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HARVARD STUDIES 
 IN COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 
 
 FOUNDED BY THE GENERAL EDITOR 
 
 WILLIAM HENRY SCHOFIELD 
 
 PROFESSOR OF COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 
 IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
 
 V 
 
 MYTHICAL BARDS 
 
 AND 
 
 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM WALLACE 
 
HARVARD STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 
 VOLUME V 
 
 MYTHICAL BARDS 
 
 AND 
 
 THE LIFE 
 OF WILLIAM WALLACE 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM HENRY SCHOFIELD 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 1920 
 

 ^^> 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1920 
 HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 WAV 26 1920 
 ©GIA571117 
 
TO MY WIFE 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE writer of a history may, in some respects, 
 be likened unto an adventurous knight, who, 
 having undertaken a perilous enterprise by way of 
 establishing his fame, feels bound, in honor and 
 chivalry, to turn back for no difficulty nor hard- 
 ship, and never to shrink or quail whatever enemy 
 he may encounter. Under this impression, I reso- 
 lutely draw my pen, and fall to, with might and 
 main, at those doughty questions and subtle para- 
 doxes, which, like fiery dragons and bloody giants, 
 beset the entrance to my history, and would fain 
 repulse me from the very threshold. And at this 
 moment a gigantic question has started up, which 
 I must needs take by the beard and utterly subdue, 
 before I can advance another step in my historic 
 undertaking." 
 
 So Washington Irving begins a chapter in his 
 Knickerbocker's History of New York, " in which 
 the author puts a mighty question to the rout, by 
 the assistance of the man in the moon," and thus 
 " delivers thousands of people from great embar- 
 rassment." 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 For several years I have wished to satisfy my 
 conscience with regard to a volume, long promised, 
 on English Literature from Chaucer to Elizabeth, 
 but have been held back for this among other rea- 
 sons, that there were many doughty questions con- 
 fronting me which could only be solved, if ever, by 
 long research, and which needed more time and 
 courage than I could muster. I did not feel, further- 
 more, that many thousands of people were waiting 
 to be delivered from embarrassment with respect to 
 them, and when I contemplated conquest, the man 
 in the moon declined his aid. There was no way I 
 could discover except by " prayer and fasting," 
 to which there is not sufficient incentive in our 
 hurried days. Yet I began, and made fair progress 
 until I reached the mountain fastness of Conjec- 
 ture, where ugly faces stared at me from every side, 
 and I could not " go round about," as Peer Gynt 
 tried to do when confronted by the trolls. One of 
 these faces, that of a tragic blind bard, viewed me 
 so quizzically that I got angry and determined to 
 take him by the beard (every blind bard has been 
 envisaged with a beard) and make him at least 
 yield, whatever happened for the time being to the 
 rest. He seemed, in truth, this my Great Boig, " as 
 the air, invulnerable "; but I stuck to him grimly, 
 and suddenly he disappeared out of the way. The 
 church-bells that helped Peer in dismay — here 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 symbols of the above-mentioned prayer and fast- 
 ing — conquered him. He went back to faery, 
 where he belonged. 
 
 All of which, being interpreted, means that I 
 think I have got rid of a bugbear in literary criti- 
 cism, and I hope the anxious world will show me 
 becoming gratitude. Whether it does or not, I 
 shall not lament, for I have had an invigorating 
 struggle and feel the better for it. 
 
 It will be obvious to readers familiar with the 
 processes of research why I passed from my first 
 problem, the secret of Blind Harry, to others allied 
 with it, until the scope of the inquiry carried me far 
 afield, yet not, I trust, without adding to the value 
 of the present publication. I venture now to hope 
 that my little book will interest scholarly readers 
 of various sorts : the student of Scottish history and 
 literature, because it should modify his views re- 
 garding a poem that fixed the fame of one of the 
 two great Scottish chiefs, as well as regarding the 
 oldest Scottish dramatic production; the student 
 of Celtic and Scandinavian, because it concerns 
 many documents in those tongues, and puts them 
 to fresh use; the student of the classics, because it 
 deals from a new aspect with Homer's blindness 
 and the vexed Homeric question; the student of 
 universal folklore, because it illustrates the like- 
 ness of primitive conceptions of the other world 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 and mythical bards in different lands; and, finally, 
 literary critics in general, because it discusses the 
 time-honored problem of inspiration, and suggests 
 a broad basis in popular belief for poets' ideas 
 concerning it. In every field the specialist will un- 
 doubtedly find faults of commission and omission, 
 but with these I beg him to be indulgent. Before 
 the War, I had lingered longer over the investiga- 
 tion than there was any warrant for in the state 
 of my other work, and now, after nearly two years' 
 constant occupation with public duties, I find my- 
 self unable to continue with this particular task, 
 still appealing though it is. 
 
