works, an effect not unlike what we feel in reading the beautiful book of Ruth. It is taken from the Life of Mr. Alexander Peden,' printed about 1720.

"In the beginning of May 1685, he came to the house of John Brown and Marion Weir, whom he married before he went to Ireland, where he stayed all night; and in the morning, when he took farewell, he came out of the door, saying to himself, 'Poor woman, a fearful morning,' twice over. A dark misty morning!' The next morning, between five and six hours, the said John Brown having performed the worship of God in his family, was going, with a spade in his hand, to make ready some peat ground: the mist being very dark, he knew not until cruel and bloody Claverhouse compassed him with three troops of horse, brought him to his house, and there examined him; who, though he was a man of a stammering speech, yet answered him distinctly and solidly; which made Claverhouse to examine those whom he had taken to be his guides through the muirs, if ever they heard him preach? They answered, 'No, no, he was never a preacher.' He said, 'If he has never preached, meikle he has prayed in his time; ' he said to John, Go to your prayers, for you shall immediately die!' When he was praying, Claverhouse interrupted him three times; one time, that he stopt him, he was pleading that the Lord would spare a remnant, and not make a full end in the day of his anger. Claverhouse said, 'I give you time to pray, and ye are begun to preach;' he turned about upon his knees, and said, ‘Sir, you know neither the nature of preaching or praying, that calls this preaching.' Then continued without confusion. When ended, Claverhouse said, 'Take goodnight of your wife and children. His wife, standing by with her child in her arms that she had brought forth to him, and another child of his first wife's, he came to her, and said, 'Now, Marion, the day is come that I told you would come, when I spake first to you of marrying me.' She said, 'Indeed, John, I can willingly part with you.'-' Then,' he said, 'this is all I desire, I have no more to do but die.' He kissed his wife and bairns, and wished purchased and promised blessings to be multiplied upon them, and his blessing. Claverhouse ordered six soldiers to shoot him; the most part of the bullets came upon his head, which scattered his brains upon the ground. Claverhouse said to his wife, What thinkest thou of thy husband, now, woman?' She said, 'I thought ever much of him, and now as much as ever. He said,' It were but justice to lay thee beside him. She said, 'If ye were permitted, I doubt not but your crueltie would go that length; but how will ye make answer for this morning's work?' He said, 'To man I can be answerable; and for God, I will take him in my own hand.' Claverhonse mounted his horse, and marched, and left her with the corpse of her dead husband lying there; she set the bairn on the ground, and gathered his brains, and tied up his head, and straighted his body, and covered him in her plaid, and sat down, and wept over him. It being a very desart place, where never victual grew, and far from neighbours, it was some time before any friends came to her; the first, that came was a very fit hand, that old singular Christian woman, in the Cummer head, named Elizabeth Menzies, three miles distant, who had been tried with the violent death of her husband at Pentland, afterwards of two worthy sons, Thomas Weir, who was killed at Drumclog, and David Steel, who was suddenly shot afterwards when taken. The said Marion Weir, sitting upon her husband's grave, told me, that before that, she could see no blood but she was in danger to faint; and yet she was helped to be a witness to all this, without either fainting or confusion, except when the shots were let off her eyes

The enthusiasm of this personage, and of his followers, invested him, as bas been already noticed, with prophetic powers: but hardly any of the storles told of him exceeds that sort of gloomy conjecture of misfortune, which the precarious situation of his sect so greatly fostered. The following passage relates to the battle of Bothwell bridge; "That dismal day, 22d of June, 1679, of Bothwell-bridge, when the Lord's people fell and fled before the enemy, he was forty miles distant, near the Border, and kept himself retired until the middle of the day, when some friends said to him, Sir, the people are waiting for sermon.' He answered, Let them go to their prayers for me, I neither can nor will preach any this day, for our friends are fallen and fled before the enemy, at Hamilton, and they are hacking and hewing them down, and their blood is running like water.'" The feats of Peden are thus commemorated by Fountainhall, 27th of March, 4685:"News came to the Privy Council, that about one hundred men, well armed and appointed, had left Ireland, because of a search there for such malcon

dazzled. His corpse were buried at the end of his house, where he was slain, with this inscription on his grave-stone :

'In earth's cold bed, the dusty part here lies,
Of one who did the earth as dust despise!
Here, in this place, from earth he took departure;
Now he has got the garland of the martyrs.'

