Several months passed, however, without any change in my happy, untroubled
life. Lando’s arrival, and shortly after that of Mario, were the chief
incidents. Mario’s visits were short and rare, for he seldom left my
father. He loved home, now he was alone there, better than he used to do;
and my father, relieved of a heavy responsibility by the marriage of one
daughter and the vocation of the other, enjoyed more than ever the company
of a son who gave him no anxiety and prevented him from finding his
solitude irksome. He only lived now in the recollections of the past and
for his profession, and Mario fulfilled with cheerful devotedness the
additional obligations our departure had imposed on him. He came from time
to time to see his two sisters, and had not entirely lost the habit of
favoring me with advice and remonstrances. Nevertheless, as my present
position obliged me to make a certain display he was not sorry to have a
part in, and as, on the whole, he did not find my house disagreeable, it
was not as difficult as it once was to win his approbation, particularly
as, notwithstanding the frivolous life I led, I was still (perhaps a
strange thing) wholly devoid of coquetry and vanity, which, almost as much
as my affection for Lorenzo, served as a safeguard in the world, and not
only shielded me from its real dangers, but from all criticism. This point
acknowledged, Mario, who did not consider himself dispensed by my marriage
from watching over my reputation, was as kind to me now as he would have
been implacable had it been otherwise. As I, on my side, by no means
feared his oversight, and he brought news of my father and recalled the
memories of the past, which I continued to cherish in my present life, I
welcomed him with affection, and his visits always afforded me pleasure.
As to Lando, he had been forced to tear himself away from Paris, and
devote to economy an entire year which he had come very reluctantly to
spend in the bosom of his family. He at once observed with astonishment
that I was happier at Naples than at Paris. As for him, he declared life
in a small city was an impossibility, and he should pass the time of his
exile in absolute exclusion. But he contented himself with carrying this
Parisian nostalgia from one drawing‐room to another, exhaling his
complaints sometimes in Italian (continually _grasseyant_), sometimes in
French sprinkled with the most recent _argot_, only comprehensible to the
initiated. But as, in spite of all this, his natural good‐humor was never
at fault, everything else was overlooked, and he was welcomed everywhere;
so existence gradually became endurable, and he resigned himself to it so
completely that by the time the Carnival approached he was so thoroughly
renaturalized that no one was more forward than he in preparing and
organizing all the amusements with which it terminates at Naples—vehicles,
costumes, _confetti_, and flowers for the Toledo;(51) suppers, dominos,
and disguises for the Festini di San Carlo,(52) without reckoning the
great fancy ball at the Accademia;(53) and, to crown all, private
theatricals with a view to Lent. With all this, he had ample means of
escaping all danger of dying of _ennui_ before Easter!...
I must acknowledge, however, that he found me as much disposed to aid him
as any one. I was in one of those fits of exuberant gayety which at
Naples, and even at Rome, sometimes seize even the most reasonable and
sensible people during the follies of the Carnival. But it must be
confessed these follies had not in Italy the gross, vulgar, and repulsive
aspect which public gayety sometimes assumes at Paris on similar
occasions. One would suppose everybody at Paris more or less wicked at
Carnival time; whereas at Rome and Naples everybody seems to be more or
less childlike. Is this more in appearance than reality? Must we believe
the amount of evil the same everywhere during these days devoted to
pleasure? I cannot say. At Rome, we know, no less than at Paris and
Naples, while people on the Corso are pelting each other with _confetti_
and lighting the _moccoletti_, the churches are also illuminated, and a
numerous crowd, prostrate before the Blessed Sacrament exposed on the
altars, pray in order to expiate the follies of the merry crowd. But it
seems to me no one who has made the comparison would hesitate to
acknowledge a great difference in the gayety of these places, as well as
the different amusements it inspires.
Stella was in as gay a mood as I. Angiolina (whose right it was) could not
have prepared more enthusiastically than we to throw _confetti_ at every
one we met, or pelt the vehicles in which most of the gentlemen of the
place, arrayed in various disguises, drive up and down the Toledo. These
vehicles are stormed with missiles from every balcony they pass, and they
reply by handfuls of _confetti_ and flowers thrown to the highest stories,
either by means of cornets, or by instruments expressly for this purpose,
or by climbing the staging made on the carriages to bring the combatants
nearer together.
Lorenzo, Lando, and even Mario were enrolled among the number to man a
wonderful gondola of the XVth century, all clad in the costume of that
period, and Lorenzo, by his taste and uncommon acquirements of all kinds,
contributed to render this masquerade almost interesting from an artistic
and historic point of view, and he was as zealous about it as any one.
We were in the very midst of these preparations when one morning he told
me with an air of vexation he had just received a letter from his agent
which would oblige him to be absent several days. But he was only to go to
Bologna this time, and would be back without fail the eve of _Jeudi‐
Gras_,(54) the day fixed for the last exhibition of the gondola. But his
departure afflicted me the more because he had not been absent for a long
time, and I was no longer used to it. I did not, therefore, conceal my
annoyance. But as his seemed to be equally great, I finally saw him
depart, not without regret, but without the least shade of my former
distrust.
The Carnival was late that year, and the coming of spring was already
perceptible in the air. I had passed two hours with Stella in the park of
Capo di Monte, while Angiolina was filling her basket with the violets
that grew among the grass. Our enjoyment was increased by the freshness of
the season and the enchanting sky of Naples. When the circumstances of a
person’s life are not absolutely at variance with the beauty of nature, he
feels a transport here not experienced in any other place. That day I was
happier and merrier than usual, and yet, as we were about to leave the
park, I all at once felt that vague kind of sadness which always throws
its cloud over excessive joy.
“One moment longer, Stella,” said I, “it is so lovely here. I never saw
the sea and sky so blue before! I cannot bear to go home.”
“Remain as long as you please, Ginevra. I am never tired, you know, of the
beautiful prospect before us! Nature is to me a mother, a friend, and a
support. She has so often enabled me to endure life.”
“Poor Stella!” said I with a slight remorse, for I felt I was too often
unmindful of the difference in our lots.
But she continued with her charming smile:
“You see, Ginevra, they say I have _le sang joyeux!_ which means, I
suppose, that I have a happy disposition. When all other means fail of
gratifying my natural turn, I can do it by looking around me. The very
radiance of the heavens suffices to fill me with torrents of joy.”
At that moment Angiolina ran up with a little bunch of violets she had
tied together, and gave them to her mother. Stella took the child up in
her arms.
“Look, Ginevra. See how blue my Angiolina’s eyes are. Their color is a
thousand times lovelier than that of the sky or sea, is it not? Come, let
us not talk of my troubles,” continued she, as her daughter threw her arms
around her neck, and leaned her cheek against hers. “This treasure is
sufficient; I ask no other.”
“Yes, Stella, you are right. To enjoy such a happiness I would give all I
possess.”
“God will doubtless grant you this happiness some day,” replied she,
smiling.
Our merriment, interrupted for a moment, now resumed its course. It was
time to go home, and we returned without delay to the carriage, which
awaited us at the gate of the park.
It was Tuesday, the day but one before _Jeudi‐Gras_; consequently I
expected Lorenzo the following day. All the preparations for the
masquerade were completed, and in passing by the door of my aunt, Donna
Clelia, who lived on the Toledo, I proposed to Stella we should call to
make sure she had attended to her part; for it was from her balcony the
first great contest with _confetti_ was to take place the next day but
one.