 In conclusion, I should like here to emphasize 
 one point touched upon later in the book. Speak- 
 ing of Wallace, Lord Hailes wrote in 1776: " His 
 achievements, written by Blind Harry, has been 
 long a popular book in Scotland. It would be lost 
 labor to search for the age, name, and condition of 
 an author who either knew not history, or who 
 meant to falsify it." This remark is easily under- 
 stood as coming from an historian indignant at the 
 credence given, even by learned men, to a work 
 which does indeed contain, as he asserts, many 
 " specious tales " and " childish stories." But, now 
 that the need of indignation is passed, now that the 
 value of the work has been properly assessed, at 
 least by scholars, it can hardly be called lost labor 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 to inquire into the circumstances of its production 
 and the reasons why it has exerted such a huge in- 
 fluence in shaping the opinions of Scots. Granted 
 that the Wallace is not itself veracious history, it 
 nevertheless made history, for there were hosts be- 
 fore Burns into whom it poured a tide of Scottish 
 prejudice which greatly interfered with the calm 
 solution of political difficulties between the North 
 and South in Great Britain. The Wallace is a hu- 
 man document; it voiced the feelings of virile men 
 struggling with conflicting emotions of a very com- 
 mon character, drawn on the one hand from patri- 
 otism and self-sacrifice, on the other from lust of 
 battle and revenge. 
 
 There are epochs when such writings as the 
 Wallace are easily evoked. We are only emerging 
 from one now, and grave danger is present in every 
 land that unscrupulous patriots may produce popu- 
 lar biographies of heroic leaders which would per- 
 petuate the hatreds of our own day. Such works, 
 let the example of the Wallace bear strong witness, 
 would poison the well of international peace and 
 trust for a terribly prolonged time. May we have 
 abundant works recording noble acts of " trouthe 
 and honour, fredom and curteisye," meet to glorify 
 the defenders of our national faith, but may these 
 be completely void of the " vileinye " of hate! 
 
xii PREFACE 
 
 What else is wisdom ? What of men's endeavor 
 Or God's high grace, so lovely and so great ? 
 To stand from fear set free, to breathe and wait. 
 To hold a hand uplifted over hate; 
 
 And shall not Loveliness be loved for ever ? 
 
 My hearty thanks are due to my colleagues 
 Professors G. L. Kittredge and F. N. Robinson for 
 their kindness in reading the proofs of this book. 
 To Professor Kittredge I am particularly indebted 
 for friendly criticism of it while still in manu- 
 script, from which I greatly profited. 
 
 W. H. S. 
 
 East HiUy 
 
 Peterborough, N. H. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Preface Page vii 
 
 I. The Problem of Blind Harry 3 
 
 II. Major's Evidence 14 
 
 III. The Dwarf's Part of the Play 26 
 
 IV. Faery Folk 55 
 V. Imaginary Bards 79 
 
 VI. The Mythical and the Actual 
 
 Blind Harry 96 
 
 VII. The Real Author of the Wallace 116 
 VIII. The Purpose and Spirit of the 
 
 Wallace 147 
 
 IX. Master Blair 170 
 
 X. The Wallace as History 184 
 
 XI. Blind Harry and Blind Homer 203 
 
 XII. The Progress of Conceptions of 
 
 Poesy 239 
 
 Notes 289 
 
 Index 363 
 
MYTHICAL BARDS 
 
 AND 
 
 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM WALLACE 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 The Problem of Blind Harry 
 
 I would . . . tell 
 How Wallace fought for Scotland, left the name 
 Of Wallace to be found, like a wild flower. 
 All over his dear country, left the deeds 
 Of Wallace, like a family of ghosts. 
 To people the steep rocks and river banks. 
 Her natural sanctuaries, with a local soul 
 Of independence and stern liberty. 
 
 Wordsworth 
 
 BLIND HARRY! You cannot avoid him and 
 his problem if you busy yourself ever so little 
 with Scottish literature. For he wrote one of the 
 most influential books that ever appeared in his 
 native land, one that contributed mightily to the 
 renown of a national hero, William Wallace, val- 
 iant champion of noble Scots against treacherous 
 Southron foes. Over four centuries have passed 
 since then, yet his work is a mystery still. A new 
 plan must be tried if we hope to discover the secret 
 of the author. 
 