"This murder was committed betwixt six and seven in the morning Mr. Peden was about ten or eleven miles distant, having been in the fields all night: he came to the house betwixt seven and eight, and desired to call in the family, that he might pray amongst them; when praying, he said, Lord, when wilt thou avenge Brown's blood? Oh, let Brown's blood be precious in thy sight! and hasten the day when thou wilt avenge it, with Cameron's, Cargill's, and many others of our martyrs' names; and oh! for that day, when the Lord would avenge all their bloods! When ended, John Muirhead enquired what he meant by Brown's blood? He said twice over, What do I mean? Claverhouse has been at the Preshill this morning, and has cruelly murdered John Brown; his corpse are lying at the end of his house, and his poor wife sitting weeping by his corpse, and not a soul to speak a word comfortably to her.'"

While we read this dismal story, we must remember Brown's situation was that of an avowed and determined rebel, liable as such to military execution; so that the atrocity was more that of the times than of Claverhouse. That general's gallant adherence to his master, the misguided James VII., and his glorious death on the field of victory, at Killicrankie, have tended to preserve and gild his memory. He is still remembered in the Highlands as the most successful leader of their clans. An ancient gentleman, who had borne arms for the cause of Stuart in 4715, told the Editor, that when the armies met on the field of battle at Sheriffmuir, a veteran chief, (I think he named Gordon of Glenbucket,) covered with scars, came up to the Earl of Mar, and earnestly pressed him to order the Highlanders to charge, before the regular army of Argyle had completely formed their line, and at a moment when the rapid and furious onset of the clans might have thrown them into total disorder. Mar repeatedly answered, it was not yet time; till the chieftain turned from him in disdain and despair, and, stamping with rage, exclaimed aloud, "O for one hour of Dundee!" a

Claverhouse's sword (a straight cut-and-thrust blade) is in the possession of Lord Woodhouselee. In Pennycuick house is preserved the buff-coat, which he wore at the battle of Killicrankie. The fatal shot-hole is under the arm-pit, so that the ball must have been received while his arm was raised to direct the pursuit. However he came by his charm of proof, he certainly had not worn the garment usually supposed to confer that privilege, and which was called the waistcoat of proof, or of necessity. It was thus made: "On Christmas dai, at night, a thread must be sponne of flax, by a little virgin girle, in the name of the divell; and it must be by her woven, and also wrought with the needle. In the breast, or fore part thereof, must be made, with needle-work, two heads; on the head, at the right side, must be a hat and a long beard; the left head must have on a crown, and it must be so horrible that it maie resemble Belzebub; and on each side of the wastcote must be made a crosse."-SCOTT's Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 231.

It would be now no difficult matter to bring down our popular poetry, connected with history, to the year 1745. But almost all the party ballads of that period have been already printed and ably illustrated by Mr. Ritson.

tents, and landed in the west of Scotland, and joined with the wild fanatics. The Council, finding that they disappointed their forces by skulking from bole to hole, were of opinion, it were better to let them gather into a body, and draw to a head, and so they would get them altogether in a snare. They had one Mr. Peden, a minister, with them, and one Isaac, who commanded them. They had frighted most part of all the country ministers, so that they durst not stay at their churches, but retired to Edinburgh, or to garrison towns; and it was sad to see whole shires destitute of preaching, except in burghs. Wherever they came they plundered arms, and particularly at my Lord Dumfries' house."-FOUNTAINHALL, vol. i. p. 359.

[0 for one hour of Wallace wight,

Or well-skilled Bruce, to rule the fight, etc. Marmion.]

SCOTTISH MUSIC.

AN ODE.

BY J. LEYDEN.

TO IANTHE.

Again, sweet siren! breathe again
That deep, pathetic, powerful strain,

Whose melting tones, of tender woe,
Fall soft as evening's summer dew,
That bathes the pinks and harebells blue,
Which in the vales of Teviot blow.
Such was the song that soothed to rest,
Far in the green isle of the west,'

The Celtic warrior's parted shade;
Such are the lonely sounds that sweep
O'er the blue bosom of the deep,
Where shipwreck'd mariners are laid.
Ah! sure, as Hindú legends tell,
When music's tones the bosom swell,
The scenes of former life return;
Ere, sunk beneath the morning star,
We left our parent climes afar,

Immured in mortal forms to mourn.
Or if, as ancient sages ween,
Departed spirits, half unseen,

Can mingle with the mortal throng;
'Tis when from heart to heart we roll
The deep-toned music of the soul,
That warbles in our Scottish song.