Donna Clelia, as I have remarked, felt a slight degree of ill‐humor at the
time of my marriage. But she speedily concluded to regard the event with a
favorable eye. It would doubtless have been more agreeable to be able to
say: “The duke, my son‐in‐law”; but if she could not have this
satisfaction, it was something to be able to say: “My niece, the duchess,”
and my aunt did not deny herself this pleasure.
Besides, she anticipated another advantage of more importance—of obtaining
an entrance by my means to high life, which hitherto she had only seen at
an immeasurable distance; and she was still more anxious to introduce her
daughters than to enter herself. From the day of my marriage, therefore,
she resolved to establish herself at Naples, and this resolution had
already had the most happy results. Teresina and Mariuccia were large
girls, rather devoid of style, but not of beauty. Thanks to our
relationship, they were invited almost everywhere, and the dream of their
mother was almost realized. As I had indubitably contributed to this, and
they had the good grace to acknowledge it, I was on the best terms with
them as well as with Donna Clelia. The latter, it will be readily
imagined, had enthusiastically acceded to my request to allow the cream of
the _beau monde_ to occupy her balconies on _Jeudi‐Gras_, and we found her
now in the full tide of the preparations she considered necessary for so
great an event.
My aunt had apartments of good size on the first floor of one of the large
palaces on the Strada di Toledo. They were dark and gloomy in the morning,
like all in that locality, but in the evening, when her drawing‐rooms were
lit up, they produced a very good effect. As to Donna Clelia herself, when
her voluminous person was encased in a suit of black velvet, and her
locks, boldly turned back, had the addition of a false _chignon_, a plume
of red feathers, and superb diamonds, she sustained very creditably, as I
can testify, the part of a dignified matron, and it was easy to see she
had been in her day handsomer than either of her daughters. But when she
received us on this occasion, enveloped in an enormous wrapper, which
indicated that, in spite of the advanced hour, she had not even begun her
toilet, and with her hair reduced to its simplest expression, she
presented quite a different aspect. She was, however, by no means
disconcerted when we made our appearance, but met us, on the contrary,
with open arms; for she was very glad of an opportunity of explaining all
the arrangements she was at that instant occupied in superintending, which
likewise accounted for the _négligé_ in which we surprised her. She took
us all through the drawing‐rooms, pointing out in the penumbra the places,
here and there, where she intended to place a profusion of flowers. Here a
large table would stand, loaded with everything that would aid us in
repairing our strength during the contest; and there were genuine tubs for
the _confetti_, where we should find an inexhaustible supply of
ammunition. My aunt was rich. She spared nothing for her own amusement or
to amuse others, and never had she found a better occasion for spending
her money. She had already given two successful _soirées_, at which her
large drawing‐rooms were filled, but this crowd did not include everybody,
and those who were absent were precisely those she was most anxious to
have, and the very ones who, on _Jeudi‐Gras_, were to give her the
pleasure of making use of her rooms. She did not dream of fathoming their
motives; it was enough to have their presence.
At last, after examining and approving everything, as disorder reigned in
the drawing‐room, my aunt took us to her chamber. She gave Stella and
myself two arm‐chairs that were there, placed on the floor a supply of
biscuits, candied chestnuts, and mandarines for Angiolina’s benefit, and
seated herself on the foot of her bedstead, taking for a seat the bare
wood; the mattress, pillows, and coverings being rolled up during the day,
according to the Neapolitan custom, like an enormous bale of goods, at the
other end of the bedstead. Arming herself with an immense fan, which she
vigorously waved to and fro, she set herself to work to entertain us.
First, she replied to my questions:
“You ask where the _ragazze_(55) are.... I didn’t tell you, then, they are
gone on a trip to Sorrento with the _baronessa_?”
“No, Zia Clelia, you did not tell me. When will they return?”
“Oh! in a short time. I expect them before night. It was such fine weather
yesterday! They did not like to refuse to accompany the baroness, but it
would not please them to lose two days of the Carnival, and the baroness
wouldn’t, for anything in the world, miss her part at San Carlo. Teresina
is to go there with her this evening.”
The baroness in question was a friend of my aunt’s whom she particularly
liked to boast of before me. If she was indebted to me for some of the
acquaintances she was so proud of, she lost no opportunity of reminding me
that for this one she was solely indebted to herself.
“Ah! Ginevra mia!...” continued she, “you have a fine house, to be sure—I
can certainly say nothing to the contrary; but if you could only see that
of the baroness!... Such furniture! Such mirrors! Such gilding!... And
then what a view!...”
Here my aunt kissed the ends of her five fingers, and then opened her
whole hand wide, expressing by this pantomime a degree of admiration for
which words did not suffice....
“How?” said Stella with an air of surprise. “I thought her house was near
here, and that there was no view at all. It seems to me she can see
nothing from her windows.”
“No view!” cried Donna Clelia. “No view from the baroness’ house!... See
nothing from her windows!... What a strange mistake, Contessa Stella! You
are in the greatest error. You can see everything from her
windows—_everything_! Not a carriage, not a donkey, not a horse, not a man
or woman on foot or horseback or in a carriage, can pass by without being
seen; and as all the drawing‐rooms are _al primo piano_, you can see them
as plainly as I see you, and distinguish the color of their cravats and
the shape of the ladies’ cloaks.”
“Ah! yes, yes, Zia Clelia, you are right. It is Stella who is wrong. The
baroness has an admirable view, and quite suited to her tastes.”
“And then,” continued Donna Clelia, waving her fan more deliberately to
give greater emphasis to her words, “a situation unparalleled in the whole
city of Naples!... A church on one side, and the new theatre on the other!
And so near at the right and left that—imagine it!—there is a little
gallery, which she has the key of, on one side, leading to the church; and
on the other a passage, of which she also has the key, which leads
straight to her box in the theatre! I ask if you can imagine anything more
convenient?... But, apropos, Ginevra, have you seen Livia lately?”
“Yes, I see her every week.”
“Ah! _par exemple_,” said Donna Clelia, folding her hands, “there is a
saint for you! But I have stopped going to see her since the Carnival
began, because every time I go I feel I ought to become better, and the
very next day off I go to confession.... It has precisely the same effect
on the _ragazze_; so they have begged me not to take them to the convent
again before Ash‐Wednesday.”
Stella, less accustomed than I to my aunt’s style of conversation, burst
into laughter, and I did the same, though I thought she expressed very
well in her way the effects of her visits at the convent. At that minute
the doors opened with a bang, and Teresina and Mariuccia made their
appearance, loaded with flowers. At the sight of us there were
exclamations of joy:
“O Ginevra!... Contessa!... _E la bambina! Che piacere!_... How delightful
to find you here!”
A general embrace all around. Then details of all kinds—a stream of words
almost incomprehensible.
“_Che tempo! Che bellezza! Che paradiso!_ They had been amused _quanto
mai_! And on the way back, moreover, they had met Don Landolfo, and Don
Landolfo had invited Teresina to dance a cotillon with him at the ball to‐
morrow.... And Don Landolfo said Mariuccia’s toilet at the ball last
Saturday was _un amore_!”
It should be observed here that everything Lando said was taken very
seriously in this household. His opinion was law in everything relating to
dress, and he himself did not disdain giving these girls advice which
cultivated notions of good taste, from which they were too often tempted
to deviate.
We were on the point of leaving when Mariuccia exclaimed:
“Oh! apropos, Ginevrina, Teresina thought she saw Duke Lorenzo at Sorrento
at a distance.”