 Thirty odd years ago, when I was an under- 
 graduate, and enthusiastic (as I expect ever to re- 
 main) for the works of Sir Walter Scott, my atten- 
 
4 PROBLEM OF BLIND HARRY 
 
 tion was directed to a study of The Feeling for 
 Nature in Scottish Poetry* by Professor Veitch of 
 Glasgow, from which I got my first firm impression 
 of BHnd Harry's personality. Professor Veitch 
 wrote: 
 
 " He seems to have travelled about the country, 
 carrying his rhymes in his memory as his stock-in- 
 trade, reciting them by lowly hearth and in lordly 
 hall, and touching with his own patriotic flame the 
 hearts of all ranks of his countrymen. . . . The 
 blind Minstrel's only means of subsistence seems 
 to have been the voluntary gifts of his patrons, high 
 and low. Occasionally in his later years he re- 
 ceived the dole of a few shillings from the Royal 
 Treasury. He was thus truly a wandering minstrel 
 — blind, aged and poor. About the time when the 
 race of them was nearly dead — and we may look 
 on * The Life of Wallace ' as the actual lay of ' the 
 Last Minstrel ' — Major tells us that Harry had 
 access to the highest personages in the land; and 
 thus it was that Scott, in making his aged harper 
 draw near the stately tower of Newark, and pass, 
 though with trembling steps, the embattled portal 
 arch, to be received with a kindly welcome, was 
 but imaginatively repeating the actual experience 
 of the last of the accredited Scottish minstrels. 
 
 * Whenever an asterisk or similar mark occurs in the text, 
 a note will be found at the end of the book. 
 
PROBLEM OF BLIND HARRY 5 
 
 Doubtless, it was often literally true of the blind 
 Minstrel as of Scott's harper that — 
 
 'When he caught the measure wild, 
 The old man raised his face and smiled, 
 And lighten'd up his faded eye, 
 With all a poet's ecstasy. 
 In varying cadence, soft or strong, 
 He swept the sounding chords along; 
 The present scene, the future lot, 
 His toils, his wants, were all forgot; 
 Cold diflSdence and age's frost 
 In the full tide of song were lost. 
 Each blank in faithless memory void. 
 The poet's glowing thought supplied.' " 
 
 Here was surely an appealing picture, especially 
 to a young man. A veritable spell has, indeed, ever 
 been made to cling to the name Blind Harry — a 
 spell of misfortune and pathos, of remoteness and 
 regret. The minstrel! The old minstrel! The last 
 minstrel of an independent folk! Afflicted and 
 neglected, but finely courageous in heart! " Old 
 times have changed, old manners gone." All the 
 more, we have felt, men should keep in affection- 
 ate remembrance this moving figure of past time, 
 this poet-patriot of yore. 
 
 The Life of William Wallace has long formed one 
 of the chief bulwarks of Scottish nationality. 
 Though Professor Veitch's portrait of the author 
 is frankly unreal and romantic, one can hardly dis- 
 
6 PROBLEM OF BLIND HARRY 
 
 pute his statement about the influence of the poem : 
 " Let the critical modern historian dissect and re- 
 ject as he may the stories here and there interposed 
 in the narrative of Bhnd Harry, it shows but a pur- 
 blind imagination not to realize the effect of these, 
 and of the whole record implicitly received, on the 
 hearts, the impulses, and the bent of character of 
 the Scottish people, all through the centuries down 
 to the union of the crowns — an influence which 
 nerved and steeled them to self-defence and the 
 hold of national independence, and which is even 
 now manifest in the strong fibre and upright self- 
 respect of the national character." 
 
 Over and over again this influence has been em- 
 phasized, and critics have repeatedly quoted the 
 words of Robert Burns about the modernized ver- 
 sion of the poem that he knew: " The story of 
 Wallace poured a Scottish prejudice in my veins, 
 which will boil along there till the floodgates of 
 life shut in eternal rest."* Only the Bible, it 
 is averred, has been oftener read by the peas- 
 antry of Scotland.! Blind Harry they have long 
 regarded reverently, though vaguely, almost as 
 an inspired seer of Holy Writ. And, now, to give 
 him more dignity, scholars write his name on 
 the title-pages of editions, and elsewhere, in the 
 form " Henry the Minstrel," as if the " blind " 
 were too doubtful, the " Harry " too familiar, and 
 
PROBLEM OF BLIND HARRY 7 
 
 only " the Minstrel " worthy to stand as the poet's 
 memorable designation. 
 
 Once grant the universal assumption that Blind 
 Harry was truly a blind minstrel, and he and his 
 book are a bewildering puzzle; for the assumption 
 stated, resting entirely as it does on external evi- 
 dence, conflicts fiercely with what one would natur- 
 ally infer from reading the poem itself. The ex- 
 ternal evidence, apart from the name of the author, 
 consists solely of some incidental remarks made by 
 the theologian John Major (Mair) nearly forty 
 years after the poem was composed, and is depend- 
 ent, it would seem, on mere imaginative surmise. 
 Major's remarks, however, have biassed, if not 
 perverted, every subsequent judgment of the Wal- 
 lace, both as a literary and an historical document. 
 Until recently all critics of the poem have quoted 
 or referred to them as affording trustworthy infor- 
 mation regarding the writer, and have then sought 
 more or less candidly to explain the poem as more 
 or less natural for such an author as Major de- 
 scribed. 
 