I hear, I hear, with awful dread,
The plaintive music of the dead!
They leave the amber fields of day:
Soft as the cadence of the wave,
That murmurs round the mermaid's grave,
They mingle in the magic lay.
Sweet siren, breathe the powerful strain !
Lochroyan's Damsel3 sails the main ;

The crystal tower enchanted see! "Now break," she cries, "ye fairy charms!"As round she sails with fond alarms, "Now break, and set my true love free!"

Lord Barnard is to greenwood gone,
Where fair Gil Morrice sits alone,

And careless combs his yellow hair: Ah! mourn the youth, untimely slain! The meanest of Lord Barnard's train

The hunter's mangled head must bear. Or, change these notes of deep despair, For love's more soothing tender air ;

Sing, how, beneath the greenwood tree, Brown Adam's 4 love maintain'd her truth, Nor would resign the exiled youth

For any knight the fair could see.
And sing the Hawk of pinion grey,5
To southern climes who wing'd his way,
For he could speak as well as fly;
Her brethren how the fair beguiled,
And on her Scottish lover smiled,

As slow she raised her languid eye.
Fair was her cheek's carnation glow,
Like red blood on a wreath of snow;

Like evening's dewy star her eye; White as the sea-mew's downy breast, Borne on the surge's foamy crest,

Her graceful bosom heaved the sigh. In youth's first morn, alert and gay, Ere rolling years had pass'd away,

Remember'd like a morning dream, I heard these dulcet measures float, In many a liquid winding note,

Along the banks of Teviot's stream. Sweet sounds! that oft have soothed to rest The sorrows of my guileless breast,

And charm'd away mine infant tears:
Fond memory shall your strains repeat,
Like distant echoes, doubly sweet,

That in the wild the traveller hears.
And thus, the exiled Scotian maid,
By fond alluring love betray'd

'The Flathinnis, or Celtic paradise.

* The effect of music is explained by the Hindùs, as recalling to our memory the airs of paradise, heard in a state of pre-existence. -Vide Sacontala. 3 The Lass of Lochroyan-post.

4 See the ballad, entitled, Brown Adam. See the Gay Goss-Hawk.

6 "So fell it out of late years, that an English gentleman, travelling in Palestine, not far from Jerusalem, as he passed through a country town, he heard, by chance, a woman sitting at her door, dandling her child, to sing, Bothwell bank, thou bloomest fair. The gentleman hereat wondered, and forthwith, in English, saluted the woman, who joyfully answered him; and said she was right glad there to see a gentleman of our isle: and told him that she was

a Scottish woman, and came first from Scotland to Venice, and from Venice thither, where her fortune was to be the wife of an officer under the Turk; who, being at that instant absent, and very soon to return, she entreated the gentleman to stay there until his return. The which he did; and she, for country sake, to show herself the more kind and bountiful unto him, told her husband, at his home-coming, that the gentleman was her kinsman ; whereupon her husband entertained him very kindly; and, at his departure, gave him divers things of good value."-VERSTIGAN'S Restitution of Decayed Intelligence. Chap. of the Sirnames of our Antient Families. Antwerp, 1605.

7 [Dr. Leyden was, when he wrote these verses, on the eve of departing for India-where he died.-ED.]

THE YOUNG TAMLANE.

ON THE

FAIRIES OF POPULAR SUPERSTITION.'

"Of airy elves, by moonlight shadows seen,

The silver token, and the circled green."-POPE.

In a work avowedly dedicated to the preservation of the poetry and traditions of the "olden time," it would be unpardonable to omit this opportunity of making some observations upon so interesting an article of the popular creed, as that concerning the Elves, or Fairies. The general idea of spirits, of a a limited power, and subordinate nature, dwelling among the woods and mountains, is perhaps common to all nations. But the intermixture of tribes, of languages, and religion, which has occurred in Europe, renders it difficult to trace the origin of the names which have been bestowed upon such spirits, and the primary ideas which were entertained concerning their manners and habits.

