The Lady of the Lake
465. Weed. Dress. See on iv. 506 above.
466. Boune. Ready. See on iv. 36 above.
479. Steel. Spur. Cf. i. 115 above.
485. Carhonie's hill. About a mile from the lower end of Loch Vennachar.
486. Pricked. Spurred. It came to mean ride; as in F. Q. i. 1. 1: "A
gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine," etc. Cf. 754 below.
490. Torry and Lendrick. These places, like Deanstown, Doune (see on iv.
19 above), Blair-Drummond, Ochtertyre, and Kier, are all on the banks
of the Teith, between Callander and Stirling. Lockhart says: "It may be
worth noting that the poet marks the progress of the King by naming
in succession places familiar and dear to his own early
recollections--Blair-Drummond, the seat of the Homes of Kaimes; Kier,
that of the principal family of the name of Stirling; Ochtertyre, that
of John Ramsay, the well-known antiquary, and correspondent of Burns;
and Craigforth, that of the Callenders of Craigforth, almost under the
walls of Stirling Castle;--all hospitable roofs, under which he had
spent many of his younger days."
494. Sees the hoofs strike fire. The MS. has "Saw their hoofs of fire."
496. They mark, etc. The to of the infinitive is omitted in glance, as
if mark had been see.
498. Sweltering. The 1st ed. has "swelling."
506. Flinty. The MS. has "steepy;" and in 514 "gains" for scales.
525. Saint Serle. "The King himself is in such distress for a rhyme as
to be obliged to apply to one of the obscurest saints in the calendar"
(Jeffrey). The MS. has "by my word," and "Lord" for Earl in the next
line.
534. Cambus-kenneth's abbey gray. See on iv. 231 above.
547. By. Gone by, past.
551. O sad and fatal mound! "An eminence on the northeast of the Castle,
where state criminals were executed. Stirling was often polluted with
noble blood. It is thus apostrophized by J. Johnston:
'Discordia tristis
Heu quotis procerum sanguine tinxit humum!
Hoc uno infelix, et felix cetera; nusquam
Laetior aut caeli frons geniusve soli.'
"The fate of William, eighth Earl of Douglas, whom James II. stabbed
in Stirling Castle with his own hand, and while under his royal
safe-conduct, is familiar to all who read Scottish history. Murdack Duke
of Albany, Duncan Earl of Lennox, his father-in-law, and his two sons,
Walter and Alexander Stuart, were executed at Stirling, in 1425. They
were beheaded upon an eminence without the Castle walls, but making part
of the same hill, from whence they could behold their strong Castle of
Doune and their extensive possessions. This 'heading hill,' as it was
sometimes termed, bears commonly the less terrible name of Hurly-hacket,
from its having been the scene of a courtly amusement alluded to by
Sir David Lindsay, who says of the pastimes in which the young King was
engaged:
'Some harled him to the Hurly-hacket;'
which consisted in sliding--in some sort of chair, it may be
supposed--from top to bottom of a smooth bank. The boys of Edinburgh,
about twenty years ago, used to play at the hurly-hacket on the Calton
Hill, using for their seat a horse's skull" (Scott).
558. The Franciscan steeple. The Greyfriars Church, built by James IV.
in 1594 on the hill not far from the Castle, is still standing, and has
been recently restored. Here James VI. was crowned on the 29th of July,
1567, and John Knox preached the coronation sermon.
562. Morrice-dancers. The morrice or morris dance was probably of
Spanish (or Moorish, as the name implies) origin, but after its
introduction into England it became blended with the Mayday games.
A full historical account of it is given in Douce's Illustrations of
Shakespeare. The characters in it in early times were the following:
"Robin Hood, Little John, Friar Tuck, Maid Marian (Robin's mistress
and the queen or lady of the May), the fool, the piper, and several
morris-dancers habited, as it appears, in various modes. Afterwards a
hobby-horse and a dragon were added" (Douce). For a description of the
game, see Scott's Abbot, ch. xiv., and the author's note. See also on
614 below.
564. The burghers hold their sports to-day. Scott has the following note
here:
"Every burgh of Scotland of the least note, but more especially the
considerable towns, had their solemn play, or festival, when feats of
archery were exhibited, and prized distributed to those who excelled
in wrestling, hurling the bar, and the other gymnastic exercises of the
period. Stirling, a usual place of royal residence, was not likely to
be deficient in pomp upon such occasions, especially since James V.
was very partial to them. His ready participation in these popular
amusements was one cause of his acquiring the title of the King of the
Commons, or Rex Plebeiorum, as Lesley has latinized it. The usual prize
to the best shooter was a silver arrow. Such a one is preserved at
Selkirk and at Peebles. At Dumfries a silver gun was substituted,
and the contention transferred to firearms. The ceremony, as there
performed, is the subject of an excellent Scottish poem, by Mr. John
Mayne, entitled the Siller Gun 1808, which surpasses the efforts of
Fergusson, and comes near those of Burns.
"Of James's attachment to archery, Pitscottie, the faithful though rude
recorder of the manners of that period, has given us evidence:
'In this year there came an ambassador out of England, named Lord
William Howard, with a bishop with him, with many other gentlemen,
to the number of threescore horse, which were all able men and waled
[picked] men for all kind of games and pastimes, shooting, louping,
running, wrestling, and casting of the stone, but they were well sayed
[essayed or tried] ere they past out of Scotland, and that by their own
provocation; but ever they tint: till at last, the Queen of Scotland,
the King's mother, favoured the English-men, because she was the King of
England's sister; and therefore she took an enterprise of archery
upon the Englishmen's hands, contrary her son the King, and any six
in Scotland that he would wale, either gentlemen or yeomen, that the
Englishmen should shoot against them either at pricks, revers, or buts,
as the Scots pleased.