 Yet over fifty years ago Professor Craik wrote as 
 follows: " Were it not for Major's statement, and 
 the common epithet that has attached itself to his 
 name, we should scarcely have supposed that the 
 author of Wallace had been either blind from his 
 birth or blind at all. He nowhere himself alludes to 
 
8 PROBLEM OF BLIND HARRY 
 
 any such circumstance. His poem, besides, abounds 
 in descriptive passages, and in allusions to natural 
 appearances and other objects of sight, . . . Nor 
 are his apparent literary acquirements to be very 
 easily reconciled with Major's account. . . . What 
 is most remarkable is that he distinctly declares 
 his poem to be throughout a translation from the 
 Latin." * 
 
 This sort of questioning has of late grown in- 
 sistent, and the discrepancy between the supposed 
 character of the author and the actual character of 
 the book has come to seem more and more incom- 
 prehensible. That a simple wandering minstrel, 
 blind from birth, relying on others' bounty for food 
 and clothing, as Major depicts him, could have 
 been the author of so sophisticated a book as the 
 Wallace, a carefully -wrought poem of nearly twelve 
 thousand lines, chiefly in heroic couplets, revealing 
 close study of Chaucer, even to the introduction of 
 the metre of his Complaint of Anelida upon Arcite 
 and other intricate stanzas, stamped throughout 
 with conventions of literary artifice, replete with 
 foreign, aureate words, and displaying considerable 
 knowledge of classical mythology, astrology and 
 heraldry, is more than critics nowadays are ready 
 to believe. 
 
 The poet's blindness, however, remains a matter 
 of sore dispute. Some, indeed, have shown im- 
 
PROBLEM OF BLIND HARRY 9 
 
 patience with the unending discussion of the ques- 
 tion, conceiving rather strangely that it was 
 merely a side issue which had really no place in an 
 estimate of the literary merit of the work; but they 
 have not ventured to deny the fact itself. " The 
 question," says Dr. Craigie, " has often been dis- 
 cussed whether Blind Harry was really blind, or 
 at least whether John Major was right in saying 
 that he was blind from his birth. . . . That the 
 minstrel was blind for a great part of his life must 
 be accepted as certain, both from Major's testi- 
 mony and from his name itself, but it is quite pos- 
 sible that his blindness in earlier life may only have 
 been partial. It is not uncommon even yet, es- 
 pecially in country districts, to call people blind 
 who have really only defective vision, and it is by 
 no means beyond the bounds of possibility that the 
 minstrel may never have been totally blind. But 
 to make the poem any test of this seems a very 
 precarious proceeding; we might with equal possi- 
 bility assert that we have not Blind Harry's Wal- 
 lace at all — neither the MS. nor the early editions 
 say so ! " * 
 
 In 1900, nevertheless, Mr. J. T. T. Brown at- 
 tempted the precarious proceeding and stoutly 
 maintained, on the basis of internal evidence, that 
 we have not Blind Harry's Wallace at all, at least 
 not in anything like its original form. In his Wal- 
 
10 PROBLEM OF BLIND HARRY 
 
 lace and Bruce Restudied * is to be found the first 
 reasoned repudiation of the poem as the unassisted 
 work of a bhnd minstrel, save in so far as he might 
 have resorted to dictation for its recording.! What 
 appeared to Mr. Brown the most probable explana- 
 tion of the situation, he put as follows: " Harry, a 
 poor blind man, dwelling in or near Linlithgow, was 
 one of the numerous class of itinerant performers 
 who obtained admission occasionally to the Court 
 in order to amuse the King and courtiers. His 
 special talent was that of a raconteur of gests re- 
 lating to William Wallace, folk stories picked up 
 on his journeyings and turned by him into verse. 
 It may very well be that in Harry we have the 
 begetter of The Wallace, his metrical effusions sug- 
 gesting to the clerk John Ramsay a theme for a 
 national epic worthy to be in some measure com- 
 plementary to The Bruce of John Barbour." 
 
 This hypothesis of combined authorship has 
 found no favor with scholars, and Ramsay has been 
 rightly denied any part in the composition of the 
 poem. J Still, though certain reviewers have in- 
 clined to accept as final Mr. Brown's arguments 
 against Blind Harry as alone responsible for the 
 work, § the general trend of criticism remains much 
 as before. " The hypothesis that best fits the 
 whole circumstances of the case," writes Mr. T. 
 F. Henderson, in his popular book on Scottish 
 