The word elf, which seems to have been the original name of the beings afterwards denominated fairies, is of Gothic origin, and probably signified, simply, a spirit of a lower order. Thus, the Saxons had not only dun-elfen, berg-elfen, and munt-elfen, spirits of the downs, hills, and mountains; but also field-elfen, wudu-elfen, sae-elfen, and water-elfen; spirits of the fields, of the woods, of the sea, and of the waters. In Low German, the some latitude of expression occurs; for night-hags are termed aluinnen and aluen, which is sometimes Latinized eluæ. But the prototype of the English elf is to be sought chiefly in the berg-elfen, or duergar, of the Scandinavians. From the most early of the Icelandic Sagas, as well as from the Edda itself, we learn the belief of the northern nations in a race of dwarfish spirits inhabiting the rocky mountains, and approaching, in some respects, to the human nature. Their attributes, amongst which we recognise the features of the modern fairy, were, supernatural wisdom and prescience, and skill in the mechanical arts, especially in the fabrication of arms. They are farther described, as capricious, vindictive, and easily irritated. The story of the elfin sword Tyrfing, may be the most pleasing illustration of this position. Suafurlami, a Scandinavian monarch, returning from hunting, bewildered himself among the mountains. About

3

sunset he beheld a large rock, and two dwarfs sitting before the mouth of a cavern. The king drew his sword, and intercepted their retreat, by springing betwixt them and their recess, and imposed upon them the following condition of safety:-that they should make for him a falchion, with a baldric and scabbard of pure gold, and a blade which should divide stones and iron as a garment, and which should render the wielder ever victorious in battle. The elves complied with the requisition, and Suafurlami pursued his way home. Returning at the time appointed, the dwarfs delivered to him the famous sword Tyrfing; then, standing in the entrance of the cavern spoke thus: "This sword, O king, shall destroy a man every time it is brandished, but it shall perform three atrocious deeds, and it shall be thy bane." The king rushed forward with the charmed sword, and buried both its edges in the rock; but the dwarfs escaped into their recesses. This enchanted sword emitted rays like the sun, dazzling all against whom it was brandished: it divided steel like water, and was never unsheathed without slaying a man.-Hervarar Saga, p. 9. Similar to this was the enchanted sword Skoffnung, which was taken by a pirate out of the tomb of a Norwegian monarch. Many such tales are narrated in the Sagas; but the most distinct account of the duergar, or elves, and their attributes, is to be found in a preface of Torfæus to the history of Hrolf Kraka, who cites a dissertation by Einer Gudmund, a learned native of Iceland. "I am firmly of opinion," says the Icelander," that these beings are creatures of God, consisting, like human beings, of a body and rational soul; that they are of different sexes, and capable of producing children, and subject to all human affections, as sleeping and waking, laughing and crying, poverty and wealth; and that they possess cattle, and other effects, and are obnoxious to death, like other mortals." He proceeds to state, that the females of this race are capable of procreating with mankind; and gives an account of one who bore a child to an inhabitant of Iceland, for whom she claimed the privilege of baptism; depositing the infant for that purpose, at the gate of the churchyard, together with a goblet of gold, as an offering.-Historia Hrolf Krakæ, a TORFEO.

Similar to the traditions of the Icelanders, are those current among the Laplanders of Finland, concerning a subterranean people, gifted with superna

[The reader will do well to compare this early essay with Sir Walter Scott's fourth Letter on Demonology, 1850, where he will find the Author's opinions on several points considerably modified; as also the Preface and Notes to GRIMM's Haus-und-kinder Märchen; and an Essay on Popular Superstitions, by Mr. Southey, in the 37th Number of the Quarterly Review.-ED.]

2 [The writer of the learned Preface to Warton's History of English Poetry, (Edit. 1824,) doubts whether "this catalogue of Ælfrics ever obtained currency among the people." He says, this is at least rendered doubtful, by its exact correspondence with the Grecian names of Dryades, etc. Elf, according to this writer, originally means running water-whence the Elbe; and here he

notices a curious coincidence with you and lympha.-ED.] 3 Perhaps in this, and similar tales, we may recognise something of real history. That the Fins, or ancient natives of Scandinavia, were driven into the mountains, by the invasion of Odin and his Asiatics, is sufficiently probable; and there is reason to believe, that the aboriginal inhabitants understood, better than the intruders, how to manufacture the produce of their own mines. It is therefore possible, that, in process of time, the oppressed Fins may have been transformed into the supernatural duergar. A similar transformation has taken place among the vulgar in Scotland, regarding the Picts or Peghs, to whom they ascribe various supernatural attributes.

tural qualities, and inhabiting the recesses of the earth. Resembling men in their general appearance, the manner of their existence, and their habits of life, they far excel the miserable Laplanders in perfection of nature, felicity of situation, and skill in mechanical arts. From all these advantages, however, after the partial conversion of the Laplanders, the subterranean people have derived no farther credit, than to be confounded with the devils and magicians of the dark ages of Christianity; a degradation which, as will shortly be demonstrated, has been also suffered by the harmless fairies of Albion, and, indeed, by the whole host of deities of learned Greece and mighty Rome. The ancient opinions are yet so firmly rooted, that the Laps of Finland, at this day, boast of an intercourse with these beings, in banquets, dances, and magical ceremonies, and even in more intimate commerce of gallantry. They talk, with triumph, of the feasts which they have shared in the elfin caverns, where wine and tobacco, the productions of the Fairy region, went round in abundance, and whence the mortal guest, after receiving the kindest treatment, and the most salutary counsel, has been conducted to his tent under an escort of his supernatural entertainers.-Jessens, de Lapponibus.

