"Ellen, though more her looks betrayed
The simple heart of mountain maid,
In speech and gesture, form and grace,
Showed she was come of gentle race;
'T was strange, in birth so rude, to find
Such face, such manners, and such mind.
Each anxious hint the stranger gave,
The mother heard with silence grave."
616. Weird women we, etc. See on 35 above. Weird here = skilled in
witchcraft; like the "weird sisters" of Macbeth. Down = hill (the Gaelic
dun).
622. A harp unseen. Scott has the following note here: "'"They
[the Highlanders] delight much in musicke, but chiefly in harps and
clairschoes of their own fashion. The strings of the clairschoes are
made of brasse wire, and the strings of the harps of sinews; which
strings they strike either with their nayles, growing long, or else with
an instrument appointed for that use. They take great pleasure to decke
their harps and clairschoes with silver and precious stones; the poore
ones that cannot attayne hereunto, decke them with christall. They sing
verses prettily compound, contayning (for the most part) prayses of
valiant men. There is not almost any other argument, whereof their
rhymes intreat. They speak the ancient French language, altered a
little." [6]
"The harp and chairschoes are now only heard of in the Highlands in
ancient song. At what period these instruments ceased to be used, is not
on record; and tradition is silent on this head. But, as Irish harpers
occasionally visited the Highlands and Western Isles till lately,
the harp might have been extant so late as the middle of the present
century. Thus far we know, that from remote times down to the present,
harpers were received as welcome guests, particularly in the Highlands
of Scotland; and so late as the latter end of the sixteenth century, as
appears by the above quotations, the harp was in common use among
the natives of the Western Isles. How it happened that the noisy and
inharmonious bagpipe banished the soft and expressive harp, we cannot
say; but certain it is, that the bagpipe is now the only instrument
that obtains universally in the Highland districts' (Campbell's Journey
through North Britain. London, 1808, 4to, i. 175).
"Mr. Gunn, of Edinburgh, has lately published a curious Essay upon the
Harp and Harp Music of the Highlands of Scotland. That the instrument
was once in common use there, is most certain. Cleland numbers an
acquaintance with it among the few accomplishments which his satire
allows to the Highlanders:--
'In nothing they're accounted sharp,
Except in bagpipe or in harm.'"
624. Soldier, rest! etc. The metre of this song is trochaic; that is,
the accents fall regularly on the odd syllables.
631. In slumber dewing. That is, bedewing. For the metaphor, cf.
Shakespeare, Rich. III. iv. 1. 84: "the golden dew of sleep;" and J. C.
ii. 1. 230: "the honey-heavy dew of slumber."
635. Morn of toil, etc. The MS. has "noon of hunger, night of waking;"
and in the next line, "rouse" for reach.
638. Pibroch. "A Highland air, suited to the particular passion which
the musician would either excite or assuage; generally applied to those
airs that are played on the bagpipe before the Highlanders when they go
out to battle" (Jamieson). Here it is put for the bagpipe itself. See
also on ii. 363 below.
642. And the bittern sound his drum. Goldsmith (D. V. 44) calls the bird
"the hollow-sounding bittern;" and in his Animated Nature, he says that
of all the notes of waterfowl "there is none so dismally hollow as the
booming of the bittern."