PROBLEM OF BLIND HARRY 11 
 
 Vernacular Literature* " is that Harry — other- 
 wise nameless except as ' Blind ' — was, as Major 
 states, blind from his birth, and, as he himself re- 
 cords, a ' burel,' or milearned man." Mr. Hender- 
 son even continues to urge the author's blindness, 
 humble position, and ignorance as an explanation 
 of certain unfortunate characteristics of the poem. 
 " For much of the preposterousness of Harry's 
 stories — especially his amazing accounts of com- 
 bats — his blindness must be held responsible. 
 He could not recognize the sheer impossibility of 
 many of his glosses or inventions." " Of course, 
 being but a minstrel, Harry has the special defects 
 of the minstrel's qualities. Compare the Wallace, 
 for example, with Barbour's Bruce, or Henryson's 
 Fables, and the general inferiority of calibre pro- 
 claims Harry to have been but a ' burel ' man. An 
 accomplished minstrel, it is true — though repre- 
 senting minstrelsy in its decadence, minstrelsy 
 divorced from chivalry, — and saturated with vari- 
 ous poetic influences and traditions; also, it is clear, 
 of robust personality, and animated with much 
 rough poetic ardour, but devoid of true intellectual 
 discipline as of consistent moral dignity; wofully, 
 if not wilfully, heedless of patent historic facts; 
 childishly credulous, and combining with a certain 
 rugged pathos a braggardism that is frankly, and 
 even fervently, brutal." Not unnaturally, when 
 
12 PROBLEM OF BLIND HARRY 
 
 one considers all the supposed facts that he tried 
 to reconcile, Mr. Henderson was forced to the con- 
 clusion: "Both Blind Harry and his poem are 
 something of a conundrum." 
 
 The latest scholarly judgment on the subject in 
 print is that of Mr. George Neilson, who, in an illu- 
 minating essay published in 1910,* speaks of the 
 Wallace as "a conscious heroic poem of a type elab- 
 orate, ambitious, and highly developed," which 
 " bears too many marks of distinctly literary ori- 
 gins to have been written by one who was congeni- 
 tally blind." Yet, while Mr. Neilson admits that 
 " a greater gulf than usual stands between the 
 poem and the poet," it never occurred to him to 
 dispute the traditional conception of " Henry the 
 Minstrel," who, he holds certain, was blind in his 
 later years. On the other hand. Professor Francis 
 Lane Childs, in an admirable Harvard thesis of 
 the year 1913, still unpublished,! goes so far as to 
 deny Harry's authorship of the poem; but he does 
 not question the blind minstrel's actual existence. 
 
 My point of view is different. I assume that the 
 author of the Wallace was called Blind Harry ; but 
 I believe that he was not a minstrel at all in the 
 ordinary acceptation of the term, and that he was 
 never blind. I venture to hold that Blind Harry 
 was only the author's pseudonym, and I shall try 
 to establish the existence in myth and show the 
 
PROBLEM OF BLIND HARRY 13 
 
 nature of the strange personage who has always 
 been treated as the real author of the work. This 
 will necessitate a consideration of many documents 
 of divers lands and ages, which should prove of 
 interest for its own sake, as well as for its bearing 
 on the immediate problem in hand. The inquiry 
 will lead, I hope, to significant conclusions as to 
 mythical bards of far greater repute than Blind 
 Harry, but it will aim first to throw light on the 
 background, character, and value of the Wallace, 
 a true understanding of which has hitherto been 
 limited by misapprehensions regarding the manner 
 of its composition. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Major's Evidence 
 
 But all is dark 
 Around thine aged top, and thy clear fount 
 Exhales in mists to heaven. 
 
 Endymion 
 
 DESPITE the fact that no name is attached to 
 the Wallace in the unique copy made by the 
 scribe John Ramsay in 1488,* or apparently in the 
 earhest editions, we have strong evidence that it 
 passed current from the start as BHnd Harry's 
 work. Dunbar, as is well known, mentions Blind 
 Harry among the " makaris " who were dead be- 
 fore he wrote his famous Lament, in 1507, and no 
 one doubts that this poet is identical with the 
 writer of the same name to whom, as we have seen, 
 Major,t in 1521, attributes a " whole book " about 
 Wallace, " written with great skill in vernacular 
 rhymes " during the historian's lifetime; or that 
 he was the author of the " Blind Harry's Book " 
 to which Bellenden in his paraphrase of Hector 
 Boece's history (1536), | and William Stewart in 
 his metrical Book of the Chronicles of Scotland (1531- 
 35) § refer as one where the " fashion " of Wallace's 
 youthful deeds was " all declared at great length." 
 
MAJOR'S EVIDENCE 15 
 
 While, then, there is no absolute proof that the 
 poet Blind Harry, Dunbar's predecessor, wrote the 
 Wallace, the evidence in favor of its ascription to 
 him, made unhesitatingly by the faithful Major 
 within forty years of the composition of the work, 
 and perpetuated without controversy for almost 
 four hundred years, is sufficiently clear to convince 
 all but the most skeptical, and we may proceed con- 
 fidently on the assumption that it is correct. The 
 present study will offer new confirmation of the 
 orthodox view, explaining why the name of the 
 poet, far from needing to raise difficulties, was a 
 natural and appropriate one for him to bear. First, 
 however, we must cut at the roots the prevalent 
 conception (based solely, it would seem, even at 
 the beginning, on improper inferences drawn from 
 that name) that the author was actually an indi- 
 gent blind bard. 
 
