330. Kindly. Kindred, natural. See Wb., and cf. Shakespeare, Much Ado,
iv. 1. 75:
"that fatherly and kindly power
That you have in her," etc.
345. All is glistening show. "No fact respecting Fairy-land seems to
be better ascertained than the fantastic and illusory nature of their
apparent pleasure and splendour. It has been already noticed in the
former quotations from Dr. Grahame's entertaining volume, and may be
confirmed by the following Highland tradition:--'A woman, whose new-born
child had been conveyed by them into their secret abodes, was also
carried thither herself, to remain, however, only until she should
suckle her infant. She one day, during this period, observed the
Shi'ichs busily employed in mixing various ingredients in a boiling
caldron, and as soon as the composition was prepared, she remarked that
they all carefully anointed their eyes with it, laying the remainder
aside for future use. In a moment when they were all absent, she also
attempted to anoint her eyes with the precious drug, but had time to
apply it to one eye only, when the Daoine Shi' returned. But with that
eye she was henceforth enabled to see everything as it really passed in
their secret abodes; she saw every object, not as she hitherto had done,
in deceptive splendour and elegance, but in its genuine colours and
form. The gaudy ornaments of the apartment were reduced to the walls
of a gloomy cavern. Soon after, having discharged her office, she was
dismissed to her own home. Still, however, she retained the faculty of
seeing, with her medicated eye, everything that was done, anywhere
in her presence, by the deceptive art of the order. One day, amidst a
throng of people, she chanced to observe the Shi'ich, or man of peace,
in whose possession she had left her child, though to every other eye
invisible. Prompted by maternal affection, she inadvertently accosted
him, and began to inquire after the welfare of her child. The man
of peace, astonished at being thus recognized by one of mortal race,
demanded how she had been enabled to discover him. Awed by the terrible
frown of his countenance, she acknowledged what she had done. He spat in
her eye, and extinguished it for ever.'
"It is very remarkable that this story, translated by Dr. Grahame from
popular Gaelic tradition, is to be found in the Otia Imperialia of
Gervase of Tilbury. [FN #10] A work of great interest might be compiled
upon the original of popular fiction, and the transmission of similar
tales from age to age, and from country to country. The mythology of one
period would then appear to pass into the romance of the next century,
and that into the nursery tale of the subsequent ages. Such an
investigation, while it went greatly to diminish our ideas of the
richness of human invention, would also show that these fictions,
however wild and childish, possess such charms for the populace as
enable them to penetrate into countries unconnected by manners and
language, and having no apparent intercourse to afford the means
of transmission. It would carry me far beyond my bounds to produce
instances of fable among nations who never borrowed from each other any
thing intrinsically worth learning. Indeed the wide diffusion of popular
factions may be compared to the facility with which straws and feathers
are dispersed abroad by the wind, while valuable metals cannot be
transported without trouble and labour. There lives, I believe, only one
gentleman whose unlimited acquaintance with this subject might enable
him to do it justice,--I mean my friend Mr. Francis Douce, of the
British Museum, whose usual kindness will, I hope, pardon my mentioning
his name while on a subject so closely connected with his extensive and
curious researches" (Scott).
355. Snatched away, etc. "The subjects of Fairy-land were recruited from
the regions of humanity by a sort of crimping system, which extended
to adults as well as to infants. Many of those who were in this world
supposed to have discharged the debt of nature, had only become denizens
of the 'Londe of Faery'" (Scott).
357. But wist I, etc. But if I knew, etc. Wist is the past tense of wit
(Matzner). See on i. 596 above.
371. Dunfermline. A town in Fifeshire, 17 miles northwest of Edinburgh.
It was long the residence of the Scottish kings, and the old abbey,
which succeeded Iona as the place of royal sepulture, has been called
"the Westminster of Scotland." Robert Bruce was the last sovereign
buried here.