“Lorenzo?... At Sorrento? No, you are mistaken, Teresina. He went to
Bologna a week ago, and will not be back till to‐morrow.”
“You hear?” said Mariuccia to her sister. “I told you you were
mistaken—that it was not he.”
“It is strange,” said Teresina. “At all events, it was some one who
resembled him very much. It is true, I barely saw him a second.”
“And where was it?” I asked with a slight tremor of the heart.
“At the window of a small villa away from the road at the end of a
_masseria_(56) we happened to pass on the way.”
She was mistaken, it was evident; but when Lorenzo returned that evening,
a day sooner than I expected, I felt a slight misgiving at seeing him. He
perceived it, and smilingly asked if I was sorry because he had hastened
his return. I was tempted to tell him what troubled me, but was ashamed of
the new suspicion such an explanation would have revealed, and I
reproached myself for it as an injustice to him. I checked myself,
therefore, and forced myself to forget, or at least to pay no attention
to, the gossip of my cousins.
To Be Continued.
Fac‐Similes Of Irish National Manuscripts. Concluded.
The _Liber Hymnorum_ is the next selected. It is believed to be more than
one thousand years old, and one of the most remarkable of the sacred
tracts among the MSS. in Trinity College, Dublin. It is a collection of
hymns on S. Patrick and other Irish saints, which has been published by
the Irish Archæological and Celtic Society, under the superintendence of
Dr. Todd. The three pages selected contain the hymn written by S. Fiach of
Stetty, between the years 538 and 558, in honor of S. Patrick. The hymn is
furnished with an interlinear gloss.
The tenth of these MSS. is _The Saltair of S. Ricemarch_, Bishop of St.
David’s between the years 1085 and 1096, a small copy of the Psalter
containing also a copy of the Roman Martyrology.
Of the four pages of this volume which have been selected for copying, two
are a portion of the Martyrology and two of the Psalter. The first of
these last contains the first two verses of the 101st Psalm, surrounded by
an elaborate border formed by the intertwinings of four serpentine
monsters. The initial D of Domine is also expressed by a coiled snake,
with its head in an attitude to strike; the object of its attack being a
creature which it is impossible to designate, but which bears some
resemblance to the hippocampus, or sea‐horse. The second page of the
Psalter contains the 115th, 116th, and 117th Psalms, in which the same
serpentine form is woven into shapes to represent the initial letters. The
version of the Psalms given in this volume differs from that used in
England in Bishop Ricemarch’s time. It is written in Latin in Gaelic
characters. The volume belongs to Trinity College, Dublin.
Next in order appears the _Leabhar na h‐Uidhré_, or _Book of the Dark Gray
Cow_, a fragment of one hundred and thirty‐eight folio pages, which is
thought to be a copy made about the year 1100 of a more ancient MS. of the
same name written in S. Ciaran’s time. It derived its name from the
following curious legend, taken from the _Book of Leinster_, and the
ancient tale called _Im thecht na trom daimhé_, or _Adventures of the
Great Company_, told in the _Book of Lismore_. About the year 598, soon
after the election of Senchan Torpeist to the post of chief filé
(professor of philosophy and literature) in Erinn, he paid a visit to
Guairè, the Hospitable, King of Connaught, accompanied by such a
tremendous retinue, including a hundred and fifty professors, a hundred
and fifty students, a hundred and fifty hounds, a hundred and fifty male
attendants, and a hundred and fifty female relatives, that even King
Guairè’s hospitality was grievously taxed; for he not only had to provide
a separate meal and separate bed for each, but to minister to their daily
craving for things that were extraordinary, wonderful, rare, and difficult
of procurement. The mansion which contained the learned association was a
special source of annoyance to King Guairè, and at last the “longing
desires” for unattainable things of Muireann, daughter of Cun Culli and
wife of Dallan, the foster‐mother of the literati, became so unendurable
that Guairè, tired of life, proposed to pay a visit to Fulachtach Mac
Owen, a person whom he thought especially likely to rid him of that
burden, as he had killed his father, his six sons, and his three brothers.
Happily for him, however, he falls in with his brother Marbhan, “the prime
prophet of heaven and earth,” who had adopted the position of royal
swineherd in order that he might the more advantageously indulge his
passion for religion and devotion among the woods and desert places; and
Marbhan eventually revenges the trouble and ingratitude shown to his
brother by imposing upon Senchan and the great Bardic Association the task
of recovering the lost tale of the _Táin Bó Chuailgné_, or _Great Cattle
Spoil of Cuailgne_. After a vain search for it in Scotland, Senchan
returned home and invited the following distinguished saints, S. Colum
Cille, S. Caillin of Fiodhnacha, S. Ciaran, S. Brendan of Birra, and S.
Brendan the son of Finnlogha, to meet him at the grave of the great Ulster
chief, Feargus Mac Roigh—who had led the Connaught men against the Ulster
men during the spoil, of which also he appears to have been the
historian—to try by prayer and fasting to induce his spirit to relate the
tale. After they had fasted three days and three nights, the apparition of
Feargus rose before them, clad in a green cloak with a collared, gold‐
ribbed shirt and bronze sandals, and carrying a golden hilted sword, and
recited the whole from beginning to end. And S. Ciaran then and there
wrote it down on the hide of his pet cow, which he had had made for the
purpose into a book, which has ever since borne this name.
The volume contains matter of a very miscellaneous character: A fragment
of Genesis; a fragment of Nennius’ _History of the Britons_, done into
Gaelic by Gilla Caomhain, who died before 1072; an _amhra_ or elegy on S.
Colum Cille, written by Dallan Forgail, the poet, in 592; fragments of the
historic tale of the _Mesca Uladh_, or _Inebriety of the Ulstermen_;
fragments of the cattle‐spoils _Táin Bo Dartadha_ and _Táin Bo Flidais_;
the navigation of Madduin about the Atlantic for three years and seven
months; imperfect copies of the _Táin Bó Chuailgné_, the destruction of
the _Bruighean da Dearga_, or _Court of Da Dearga_, and murder of King
Conairé Mór; a history of the great pagan cemeteries of Erinn and of the
various old books from which this and other pieces were compiled; poems by
Flann of Monasterboice and others; together with various other pieces of
history and historic romance chiefly referring to the ante‐Christian
period, and especially that of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Three pages,
containing curious prayers and the legend of _The Withering of Cuchulain
and the Birds of Emer_, extracted from the _Leabhar buidh Slaine_, or
_Yellow Book of Slane_, one of the ancient lost books of Ireland from
which the _Leabhar na h‐Uidhré_ was compiled, have been selected.
The _Book of Leinster_, a folio of over four hundred pages, appears as the
next. It was compiled in the first half of the XIIth century by Finn Mac
Gorman, Bishop of Kildare, by order of Aedh Mac Crimhthainn, the tutor of
Dermot, King of Leinster. Among other pieces of internal evidence pointing
to this conclusion are the following entries, the first in the original
hand, the second by one strange but ancient, translated and quoted by
O’Curry:
“Benedictions and health from Finn, the Bishop of Kildare, to Aedh Mac
Crimhtain, the tutor of the chief King of Leth Mogha Nuadut (or of
Leinster and Munster), successor of Colaim Mic Crumtaind of, and chief
historian of, Leinster, in wisdom, intelligence, and the cultivation of
books, knowledge, and learning. And I write the conclusion of this little
tale for thee, O acute Aedh! thou possessor of the sparkling intellect.
