [See the Essay on Fairy Superstitions in Scott's
Border Minstrelsy.]
169. Sounds, too, had come, etc. Scott says: "A presage of the kind
alluded to in the text, is still believed to announce death to the
ancient Highland family of M'Lean of Lochbuy. The spirit of an ancestor
slain in battle is heard to gallop along a stony bank, and then to ride
thrice around the family residence, ringing his fairy bridle, and thus
intimating the approaching calamity. How easily the eye as well as the
ear may be deceived upon such occasions, is evident from the stories
of armies in the air, and other spectral phenomena with which history
abounds. Such an apparition is said to have been witnessed upon the side
of Southfell mountain, between Penrith and Keswick, upon the 23d June,
1744, by two persons, William Lancaster of Blakehills, and Daniel
Stricket his servant, whose attestation to the fact, with a full account
of the apparition, dated the 21st of July, 1745, is printed in Clarke's
Survey of the Lakes. The apparition consisted of several troops of horse
moving in regular order, with a steady rapid motion, making a curved
sweep around the fell, and seeming to the spectators to disappear over
the ridge of the mountain. Many persons witnessed this phenomenon, and
observed the last, or last but one, of the supposed troop, occasionally
leave his rank, and pass, at a gallop, to the front, when he resumed the
steady pace. The curious appearance, making the necessary allowance
for imagination, may be perhaps sufficiently accounted for by optical
deception."
171. Shingly. Gravelly, pebbly.
173. Thunderbolt. The 1st ed. has "thunder too."
188. Framed. The reading of the 1st ed.; commonly misprinted "formed,"
which occurs in 195.
190. Limbs. The 1st ed. has "limb."
191. Inch-Cailliach. Scott says: "Inch-Cailliach, the Isle of Nuns, or
of Old Women, is a most beautiful island at the lower extremity of Loch
Lomond. The church belonging to the former nunnery was long used as the
place of worship for the parish of Buchanan, but scarce any vestiges of
it now remain. The burial-ground continues to be used, and contains the
family places of sepulture of several neighboring clans. The monuments
of the lairds of Macgregor, and of other families claiming a descent
from the old Scottish King Alpine, are most remarkable. The Highlanders
are as zealous of their rights of sepulture as may be expected from a
people whose whole laws and government, if clanship can be called so,
turned upon the single principle of family descent. 'May his ashes
be scattered on the water,' was one of the deepest and most solemn
imprecations which they used against an enemy." [See a detailed
description of the funeral ceremonies of a Highland chieftain in the
Fair Maid of Perth.]
203. Dwelling low. That is, burial-place.
207. Each clansman's execration, etc. The MS. reads:
"Our warriors, on his worthless bust,
Shall speak disgrace and woe;"
and below:
"Their clattering targets hardly strook;
And first they muttered low."
212. Stook. One of the old forms of struck. In the early eds. of
Shakespeare, we find struck, stroke, and strook (or strooke) for the
past tense, and all these, together with stricken, strucken, stroken,
and strooken, for the participle. Cf. Milton, Hymn of Nativity, 95:
"When such music sweet
Their hearts and ears did greet
As never was by mortal finger strook;"
where, as here, it used for the sake of the rhyme.
214. Then, like the billow, etc. The repetition of the same rhyme here
gives well the cumulative effect of the rising billow.
217. Burst, with load roar. See on i. 73 above; and cf. 227 below.
228. Holiest name. The MS. has "holy name."
245. Mingled with childhood's babbling trill, etc. "The whole of this
stanza is very impressive; the mingling of the children's curses is the
climax of horror. Note the meaning of the triple curse. The cross is of
ancestral yew--the defaulter is cut off from communion with his clan; it
is sealed in the fire--the fire shall destroy his dwelling; it is dipped
in blood--his heart's blood is to be shed" (Taylor).
253. Coir-Uriskin. See on 622 below.
255. Beala-nam-bo. "The pass of the cattle," on the other side of