The superstitions of the islands of Feroe, concerning their Froddenskemen, or under-ground people, are derived from the duergar of Scandinavia. These beings are supposed to inhabit the interior recesses of mountains, which they enter by invisible passages. Like the Fairies, they are supposed to steal human beings. "It happened," says Debes, p. 354, “a good while since, when the burghers of Bergen had the commerce of Feroe, that there was a man in Servaade, called Jonas Soideman, who was kept by spirits in a mountain during the space of seven years, and at length came out; but lived afterwards in great distress and fear, lest they should again take him away; wherefore people were obliged to watch him in the night." The same author mentions another young man who had been carried away, and, after his return, was removed a second time upon the eve of his marriage. He returned in a short time, and related, that the spirit that had carried him away was in the shape of a most beautiful woman, who pressed him to forsake his bride, and remain with her; urging her own superior beauty, and splendid appearance. He added, that he saw the men who were employed to search for him, and heard them call; but that they could not see him, nor could he answer them, till upon his determined refusal to listen to the spirit's persuasions, the spell ceased to operate. The kidneyshaped West Indian bean, which is sometimes driven upon the shore of the Feroes, is termed by the native, "the Fairie's kidney."

we may recognise, with certainty, the rudiments of elfin superstition; but we must look to various other causes for the modifications which it has undergone. These are to he sought, first in the traditions of the East; 2d, in the wreck and confusion of the Gothic mythology; 3d, in the tales of chivalry; 4th, in the fables of classical antiquity; 5th, in the influence of the Christian religion; 6th, and finally, in the creative imagination of the 16th century. It may be proper to notice the effect of these various causes, before stating the popular belief of our own time regarding the Fairies.

I. To the traditions of the East, the Fairies of Britain owe, I think, little more than the appellation, by which they have been distinguished since the days of the Crusade. The term "Fairy," occurs not only in Chaucer, and in yet older English authors, but also, and more frequently, in the Romance language; from which they seem to have adopted it. Ducange cites the following passage from Gul. Guiart, in Historia Francica, MS.

"Plusiers parlent de Guenart,
Du Lou, de l'Asne, de Renart,
De Faeries et de Songes,

De phantosmes et de mensonges."

The Lay le Frain, enumerating the subjects of the Breton Lays, informs us expressly,

Many ther beth of faëry.

By some etymologists of that learned class, who not only know whence words come, but also whither they are going, the term Fairy, or Faërie, is derived from Faë, which is again derived from Nympha. It is more probable the term is of Oriental origin, and is derived from the Persic, through the medium of the Arabic. In Persic, the term Peri expresses a species of imaginary being which resembles the Fairy in some of its qualities, and is one of the fairest creatures of romantic fancy. This superstition must have been known to the Arabs, among whom the Persian tales, or romances, even as early as the time of Mahomet, were so popular, that it required the most terrible denunciations of that legislator to proscribe them. Now, in the enunciation of the Arabs, the term Peri would sound Fairy, the letter p not occurring in the alphabet of that nation; and, as the chief intercourse of the early crusaders was with the Arabs, or Saracens, it is probable they would adopt the term according to their pronunciation. Neither will it be considered as an objection to this opinion, that in Hesychius, the Ionian term Phereas or Pheres, denotes the satyrs of classical antiquity, if the number of words of Oriental origin in that lexicographer be recollected. Of the Persian Peris, Ousely, in his Persian Miscellanies, has described some characte

= { Faerie was a general name for illusion; a sense in which it is always (?) used by Chaucer. As an appellation for the elfin race, it is certainly of late date; and perhaps a mere corruption-a name given to the agent from his acts. It is certainly not of northern

origin Some of the earliest French tales of faërie, acknowledge a Breton source: may not the name itself be Celtic? The Ionic Pheres, of Hesychius, which has been mentioned as a synonym with the Persian Peri, is but a different aspiration of the Attic Oxf,