May it be long before we are without thee! It is my desire that thou
shouldst always be with us. Let Mac Loran’s book of poems be given to me,
that I may understand the sense of the poems that are in it; and farewell
in Christ.
“O Mary! it is a great deed that has been done in Erinn this day, the
Kalends of August—Diarmait Mac Donnchadda Mic Murchada, King of Leinster
and of the Danes (of Dublin), to have been banished over the sea eastwards
by the men of Erinn! Uch, uch, O Lord! what shall I do?”
The more important of the vast number of subjects treated of in this MS.
are mentioned as being: The usual book of invasions; ancient poems; a plan
and explanation of the banqueting‐hall of Tara; a copy of _The Battle of
Ross na Righ_ in the beginning of the Christian era; a copy of the _Mesca
Uladh_, and one of the origin of the Borromean Tribute, and the battle
that ensued; a fragment of the battle of Ceannabrat, with the defeat of
Mac Con by Oilioll Olium, his flight into, and return from, Scotland with
Scottish and British adventurers, his landing in Galway Bay, and the
defeat of Art, monarch of Erinn, and slaughter of Olium’s seven sons at
the battle of Magh Mucruimhé; a fragment of _Cormac’s Glossary_; another
of the wars between the Danes and Irish; a copy of the _Dinnsenchus_;
genealogies of Milesian families; and an ample list of the early saints of
Erinn, with their pedigrees and affinities, and with copious references to
the situation of their churches. The volume belongs to Trinity College,
Dublin.
Three pages have been selected. The first contains a copy of the poem on
the Teach Miodhchuarta of Tara—a poem so ancient that of its date and
author no record remains—and of the ground‐plan of the banqueting‐hall by
which the poem was illustrated, published by Dr. Petrie in his _History
and Antiquities of Tara Hill_. The ground‐plan, which in this copy is
nearly square, is divided into five compartments lengthwise, the centre
and broadest of which contains the door, a rudely‐drawn figure of a _daul_
or waiter turning a gigantic spit, furnished with a joint of meat, before
a fire, the lamps, and a huge double‐handed vase or amphora for the cup‐
bearer to distribute. This great spit, called _Bir Nechin_, or the spit of
Nechin, the chief smith of Tara, which in the drawing is half the length
of the hall, appears to have been so mechanically contrived as to be able
to be coiled up after use; and the instrument is thus described in another
MS. belonging to Trinity College, Dublin, quoted by Dr. Petrie: “A stick
at each end of it, and its axle was wood, and its wheel was wood, and its
body was iron; and there were twice nine wheels on its axle, that it might
turn the faster; and there were thirty spits out of it, and thirty hooks
and thirty spindles, and it was as rapid as the rapidity of a stream in
turning; and thrice nine spits and thrice nine cavities (or pots) and one
spit for roasting, and one wing used to set it in motion.”
In the two compartments on either side are enumerated in order of
precedence the various officers and retainers of the king’s household,
together with their tables and the particular portions of meat served out
to each, forming a very curious and instructive illustration of the social
condition and habits of the early Irish. The description of the rations
that were considered specially adapted to the several ranks of consumers
is very amusing. For the distinguished men of literature, “the soft,
clean, smooth entrails,” and a steak cut from the choicest part of the
animal, were set aside; the poet had a “good smooth” piece of the leg; the
historian, “a crooked bone,” probably a rib; the artificers, “a pig’s
shoulder”; the Druids and _aire dessa_, a “fair foot.” These last are said
to decline to drink; not so the trumpeters and cooks, who are to be
allowed “cheering mead in abundance, not of a flatulent kind.” The
doorkeeper, “the noisy, humorous fool and the fierce, active kerne” had
the chine; while to the satirists and the _braigitore_, a class of
buffoons whose peculiar function was to amuse the company after a fashion
which will not only not bear description, but almost defies
belief—licensed and paid _Aethons_ of the court—“the fat of the shoulder
was divided to them pleasantly.”
The selection is continued by the _Leabhar Breac_, or _Speckled Book_,
probably named from the color of its cover, or, as it was formerly called,
_Leabhar Mór Duna Doighré_, the _Great Book of Dun Doighré_, a place on
the Galway side of the Shannon not far from Athlone. It is a compilation
from various ancient books belonging chiefly to churches and monasteries
in Conaught, Munster, and Leinster, beautifully written on vellum, as is
supposed about the close of the XIVth century, by one of the Mac Ogans, a
literary family of great repute belonging to Dun Doighré.
Its contents are of an extremely miscellaneous character, and they are
all, with the exception of a copy of _The Life of Alexander the Great_
from the VIIth century, MS. of S. Berchan of Clonsost, of a religious
nature, comprising Biblical narratives, homilies, hymns; pedigrees of
saints, litanies and liturgies, monastic rules, the _Martyrology_ of
Aengus Céulé Dé, or the Culdee, the ancient rules of discipline of the
order of the Culdees, etc., etc. When the Abbé Mac Geoghegan wrote his
_History of Ancient Erinn_ in Paris, in the year 1758, this volume, his
principal MS. of reference, was in Paris. It is now in the Royal Irish
Academy.
Three pages have been selected for fac‐similes, giving a description of
the nature and arrangement of the _Féliré_, or _Festology_ of Aengus the
Culdee, and the date and object of its composition, which was made between
the years 793 and 817, when Aedh Oirdnidhe was monarch of Erinn.
Then comes the _Leabhar Buidhe Lecain_, or _Yellow Book of Lecain_, a
large quarto volume of about five hundred pages, which was written by
Donnoch and Gilla Isa Mac Firbis in the year 1390, with the exception of a
few tracts of a somewhat later date. O’Curry, in his ninth lecture,
supposes it to have been originally a collection of ancient historical
pieces, civil and ecclesiastical, in prose and verse. In its present
imperfect state it contains a number of family and political poems; some
monastic rules; a description of Tara and its banqueting‐hall; a
translation of part of the Book of Genesis; the Feast of Dun‐na‐n Gedh and
the battle of Magh Rath; an account of the reign of Muirchertach Mac Erca,
and his death at the palace of Cleitech in the year 527; copies of cattle‐
spoils, of the Bruighean Da Dearga, and death of the king; the tale of
Maelduin’s three years’ wanderings in the Atlantic; tracts concerning the
banishment of an ancient tribe from East Meath, and their discovery in the
Northern Ocean by some Irish ecclesiastics; accounts of battles in the
years 594, 634, and 718, and many other curious and valuable pieces and
tracts. It is preserved in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin.
