by Walter Scott
EDITOR'S NOTES.
(_a_) p. xxix. "There came a ghost to Margaret's door." In some versionsof "Clerk Saunders" the lady's troth is "streeked" on a rod of glass,and so she and the ghost are freed from their plighted love.
(_b_) p. 15. "Scat, wattle, hawkhen, hagalef." Different kinds of dutiesexacted in Zetland.
(_c_) p. 18. "Berserkars." Apparently there was a time when theseformidable persons were merely champion warriors, a kind of professionalsoldiery. In the "Raven Song," an old Norse lay, the Valkyrie asks theRaven about Harold Fair Hair's Bearsarks. "Wolfcoats they call them,that bear bloody targets in battle, that redden their spear heads whenthey come into fight, when they are at work together. The wise king, Itrow, will only reward men of high renown among them that smite on theshield." Later, perhaps, the Bearsarks won their evil reputation, asravening maniacs of battle, given to biting their shields and behavingin an hysterical manner. In such sagas as that of Grettir they areviolent bullies, sometimes selling their services. (See Powell andVigfussen's "Corpus Boreale," i. 257.)
(_d_) p. 27. Motto. The second verse is not part of the original ballad,which was altered by Allan Ramsay.
(_e_) p. 39. "Bolts and bars in Scotland." There are still places soinnocent--in Galloway, at least--that doors and windows may be, and are,left open all night.
(_f_) p. 45. "Deilbelicket." This is the name of an old Scotch dish, ofwhich goose and gooseberries are component parts. The recipe occurs inGait's "Ayrshire Legatees."
(_g_) p. 46. "James Guthrie." An account of this martyr of the Covenantwill be found in the Editor's Notes to "Old Mortality."
(_h_) p. 151. "Lucas Jacobson Debes." "Foeroae et Foeroa Reserata. Adescription of the Isles and inhabitants of Faeroe, Englished by JohnSterpin," 12mo, London 1676, Abbotsford Library.
(_i_) p. 173. "Multures--lock, gowpen, and knaveship." Feudal and otherdues on corn ground at the laird's mill.
(_k_) p. 231. "The wilds of Strathnavern." Montrose met his final defeatat Strathoykel, at a steep rounded hill, still called the Rock ofLament. His men were driven into the Kyle, which there is deep and wide.Montrose fled up the Oykel, into Assynt. The Naver flows due north, theOykel from west to east.
(_l_) p. 234. Sword Dance. Scott can hardly have escaped being familiarwith the degradation of this dance as played at Christmas by theGuizards. They are lads who go round acting and dancing in kitchens.Their songs may be found in Chambers's "Popular Rhymes of Scotland."Guizards performed at the Folk-Lore Congress in London 1891.
(_m_) p. 257. "The battue in Ettrick Forest, for the destruction of thefoxes." This ceased when the Duke of Buccleugh hunted the district, butfoxes are still shot in the inaccessible heights of Meggat Water.
(_n_) p. 261. Sharing the whale. An account of a battle for a strandedwhale may be read in the Saga of Grettir, translated by Mr. Morris andMr. Magnussen.
(_o_) p. 279. For [Greek: Nephelegereta Zeus] read [Greek: NephelegeretaZeus].
(_p_) p. 299. "That wonderful carbuncle." This must be the origin ofHawthorne's tale "The Great Carbuncle."
ANDREW LANG. _August 1893._