 Major's statements about Blind Harry appear 
 in his History of Greater Britain. Major when he 
 undertook this work was a man over fifty,* and had 
 spent nearly all his mature years as a student and 
 professor at Paris. He had gained a reputation 
 there as a teacher of theology, and not until 1518 
 was persuaded to return to Scotland to live. He 
 then became Regent of a college at Glasgow, Pro- 
 fessor of Theology, and Treasurer of the Chapel 
 Royal. In 1523 he was transferred to St. Andrews, 
 
16 MAJOR'S EVIDENCE 
 
 but returned to Paris in 1525. He wrote his book 
 as a relief from more arduous scholastic labors, 
 primarily attracted by the opportunity it afforded 
 to teach lessons of proper ethical attitude, rebuke 
 current uncritical views of past events, and advo- 
 cate the union by royal marriage of the realms of 
 England and Scotland. Major was a well-meaning 
 and in many respects an enlightened person, but of 
 a type not uncommon among academic folk, in- 
 clined in case of dispute to take the middle way. 
 His biographer. Dr. Mackay, was quite right in 
 saying that " balancing, hesitating, and inconclu- 
 sive judgment is very characteristic of Major's 
 intellect," * but only partially right in adding: 
 " With regard to the facts of his History, Major 
 shows a wonderfully sound historical instinct, dis- 
 tinguishing truth from the fables with which the 
 Scottish annals were then encrusted." Major, no 
 doubt, desired to distinguish truth from fable, and 
 pompously put on parade his judicial mind; but 
 he showed himself very gullible in regard to legends 
 and took all sorts of mythical persons for real. He 
 believed, for example, that the inhabitants of 
 Rochester were actually inflicted with tails because 
 they mocked St. Augustine, but he declined to as- 
 sert that the penalty lasted and that children were 
 born with tails. He did not question the existence 
 of Robin Hood (Robertus Hudus) and Little John, 
 
MAJOR'S EVIDENCE 17 
 
 whom he put in the time of Richard I, but he 
 bravely condemned their robberies. He solemnly 
 entered into argument whether it could be true 
 that St. Baldred was buried entire in three dif- 
 ferent churches.* 
 
 As a proud schoolman of Paris, Major naturally 
 assumed that anything written in the vernacular 
 of his land was beneath his praise. He quotes fre- 
 quently from Froissart, and refers to Monstrelet 
 with respect; but the only historical works he 
 greatly valued were in Latin. " Not even every- 
 thing that is written in Latin," he says, " has a 
 claim to infallibility, but only to a certain probabil- 
 ity; for some of the writings in that language are 
 known to possess more, and others less, of au- 
 thority." 
 
 If one scrutinizes Major's account of Wallace, 
 one soon sees that he used Blind Harry's poem (it 
 had been printed thirteen years) far more than he 
 was willing to admit. f Though he denies its credi- 
 bility in certain respects, he accepts the general 
 features of the hero's portrait, and certain inci- 
 dents as there alone presented. 
 
 After having actually based his narrative to a 
 considerable degree on his "vulgar" authority, his 
 critical judgment yielding under the stress of his 
 willingness to believe, he salves his conscience by 
 a proud display of judicial protest against a few 
 
18 MAJOR'S EVIDENCE 
 
 features of Blind Harry's story which are so pre- 
 posterous that it is doubtful if they were ever 
 really credited, even by the most patriotic of the 
 time. And he winds up as follows: "There was 
 one Henry, blind from his birth, who, in the time 
 of my childhood, composed a whole book about 
 William Wallace, and therein he wrote down in 
 our native rhymes — and this was a kind of com- 
 position in which he had much skill — all that 
 passed current among the people in his day. I, 
 however, can give but a partial credence to such 
 writings as these. This Henry used to recite his 
 tales in the households of the nobles, and thereby 
 got the food and clothing that he deserved." * 
 
 In these words lies the whole basis for the legend 
 of the poet Blind Harry. Even the most ardent 
 Scot, even the stoutest admirer of the Wallace, 
 must admit that there is nothing whatever in the 
 work itself to justify belief that it was composed 
 by a blind person such as Major describes. Mr. 
 Neilson voiced the general opinion when he said in 
 1910: "It is hardly possible to believe that the 
 author of the Wallace was blind from birth. It is 
 infinitely more likely that Major blundered in say- 
 ing so." But if Major blundered in this respect, 
 why not in others .f' If, as should be clear to all, the 
 author could not have been blind from his birth, 
 then we are entitled to take questioningly Major's 
 