Two pages have been selected. The first contains the plan of the Teach
Miodchuarta of ancient Tara, with a portion of the prose preface to the
poem, which the plan is intended to illustrate. This ground‐plan differs
somewhat in the shape of the hall and the arrangement of the tables from
that given in the _Book of Leinster_, an earlier copy of a different
original. It is also very much superior to it, both as regards the drawing
and writing. The _daul_ and his spit are unrepresented here, but there is
the door, the common hall, the swinging lamp and candles, the great
double‐handed vase, called the _dabhach_ or vat, and three places marked
out for the fires. The arrangement of the hall appears to have been this:
Each of the two outside compartments contained twelve seats, and each seat
three sitters; the two _airidins_ or divisions on either side of the
centre of the hall held each eight seats and sixteen sitters. There were
eight distributors, cup‐bearers, and herdsmen at the upper end of the
hall, and two sat in each of the two seats on either side of the door,
being the two door‐keepers and two of the royal fools. The daily allowance
for dinner was two cows, two salted hogs, and two pigs. The quantity of
liquor consumed is not specified, but the poem states that there were one
hundred drinkings in the vat, and that the vat was supplied with fifty
grooved golden horns and fifty pewter vessels. The order of precedence
seems to have ranged from the top of the external division to the left on
entering the hall; then to the top of the external division to the right;
then the two internal divisions beginning with the left; then the
_iarthar_ or back part of the hall, the upper end opposite the door; and
last the seats on either side of the door itself. There is no seat marked
for the king, but it is stated in the poem that a fourth part of the hall
was at his back and three‐fourths before him, and he is supposed to have
sat about a quarter of the way down the centre of the hall with his face
toward the door, which would place him between two of the great fires,
with the artisans on his right and the braziers and fools on his left
hand. It is probable, however, from no mention being made of the king’s
seat, and no provision being made for him in the appropriation of the
daily allowance of food, which is specified in as many rations as there
are persons mentioned in the plan, that this is not the plan of the royal
banqueting‐hall, but of a portion of it only—the common dining‐hall for
the officers and retainers of the palace; the monarch himself and his
princes and nobles, none of whom are even alluded to in the plan, dining
in another and superior apartment.
The second page contains a portion of the sorrowful tale of the loves of
fair Deirdré and Naoisi, the son of Uisneach, one of the class of Irish
legends called _Aithidhé_, or elopements. An outline of this story, in the
commencement of which the reader will recognize that of one of his early
nursery favorites, “Little Snow White,” is given by Keating in his
_General History of Ireland_.
_The Book of Lecain Mac Firbisigh_, a folio of more than six hundred
pages, was compiled in the year 1418 by Gilla Isa Môr Mac Firbis, Adam
O’Cuirnin, and Morogh Riabhac O’Cuindlis. Its contents are nearly the same
as those of _The Book of Ballymote_, to some of which it furnishes
valuable additions, among the most important of which is a tract on the
families and subdivisions of the territory of Tir Fiachrach in the present
county of Sligo. The volume is preserved in the Royal Irish Academy.
Four pages have been selected, being a portion of a copy of the _Leabhar
na g‐Ceart_, or _Book of Rights_, a metrical work attributed in the work
itself to S. Benean or Benignus, S. Patrick’s earliest convert, and his
successor in the Archbishopric of Armagh in the middle of the Vth century.
These four pages, which are written in columnar form, contain the
concluding ten verses of the stipends due to the chieftainries of Connacht
from the supreme King of Cruachain; the metrical accounts, with their
preceding prose abstracts, of the privileges of the King of Aileach; the
payment and stipends of the same king to his chieftainries and tribes for
refection and escort; the privileges of the King of the Oirghialla with
the stipends due to him from the King of Erinn, and by him to his
chieftainries; the rights, wages, stipends, refections, and tributes of
the King of Eamhain and Uladh; and almost all the prose abstract of the
rights of the King of Tara.
_The Book of Ballymote_, a large folio volume of five hundred and two
pages of vellum, was written, as stated on the dorse of folio 62, at
Ballymote, in the house of Tomaltach oig Mac Donogh, Lord of Corann,
during the reign of Torlogh oig, the son of Hugh O’Conor, King of
Connaught. It appears to be the work of different hands, but the principal
scribes employed in writing it were Solomon O’Droma and Manus O’Duigenann,
and it was written at the end of the XIVth century.
It contains an imperfect copy of the _Leabhar Gabhala_, or _Book of
Invasions_, a series of ancient chronological, historical, and
genealogical pieces in prose and verse; the pedigrees of Irish saints, and
the histories and pedigrees of all the great families of the Milesian
race, with their collateral branches, so that, as O’Curry remarks, there
is scarcely any one whose name begins with “O’” or “Mac” who could not
find out all about his origin and family in this book; then follow stories
and adventures, lists of famous Irish names, a Gaelic translation of
Nennius’ _History of the Britons_, an ancient grammar and prosody, and
various other tracts.
Six pages have been selected. The first four contain the dissertation on
the Ogham characters, and the last two the genealogy of the Hy Nialls,
showing their descent from Eremon, one of the sons of Milesius. The volume
belongs to the Irish Academy.
The last in Mr. Sanders’ list of the great volumes of Irish History is the
_Book of M’Carthy Riabhac_, a compilation of the XIVth century—in language
of a much earlier date—now also known as the _Book of Lismore_, to which a
very curious story attaches. It was first discovered in the year 1814,
enclosed in a wooden box together with a fine old crosier, built into the
masonry of a closed‐up doorway which was reopened during some repairs that
were being made in the old Castle of Lismore. Of course the account of its
discovery soon got abroad and became a matter of great interest,
especially to the antiquarian class of scholars. Among these there
happened to be then living in Shandon Street, Cork, one Mr. Dennis
O’Flinn, a professed Irish scholar. O’Curry says that he was a “professed
but a very indifferent” one; but at any rate his reputation was
sufficiently well grounded to induce Colonel Curry, the Duke of
Devonshire’s agent, to send him the MS. According to O’Flinn’s own
account, the book remained in his hands for one year, during which time it
was copied by Michael O’Longan, of Carrignavan, near Cork; after which
O’Flinn bound it in boards, and returned it to Colonel Curry. From that
time it remained locked up and unexamined until 1839, when the duke lent
it to the Royal Irish Academy to be copied by O’Curry, and O’Curry’s
practised eye and acumen soon discovered that much harm had come to the
volume during its sojourn in Shandon Street. The book had been mutilated,
and, what was worse, mutilated in so cunning a way that what remained was
rendered valueless by the abstraction, no doubt with the view of enhancing
the value of the stolen portions as soon as it should become safe to
pretend a discovery of them. Every search was made, especially by O’Curry,
about Cork, to see if any of the missing pages could be found; but it was
not till seven or eight years afterwards that a communication was made
that a large portion of the original MS. was actually in the possession of
some person in Cork, but who the person was, or how he became possessed of
it, the informant could not tell. This clue seems to have failed; but soon
afterwards the late Sir William Betham’s collection of MSS. passed into
the library of the Royal Irish Academy by sale, and among these were
copies of the lost portions, and all made, as the scribe himself states at
the end of one of them, by himself, Michael O’Longan, at the house of
Dennis Ban O’Flinn, in Cork, in 1816, from the _Book of Lismore_. The
missing portions of the MS. were at length traced, and the £50 asked for
them was offered by the Royal Irish Academy; but the negotiation
ultimately broke down, and they were purchased by Mr. Hewitt, of
Summerhill, near Cork. Since that time, however, they have been restored,
and the whole volume excellently repaired and handsomely bound by the Duke
of Devonshire, who has most liberally allowed it to remain in Mr. Sanders’
possession for the purpose of copying. Whether O’Flinn actually mutilated
the volume or not, there can be no doubt that pages and pages of it have
been ruined and will eventually be rendered illegible by the most reckless
use of that pernicious chemical agent, infusion of galls. Besides this,
Mr. O’Flinn has written his name in several places of the book, among
others all over the colored initial letter of one of the tracts, which he
has entirely spoiled by filling in the open spaces with the letters of his
name and the date of the outrage. But perhaps the most characteristic act
performed by him is the interpolation of an eulogistic ode upon himself in
Gaelic, of which the following is a literal translation:
“Upon the dressing of this book by D. O’F., he said (or sang) as follows:
“’O old chart! forget not, wheresoever you are taken,
To relate that you met with the Doctor of Books;
That helped you, out of compassion, from severe bondage,
After finding you in forlorn state without a tatter about you, as it
should be.
