Eden Hall, the seat of the chief of the famous border clan of Musgrave,
is a large and handsome edifice, on the west bank of the river Eden,
built in the taste which prevailed about the time of the Charles's.
Being bordered with trees, it forms an elegant feature in the pleasure
grounds. There is here preserved, with scrupulous care, an old and
anciently-painted glass goblet, called the "Luck of Edenhall," which
would appear, from the following traditionary legend, to be wedded to
the fortunes of its present possessors. The butler, in going to procure
water at St. Cuthbert's well, in the neighbourhood (rather an unusual
employment for a butler) came suddenly upon a company of fairies, who
were feasting and making merry on the green sward. In their flight they
left behind this glass, and one of them returning for it, found it in
the hands of the butler. Seeing that its recovery was hopeless, she flew
away, singing aloud--
"If that glass should break or fall,
Farewell the luck of Eden Hall."
The connection of the prosperity of the family with the integrity of an
inanimate object, has frequently been one of the playthings of
tradition, and traces of the superstition are found in ancient fable.
There is a legend of this kind attached to a pear, preserved in a silver
box at Coalstoun, the seat of the Earl of Dalhousie, near Haddington;
and there is or was, a glass cap at Muncaster castle, given by Henry VI.
to Sir John Pennington, which, from the general opinion of the King's
sanctity, and that he entailed with the gift a blessing on the family,
was called "the Luck of Muncaster."
The initials, I. H. S., are marked upon the case containing the goblet
at Eden Hall, sufficiently showing the sacred uses to which it was
originally appropriated. Philip, Duke of Wharton, alludes to it in his
ballad, called--