MAJOR'S EVIDENCE 19 
 
 other patronizing statement, supported by no one 
 else, that " this Henry used to recite his tales in the 
 households of the nobles, and thereby got the food 
 and clothing which he deserved." Though Major 
 does not perhaps explicitly aflfirm it, the " tales " 
 he says Harry recited have always been taken to be 
 identical with the " whole book " on Wallace which 
 the critic has just described. Yet there is almost as 
 grave a difficulty in accepting the view that the 
 cultivated poet of the Wallace — Major himself 
 noted the great skill of the verse — went about 
 reciting his tales, even coram principibiis* for food 
 and clothing, as that he was blind from birth. 
 Major does not pretend to have known Blind 
 Harry. He was an infant, he says, when the poet 
 wrote, and he had gone as a young man to Paris, 
 where he had lived for most of the intervening 
 stretch of twenty-five years wholly absorbed in 
 scholastic pursuits. For Scottish vernacular poetry 
 he had little leisure and less respect. Quite evi- 
 dently, he did not know anything definite about 
 the author of the Wallace, and probably only 
 imagined what he said of him after consideration 
 of his name. 
 
 There is one blind poet who since Major's time 
 has leapt into everyone's mind at the mention of 
 Blind Harry, namely Homer. Major was well ac- 
 quainted with Homer, as is shown by his repeated 
 
20 MAJOR'S EVIDENCE 
 
 references to him in other works.* Very naturally 
 he might have connected the two blind singers, and 
 transferred to the one what he had read of the 
 other. According to the traditionary story of Ho- 
 mer,! " he was a wandering minstrel, blind and old, 
 who travelled from place to place singing his lays 
 to the music of his harp, in the courts of princes or 
 the cottages of peasants, — a dependent upon the 
 voluntary offerings of his hearers." This tradition 
 of Homer embodies all that Major says of Harry, 
 save that Harry was blind from birth, which, we 
 have seen, is the most incredible thing in his whole 
 account. That account is entirely lacking in any 
 details that would serve to connect the author of 
 the Wallace with any particular person or place, and 
 is no doubt merely an echo of Major's learning. 
 
 Major was given to classical parallels. He likens 
 Wallace in different respects to Ulysses, Ajax, and 
 Achilles,J and once, speaking of the British belief 
 in the return of Arthur, which he compares with 
 that of the return of Charles of Burgundy and 
 James IV of Scotland, he writes significantly: 
 " Hence you can understand the readiness with 
 which the common people believed the Stygian 
 Jupiter, Hercules, and such men as that sort of 
 people is prone to marvel at, to be immortal; and 
 how the wiser sort, who knew the groundlessness 
 of this belief, were yet unwilling to go contrary to 
 
MAJOR'S EVIDENCE 21 
 
 it, lest the ignorant in their indignation should 
 destroy them," * a wise recognition of the force be- 
 hind the perpetuation of legend and fable. We shall 
 do well to remember throughout this investigation 
 the tenacity with which " the common people " 
 have everywhere held to beliefs in mythical beings, 
 no matter why scholars have failed to deny their 
 existence altogether. 
 
 Apropos of James I, Major remarks: " With the 
 harp, like another Orpheus, he surpassed the Irish 
 or the Wild Scots, who are in that art pre-emin- 
 ent."! If James I reminded Major of Orpheus, it 
 is not surprising that Blind Harry reminded him of 
 Homer. But still more important to observe is his 
 witness to the consideration that learned men of 
 the time paid the poetry of the Irish or the Wild 
 Scots, and their effort to connect Gaelic with Greek 
 traditions. 
 
 Major differentiates carefully between the 
 " Southern " and the " Wild " Scots in language 
 and race. He points out that even then almost the 
 half of Scotland spoke Irish, " and not so long ago," 
 he adds, " it was spoken by the majority of us." 
 He records how " a certain Scot of the mountains, 
 such as they call a Wild Scot, hoary with age," ap- 
 peared at the coronation of King Alexander, and 
 in his native Irish tongue declared the monarch's 
 genealogy up to the first beginning. " Man by man. 
 
22 MAJOR'S EVIDENCE 
 
 without a break this said Wild Scot recounted the 
 said genealogy, until he arrived at the first Irish 
 Scot who, setting out from the Ebro, a river of 
 the Spains, was the first to set foot in Ireland."* 
 Earlierf the pious historian had taken pains to re- 
 late stories from the old chronicles about Nealus 
 King of the Greeks and his son Gathelus, who mar- 
 ried a daughter of Pharaoh of Egypt, by name 
 Scota, and after Pharaoh's drowning went to Spain, 
 journeying thence to Hibernia. He did not admit 
 the truth of all these stories, but he held it certain 
 " that the Irish are descended from the Spaniards 
 and the Scottish Britons from the Irish." 
 