Under the disparagement of the ignorant who liked not to know you,
Till you met by chance with learned good‐nature from the person(57)
Who put healing herbs with zeal to thy old wounds,
And liberally put bloom on you at your old age,
And baptized you the _Book of Lismore_.
Forget not this friend that esteemed your figure,
Distinguishing you, (though) of unseemly appearance, in humble words.
I doubt not that truly you will declare to them there
That you met with your fond friend ere you went to dust.”
The book contains ancient lives of Irish saints, written in very pure
Gaelic; the conquests of Charlemagne, translated from Archbishop Turpin’s
celebrated romance of the VIIIth century; the conversion of the Pantheon
into a Christian church; the stories of David, son of Jesse, the two
children, Samhain, the three sons of Cleirac; the _Imtheacht na trom
daimhé_; the story of S. Peter’s daughter Petronilla and the discovery of
the Sibylline Oracle; an account of S. Gregory the Great; the Empress
Justina’s heresy; modifications of minor ceremonies of the Mass; accounts
of the successors of Charlemagne, and of the correspondence between
Lanfranc and the clergy of Rome; extracts from Marco Polo’s _Travels_;
accounts of Irish battles and sieges; and a dialogue between S. Patrick,
Caoilté, Mac Ronain, and Oisin (Ossian), the son of Fionn Mac Cumhaill, in
which many hills, rivers, caverns, etc., in Ireland, are described, and
the etymology of their names recorded. This last is preluded by an account
of the departure of Oisin and Caoilté on a hunting expedition, during
which their gillie sees and is much troubled by a very strange spectacle.
As this tale furnishes a good example of the contents of these ancient
books, we subjoin a translation of the commencement of it.(58)
“On a certain time it happened that Oisin and Cailte were in Dun Clithar
(the sheltered or shady Dun) at Slieve Crott. It was the time that Patrick
came to Ireland. It is there dwelt a remnant of the Fenians, namely, Oisin
and Cailte and three times nine persons in their company. They followed
this custom: about nine persons went out hunting daily. On a certain day
it chanced that Cailte Mac Ronain set out with eight persons (big men) and
a boy (gilla), the ninth. The way they went was northward to the twelve
mountains of Eibhlinné and to the head of the ancient Moy Breogan. On
their returning from the chase at the cheerless close of the day they came
from the north to Corroda Cnamhchoill. Then was Fear Gair Cailte’s gilla
loaded with the choice parts of the chase in charge, because he had no
care beyond that of Cailte himself, from whom he took wages. The gilla
comes to the stream, and takes Cailte’s cup from his back and drinks a
drink of the stream. Whilst the gilla was thus drinking the eight great
men went their way southward, mistaking the road, and the gilla following
afterwards. Then was heard the noise of the large host, and the gilla
proceeds to observe the multitude; bushes and a bank between them. He saw
in the fore front of the crowd a strange band; it seemed to him one
hundred and fifty were in this band. They appeared thus: robes of pure
white linen upon them, a head chief with them, and bent standards in their
hands; shields, broad‐streaked with gold and silver, bright shining on
their breasts; their faces pale, pitiably feminine, and having masculine
voices, and every man of them humming a march. The gilla followed his
people, and did not overtake them till he came to the hunting‐booth, and
he came possessed, as he thinks, with the news of the strange troop he had
seen, and casts his burden on the ground, goes round it, places his elbows
under, and groans very loudly. It was then that Cailte Mac Ronain said:
‘Well, gilla, is it the weight of your burden affects you?’ ‘Not so,’
replied the gilla; ‘when is large the burden, so great is the wages you
give to me. This does not affect me; but that wonderful multitude I saw at
the hut of Cnamhchoill. The first band that I saw of that strange crowd
filled me with the pestilent, heavy complaint of the news of this band.’
‘Give its description,’ said Cailte. ‘There seemed to me an advanced guard
of one hundred and fifty‐six men, pure white robes upon them, a head
leader to them, bent standards in their hands, broad shields on their
breasts, having feminine faces and masculine voices, and every single man
of them humming a march.’ Wonder seized the old Fenian on hearing this.
‘These are they,’ said Oisin—‘the Tailginn (holy race), foretold by our
Druids and Fionn to us, and what can be done with them? Unless they be
slain, they shall ascend over us altogether.’ ‘Uch!’ said Oisin, ‘who
amongst us can molest them? For we are the last of the Fenii, and not with
ourselves is the power in Erinn, nor the greatness, nor pleasure but in
the chase, and as ancient exiles asserting the right,’ said he; and they
remained so till came the next morning, and there was nothing on their
minds that night but these (things). Cailte rose early the fore front of
the day, being the oldest of them, and came out on the assembly‐mound. The
sun cleared the fog from the plains, and Cailte said: ...”
The procession thus described as having been seen by the gillie was
probably one of ecclesiastics, with S. Patrick himself at their head, on
the saint’s first arrival in Ireland.
The foregoing sketches of certain of the MSS., extracts from which are
intended to appear in the series of fac‐similes, may serve to convey an
idea of how rich Ireland is in such national records, what an immense mass
of historical and romantic literature her libraries contain, and how great
is their antiquity. Besides the evidence afforded by these books, both as
to the ancient social, political, and ecclesiastical history of Ireland,
and its topography, the books themselves are found to be full of
illustrations of the customs, mode of life, manners, and costume of her
early Celtic inhabitants; often conveyed through the medium of charming
legends and fairy tales.
Annals Of The Moss‐Troopers.
Outlawry was never carried to a greater degree of systematic organization,
or practised on a larger and more dignified scale, than during the
centuries of Border warfare between the English and Scottish chieftains.
The only parallel to this warfare was furnished by the raids of the Free
Companions in mediæval Italy; but the mercenary element in the
organization of those formidable bodies of professional marauders destroys
the interest which we might otherwise have felt in their daring feats of
arms. The warfare of the Border was essentially a national outburst; the
“moss‐troopers,” although trained soldiers, were also householders and
patriarchs. Their stake in the country they alternately plundered and
defended was a substantial one. The field of their prowess was never far
from home. Each retainer, insignificant as he might be, humble as his
position in the troop might be, had yet a personal interest in the raid;
and revenge, as well as plunder, was the avowed object of an expedition.
There was never any changing of allegiance from one side to the other; the
tie of blood and clanship welded the whole troop into one family. The
Border, or debatable land between the rival kingdoms of England and
Scotland, bristled with strongholds, all of historical name and fame:
Newark and Branxholm (which Sir Walter Scott in his _Lay of the Last
Minstrel_ has euphonized into Branksome), held by the all‐powerful Scotts
of Buccleugh; Crichtoun Castle, the successive property of the Crichtouns,
the Bothwells, and the Buccleughs, and, while in the hands of its original
owners, the haughty defier of King James III. of Scotland; Gifford or
Yester (it bears either name indifferently), famous for its Hobgoblin
Hall, or, as the people call it, “Bo‐Hall,” a large cavern formed by
magical art; Tantallon Hold, the retreat of the Douglas, in which the
family held out manfully against James V. until its chief, the Earl of
Angus, was recalled from exile. Of this expedition it is related that the
king marched in person upon the castle, and, to reduce it, borrowed from
the neighboring Castle of Dunbar two great cannons whose names were
“Thrawn‐mouthed Meg and her Marrow”; also two great _bolcards_, and two
_moyan_, two double falcons and two quarter‐falcons, for the safe guiding
and redelivery of which “three lords were laid in pawn at Dunbar.”
