第215章 XXIX.(21)

46. His impatient blade. Note the "transferred epithet." It is not the blade that is impatient.

47. Beneath a rock, etc. The MS. reads:

"Hard by, his vassals' early care The mystic ritual prepare."50. Antiquity. The men of old; "the abstract for the concrete."59. With her broad shadow, etc. Cf. Longfellow, Maidenhood:

"Seest thou shadows sailing by, As the dove, with startled eye, Sees the falcon's shadow fly?"62. Rowan. The mountain-ash.

71. That monk, of savage form and face. Scott says here: "The state of religion in the middle ages afforded considerable facilities for those whose mode of life excluded them from regular worship, to secure, nevertheless, the ghostly assistance of confessors, perfectly willing to adapt the nature of their doctrine to the necessities and peculiar circumstances of their flock. Robin Hood, it is well known, had his celebrated domestic chaplain Friar Tuck. And that same curtal friar was probably matched in manners and appearance by the ghostly fathers of the Tynedale robbers, who are thus described in an excommunication fulminated against their patrons by Richard Fox, Bishop of Durham, tempore Henrici VIII.: 'We have further understood, that there are many chaplains in the said territories of Tynedale and Redesdale, who are public and open maintainers of concubinage, irregular, suspended, 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.