'The King, hearing this of his mother, was content, and gart her pawn
a hundred crowns and a tun of wine upon the English-men's hands; and he
incontinent laid down as much for the Scottish-men. The field and ground
was chosen in St. Andrews, and three landed men and three yeomen chosen
to shoot against the English-men,--to wit, David Wemyss of that ilk,
David Arnot of that ilk, and Mr. John Wedderburn, vicar of Dundee; the
yeomen, John Thomson, in Leith, Steven Taburner, with a piper, called
Alexander Bailie; they shot very near, and warred [worsted] the
English-men of the enterprise, and wan the hundred crowns and the tun of
wine, which made the King very merry that his men wan the victory.'"
571. Play my prize. The same expression occurs in Shakespeare, T. A.
i. 1. 399: "You have play'd your prize." Cf. also M. of V. iii. 2. 142:
"Like one of two contending in a prize," etc.
575. The Castle gates. The main entrance to the Castle, not the postern
gate of 532 above.
580. Fair Scotland's King, etc. The MS. reads:
"King James and all his nobles went...
Ever the King was bending low
To his white jennet's saddle-bow,
Doffing his cap to burgher dame,
Who smiling blushed for pride and shame."
601. There nobles, etc. The MS. reads:
"Nobles who mourned their power restrained,
And the poor burgher's joys disdained;
Dark chief, who, hostage for his clan,
Was from his home a banished man,
Who thought upon his own gray tower,
The waving woods, his feudal bower,
And deemed himself a shameful part
Of pageant that he cursed in heart."
611. With bell at heel. Douce says that "the number of bells round each
leg of the morris-dancers amounted from twenty to forty;" but Scott, in
a note to The Fair Maid of Perth, speaks of 252 small bells in sets of
twelve at regular musical intervals.
612. Their mazes wheel. The MS. adds:
"With awkward stride there city groom
Would part of fabled knight assume."
614. Robin Hood. Scott says here: "The exhibition of this renowned
outlaw and his band was a favorite frolic at such festivals as we are
describing. This sporting, in which kings did not disdain to be actors,
was prohibited in Scotland upon the Reformation, by a statute of the 6th
Parliament of Queen Mary, c. 61, A. D. 1555, which ordered, under heavy
penalties that 'na manner of person be chosen Robert Hude, nor Little
John, Abbot of Unreason, Queen of May, nor otherwise.' But in 1561, the
'rascal multitude,' says John Knox, 'were stirred up to make a Robin
Hude, whilk enormity was of mony years left and damned by statute and
act of Paliament; yet would they not be forbidden.' Accordingly
they raised a very serious tumult, and at length made prisoners the
magistrates who endeavored to suppress it, and would not release them
till they extorted a formal promise that no one should be punished for
his share of the disturbance. It would seem, from the complaints of
the General Assembly of the Kirk, that these profane festivities were
continued down to 1592 (Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 414). Bold Robin
was, to say the least, equally successful in maintaining his ground
against the reformed clergy of England; for the simple and evangelical
Latimer complains of coming to a country church where the people refused
to hear him because it was Robin Hood's day, and his mitre and rochet
were fain to give way to the village pastime. Much curious information
on this subject may be found in the Preliminary Dissertation to the late
Mr. Ritson's edition of the songs respecting this memorable outlaw. The
game of Robin Hood was usually acted in May; and he was associated with
the morrice-dancers, on whom so much illustration has been bestowed
by the commentators on Shakespeare. A very lively picture of these
festivities, containing a great deal of curious information on the
subject of the private life and amusements of our ancestors, was thrown,
by the late ingenious Mr. Strutt, into his romance entitled Queen-hoo
Hall, published after his death, in 1808."
615. Friar Tuck. "Robin Hood's fat friar," as Shakespeare calls him
(T. G. of V. iv. 1. 36), who figures in the Robin Hood ballads and
in Ivanhoe. Scarlet and Little John are mentioned in one of Master
Silence's snatches of song in 2 Hen. IV. v. 3. 107: "And Robin, Scarlet,
and John." Scathelocke is a brother of Scarlet in Ben Jonson's Sad
Shepherd, which is a "Tale of Robin Hood," and Mutch is a bailiff in the
same play.
626. Stake. Prize.
627. Fondly he watched, etc. The MS. reads:
"Fondly he watched, with watery eye,
For answering glance of sympathy,
But no emotion made reply!
Indifferent as to unknown | wight,
Cold as to unknown yeoman |
The King gave forth the arrow bright."
630. To archer wight. That is, to any ordinary archer. Scott has the
following note here:
"The Douglas of the poem is an imaginary person, a supposed uncle of the
Earl of Angus. But the King's behavior during an unexpected interview
with the Laird of Kilspindie, one of the banished Douglases, under
circumstances similar to those in the text, is imitated from a real
story told by Hume of Godscroft. I would have availed myself more fully
of the simple and affecting circumstances of the old history, had they
not been already woven into a pathetic ballad by my friend Mr. Finlay.
[11]
'His [the King's] implacability [towards the family of Douglas] did also
appear in his carriage towards Archibald of Kilspinke, whom he, when he
was a child, loved singularly well for his ability of body, and was