Notwithstanding all this mighty preparation, the king was forced to raise
the siege. The ruin of Tantallon was reserved for the Covenanters, and now
there remains nothing of it save a few walls standing on a high rock
overlooking the German Ocean and the neighboring town of Berwick‐upon‐
Tweed. Ford Castle, the patrimony of the Herons, had a better fate, and
stands in altered and modernized guise, the centre of civilizing and
peaceful influences, the residence of a model Lady of the Manor,
overlooking, not the wild ocean, but a pretty village, faultlessly neat,
and a Gothic school filled with frescos of Bible subjects, executed by the
Lady Bountiful, the benefactress of the neighborhood. Yet Ford Castle had
a stormy, stirring past, and stands not far from the historic field of
Flodden, where tradition says that, but for the tardiness of the king’s
movements—an effect due to the siren charms of Lady Ford—James IV. might
have been victorious. In the castle is still shown the room where the king
slept the night before the battle, and only five or six miles away lies
the fatal field, on which, _Marmion_ in hand the curious traveller may
still make out each knoll, the Bridge of Twisel, by which the English
under Surrey crossed the Till, the hillock commanding the rear of the
English right wing, which was defeated, and in conflict with whom Scott’s
imaginary hero, Marmion, is supposed to have fallen.
Very curious are the accounts of the various fights and forays given by
the chroniclers of the middle ages, especially in their utter
unconsciousness of anything unusual or derogatory in this almost
internecine warfare. Their simplicity in itself presents the key to the
situation. In reading their graphic, matter‐of‐fact descriptions, one
needs to transport one’s self into a totally different atmosphere. We must
read these racy accounts in the same spirit in which they were written, if
we would understand aright the age in which our forefathers lived. We are
not called upon to sit in judgment over the irrevocable past, but to study
it as a fact not to be overlooked, and a useful storehouse of warning or
example. The possession of the king’s person was sometimes the origin of
terrible clan‐feuds among the warlike Scottish imitators of the Frankish
“Maires du Palais.” Thus, on one occasion, in 1526, the chronicler
Pitscottie informs us that James V., then a minor, had fallen under the
self‐assumed guardianship of the Earl of Angus, backed by his own clan of
Douglas and his allies, the Lairds of Hume, Cessfoord, and Fernyhirst, the
chiefs of the clan of Kerr.(59) “The Earl of Angus and the rest of the
Douglases ruled all which they liked, and no man durst say the contrary.”
The king, who wished to get out of their hands, sent a secret letter to
Scott of Buccleugh, warden of the West Marches of Scotland, praying him to
gather his kin and friends, meet the Douglas at Melrose, and deliver him
(James) from his vassal’s power. The loyal Scot gathered about six hundred
spears, and came to the tryst. When the Douglases and Kerrs saw whom they
had to deal with, they said to the king, “Sir, yonder is Buccleugh, and
thieves of Annandale with him, to unbeset your grace from the gate
(_i.e._, interrupt your passage). I vow to God they shall either fight or
flee, and ye shall tarry here on this know (knoll), and I shall pass and
put yon thieves off the ground, and rid the gate unto your grace, or else
die for it.” Scant courtesy in speech used those Border heroes towards one
another! So an escort tarried to guard the king, and the rest of the clans
went forward to the field of Darnelinver now Darnick, near Melrose. The
place of conflict is still called Skinner’s Field, a corruption of
Skirmish Field. The chronicler tells us that Buccleugh “joyned and
countered cruelly both the said parties ... with uncertain victory. But at
the last the Lord Hume, hearing word of that matter, how it stood,
returned again to the king in all possible haste, with him the Lairds of
Cessfoord and Fernyhirst, to the number of fourscore spears, and set
freshly on the lap and wing of the Laird of Buccleugh’s field, and shortly
bare them backward to the ground, which caused the Laird of Buccleugh and
the rest of his friends to go back and flee, whom they followed and
chased; and especially the Lairds of Cessfoord and Fernyhirst followed
furiouslie, till at the foot of a path the Laird of Cessfoord was slain by
the stroke of a spear by one Elliott, who was then servant to the Laird of
Buccleugh. But when the Laird of Cessfoord was slain, the chase ceased.”
The Borders were infested for many long years afterwards by marauders of
both sides, who kept up a deadly hereditary feud between the names of
Scott and Kerr, and finally, after having been imprisoned and had his
estates forfeited nine years later for levying war against the Kerrs, the
bold Buccleugh was slain by his foes in the streets of Edinburgh in 1552,
twenty‐six years after the disastrous fight in which he had failed to
rescue his sovereign. It was seventy years before this Border feud was
finally quelled.
On the English side of the Marches the same dare‐devilry existed, the same
speed in gathering large bodies of men was used, the same quickness in
warning and rousing the neighborhood. Equal enthusiasm was displayed
whether the case were one of “lynch law” or of political intrigue, as in
the fight at Darnelinver. Sir Robert Carey, in his _Memoirs_, describes
his duties as deputy warden for his brother‐in‐law, Lord Scroop. The
castle was near Carlisle. “We had a stirring time of it,” he says, “and
few days passed over my head but I was on horseback, either to prevent
mischief or take malefactors, and to bring the Border in better quiet than
it had been in times past.” Hearing that two Scotchmen had killed a
churchman in Scotland, and were dwelling five miles from Carlisle on the
English side of the Border, under the protection of the Graemes, Carey
took about twenty‐five horsemen with him, and invested the Graeme’s house
and tower. As they did so, a boy rode from the house at full speed, and
one of his retainers, better versed in Border warfare than the chief, told
him that in half an hour that boy would be in Scotland to let the people
know of the danger of their countrymen and the small number of those who
had come from Carlisle to arrest them. “Hereupon,” says our author, “we
took advice what was best to be done. We sent notice presently to all
parts to raise the country, and to come to us with all the speed they
could; and withal we sent to Carlisle to raise the townsmen, for without
foot we could do no good against the tower. There we stayed some hours,
expecting more company, and within a short time after the country came in
on all sides, so that we were quickly between three and four hundred
horse; and after some longer stay, the foot of Carlisle came to us, to the
number of three or four hundred men, whom we presently set to work to get
to the top of the tower, and to uncover the roof, and then some twenty of
them to fall down together, and by that means to win the tower. The Scots,
seeing their present danger, offered to parley, and yielded themselves to
my mercy.” But the victorious Carlisleans had reckoned without their host.
From the hills and defiles around came pouring wild‐looking mountaineers
on rough, wiry ponies, farm‐horses, etc., to the number of four hundred.
The prisoners ceased their pleading, and looked eagerly towards their
deliverers. Meanwhile, the men of “merry Carlisle”(60) gave their
perplexed chief more trouble than his enemies, who “stood at gaze” a
quarter of a mile from him; for, says he, “all our Borderers came crying
with full mouths, ‘Sir, give us leave to set upon them; for these are they
that have killed our fathers, our brothers and uncles, and our cousins,
and they are coming, thinking to surprise you with weak grass nags, such
as they could get on a sudden; and God hath put them into your hands, that
we may take revenge of them for much blood that they have spilt of
ours.’ ” The warden was a conscientious man, and had come here to execute
justice against two malefactors, not to encourage indiscriminate private
revenge; but even with his rank and vested authority he did not dare
sternly to forbid a faction fight. He only told them that, had he not been
there, they might have done as best pleased them; but that, since he was
present, he should feel that all the blood spilt that day would be upon
his own head, and for his sake he entreated them to forbear. “They were
ill‐satisfied,” he adds, “but durst not disobey.” So he sent word to the
Scots to disperse, which they did, probably because they were unprepared
to fight such a large and well‐disciplined force, having expected to find
but a handful of men. The necessity for delicate handling of this armed
mob of English Borderers points sufficiently to the curious standard of
personal justice which prevailed in those wild times. And yet, strange to
say, while a Border “ride” (_alias_ foray) was a thing of such ordinary
occurrence that a saying is recorded of a mother to her son which soon
became proverbial: “_Ride, Rowley, hough’s i’ the pot_”—that is, the last
piece of beef is in the pot, and it is high time to go and fetch
more—still it would sometimes happen, as it did to James V. of Scotland,
that when an invasion of England was in contemplation, and the royal
lances gathered at the place where the king’s lieges were to meet him,
only one baron would declare himself willing to go wherever the sovereign
might lead. This faithful knight was another of the loyal race of
Scott—John Scott of Thirlestane, to whom James, in memory of his fidelity,
granted the privilege set forth in the following curious and rare charter:
“... Ffor the quhilk (which) cause, it is our will, and we do straitlie
command and charg our lion herauld, ... to give and to graunt to the said
John Scott ane border of ffleure de lises about his coatte of armes, sic
as is on our royal banner, and alsua ane bundle of lances above his
helmet, with thir words, Readdy ay, Readdy, that he and all his after‐
cummers may bruik (carry?) the samine as a pledge and taiken of our guid
will and kyndnes for his true worthiness.”
The list of the damages done in some of these Border rides sounds strange
in modern ears. Each country was a match for the other, though the strong
castles of Wark, Norham, and Berwick in English hands were thorns in the
side of the Scottish Borderers. Rowland Foster of Wark, on the 16th of
May, 1570, harried the barony of Blythe in Lauderdale, the property of Sir
Richard Maitland, a blind knight of seventy‐four years of age. None of
that country “lippened” (expected) such a thing, as it was in time of
peace; and despite what may have been said—and truly—as to their
lawlessness, the Borderers had a code by which to regulate their actions.
The old man wrote a poetical account of the harrying, calling the poem the
_Blind Baron’s Comfort_, and in the introduction he enumerates his losses:
five thousand sheep, two hundred nolt, thirty horses and mares, and the
whole furniture of his house, worth £8 6s. 8d., and everything else that
was portable. The sum represents some forty dollars.
In these narratives one feels it impossible to be very sorry for either
party, each was so thoroughly unable to take care of itself! Those who to‐
day seem down‐trodden victims of lawlessness will figure again a year
hence as “stark moss‐troopers [moss for marsh] and arrant thieves; both to
England and Scotland outlawed, yet sometimes connived at because they gave
intelligence forth to Scotland, and would raise four hundred horse at any
time upon a raid of the English into Scotland.” This was said of the
Graemes, Earls of Monteith, but was applicable, _mutatis mutandis_, to
most of the Borderers on both sides. An old Northumbrian ballad, that
survived in the North of England till within a hundred years, and was
commonly sung at merry‐makings till the roof rang again, gives forcible
and rather coarse details as to the personal results of these forays. It
celebrates the ride of the Thirlwalls and Ridleys in the reign of Henry
VIII. against the Featherstons of Featherston Castle, a few miles south of
the Tyne. Here is one of the rude stanzas:
“I canno’ tell a’, I canno’ tell a’,
Some gat a skelp (blow), and some gat a claw;
But they gard the Featherstons haud their jaw,
Nicol and ‘Alick and a’.
Some gat a hurt, and some gat nane;
Some had harness, and some gat sta’en (stolen or plundered).”
In later days Sir Walter Scott wove the annals of the Border into more
tuneful rhyme, and sang of the exploits of his bold countrymen with an
enthusiasm worthy of his moss‐trooping ancestors. These old ballads, and
the recollections of ancient dames in whose youthful days the exploits
celebrated in these ballads were not yet quite obsolete, furnished him
with much of his romantic materials. _The Minstrelsy of the Scottish
Border_, a collection of many such traditions, is a storehouse of
information upon these subjects. We find descriptions of the caves and
morasses which were the usual refuge of the marauders; the banks of the
Teviot, the Ale, the Jed, the Esk, were full of these caverns, but even
these hiding‐places were not always safe. Patten’s _Account of Somerset’s
Expedition into Scotland_ tells how “George Ferres, a gentleman of my Lord
Protector, happened on a cave” the entrance to which showed signs of the
interior being tenanted. “He wente doune to trie, and was readilie
receyved with a hakebut or two,” and when he found the foe determined to
hold out, “he wente to my lorde’s grace, and, upon utterance of the
thinge, _gat license to deale with them as he coulde_”—which significantly
simple statement meant that he was perfectly at liberty to do as he
eventually did, i.e., smother them by stopping up the three _ventes_ of
the cave with burning faggots of damp wood.
The next case is one of national jealousy and instant reprisals. The
English Earl of Northumberland gives a graphic account of the double raid
in a letter to King Henry VIII. He says that some Scottish barons had
threatened to come and give him “light to put on his clothes at midnight,”
and moreover that Marke Carr (one of the same clan whose prowess was
exercised against Buccleugh) said that, “seying they had a governor on the
Marches of Scotland as well as they had in England, he shulde kepe your
highness’ instructions, gyffyn unto your garyson, for making of any _day‐
forey_; for he and his friends _wolde burne enough on the nyght_....” Then
follows a detailed account of the inroad of thirty horsemen on the hamlet
of Whitell, which they did not burn, because “there was no fyre to get
there, and they forgat to brynge any withe theyme!” But they killed a
woman, under circumstances of peculiar atrocity, and departed. The
reprisals, however, were far worse. The Earl of Murray, who had winked at
all this, was chosen by the English as a scape‐goat, and a hundred of the
best horsemen of Glendaill “dyd mar the Earl of Murreis provisions at
Coldingham, for they did not only burn the said town of Coldingham, with
all the corne thereunto belonging, but also burned twa townes nye
adjoining thereunto, called Branerdergest and the Black Hill and took
xxiii. persons, lx. horse, with cc. head of cataill, which nowe, as I am
informed, hathe not only been a staye of the said Erle of Murreis not
coming to the Bordure as yet, but alsoo that none inlande will adventure
theyrself uppon the Marches.... And also I have devysed that within this
iii. nyghts, _Godde willing_, Kelsey, in like case, shall be brent with
all the corn in the said town, and then they shall have noo place to lye
any garyson nygh unto the Borders.”
The physical strength and rude cunning required for this daring life of
perpetual warfare are well described in the stanza of _The Lay of the Last
Minstrel_ referring to one of the Border heroes of the clan of Buccleugh:
“A stark, moss‐trooping Scott was he
As e’er couch’d Border lance by knee;
Through Solway sands, through Tarras moss,
Blindfold he knew the paths to cross;
By wily turns, by desperate bounds,
Had baffled Percy’s best bloodhounds;
In Eske or Liddel fords were none,
But he would ride them one by one;
Alike to him was time or tide,
December’s snow or July’s pride;
Alike to him was tide or time,
Moonless midnight or matin prime;
Steady of heart and stout of hand
As ever drove prey from Cumberland;
Five times outlaw’d had he been
By England’s king and Scotland’s queen.”