 Such traditions, evidently, were accepted also 
 by the author of the Wallace, who speaks of Ed- 
 ward I and the way he carried the coronation 
 stone of Scone to England, as follows: 
 
 The croune he tuk apon that sammyne stane 
 At Gadalos send with his sone fra Spane, 
 Quhen Iber Scot fyrst in till Irland come. 
 At Canemor syne king Fergus has it nome; 
 Brocht it till Scwne, and stapill maid it thar,J 
 Quhar kingis was cround viij hundyr ^er and mar, 
 Befor the tyme at king Eduuard it fand. 
 
 There was, in truth, great activity in the fif- 
 teenth century on the part of the Highland clans in 
 connecting themselves with Gaelic ancestors. § In 
 the manuscript genealogies of that time, one group 
 
MAJOR'S EVIDENCE 23 
 
 of these (including the Macdonalds, Macdougals, 
 Macneills, Maclauchlans, and Macewens) were 
 made out to be descendants of a fabulous Irish 
 monarch, Conn of the Hundred Battles, to whom 
 Blind Harry appears to allude in his genealogical 
 introduction to the Wallace, where he remarks: 
 "as Conus corny klis bers on hand" — an allusion 
 never hitherto explained,* yet suggestive as further 
 indicating the author's literary interest. 
 
 In the fifteenth century the Highlanders were 
 very much in the thought of other Scots, and 
 continued so even after the Lordship of the Isles 
 was abolished in 1545. James IV made frequent 
 visits to the north and west of his realm, and found 
 a knowledge of Gaelic a useful accomplishment.! 
 In the west particularly, there then existed a veri- 
 table school of bards (in touch with the sennachies 
 of Ireland) whom courtly poets were wont to ridi- 
 cule. Holland, in his Howlat,t represents the rook 
 as " a bard out of Ireland " madly talking Gaelic — 
 a passage which evidently became popular, for 
 Blind Harry shows his acquaintance with it, and 
 Montgomery imitated it in his Answer to a High- 
 landman's Invective.^ Dunbar was so notorious for 
 his abuse of the Erse that Kennedy's rebuke to 
 him in their famous Flyting was a pointed shaft: 
 
 Thovv lufis nane Irische, elf, I vnderstand, 
 Bot it suld be all trew Scottis mennis lede; 
 
24 MAJOR'S EVIDENCE 
 
 It was the gud langage of this land. 
 And Scota it causit to multiply and sprede, 
 Quhill Corspatrick that we of tressoun reid, 
 Thy forefader, maid Irisch and Irisch men thin, 
 Throw his tressoun broght Inglise rumplis in, 
 Sa wald thy self, mycht thou to him succede.* 
 
 Dunbar most effectively ridicules the Erse in the 
 Highland pageant he introduces into his Dance of 
 the Seven Deadly Sins, where he refers to the com- 
 rades of a traitor MacFadden, of whom Blind 
 Harry tells : when he cried his coronach in hell — 
 
 Erschemen so gadderit him abowt, 
 In hell grit rowme thay tuke. 
 
 Thae tarmegantis, with tag and tatter, 
 
 Ffull lowd in Ersche begowth to clatter. 
 
 And rowp lyk revin and ruke: 
 
 The Devill sa devit wes with thair 3ell, 
 
 That in the depest pit of hell 
 
 He smorit thame with smvke.f 
 
 Though Dunbar's references to the Erse are per- 
 haps in the main humorous, not really revealing 
 that " strong aversion " critics speak about, they 
 surely attest the poet's interest in the Highlanders 
 and their traditions, which is a point of importance 
 in our investigation. He, as well as Kennedy, had 
 a strong appetite for " sic eloquence as thay in 
 Erschry vse." 
 
 The Scotch-Irish question kept burning a con- 
 siderable while, and Sir David Lyndsay in the 
 
MAJOR'S EVIDENCE 25 
 
 Monarchie * declared that, after his " conceit," if 
 St. Jerome had been born in Argyle he would have 
 " done compile " his books in the Irish tongue. As 
 a result of the agitation, stories in the Irish tongue 
 no doubt gained wider currency. 
 
 Knowledge of Blind Harry begins and ends with 
 Major and Dunbar. Major in his History gives 
 the first sure evidence of his connection with the 
 Wallace, and Dunbar in his Lament gives the first 
 sure testimony to his existence as a poet. But if we 
 had only these two references we should have no 
 key to the problem of Blind Harry already defined. 
 We must turn to another poem by Dunbar for the 
 help needed. It will guide us to that prime re- 
 quisite for an understanding of the Wallace, an 
 understanding of the author's assumed name. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 The Dwarf's Part of the Play 
 
 That Dwarf was scarcely an earthly man, 
 If the tales were true, that of him ran 
 Through all the Border, far and near. 
 
 Lay of the Last Minstrel 
 
 OFTEN mentioned in connection with Blind 
 Harry, is a " Little Interlude " attributed to 
 Dunbar, entitled The Droichis [Dwarfs] Part of the 
 Play, or " The Manner of the Crying of a Play," 
 probably written about 1500.* Though highly fan- 
 tastic and coarse, this poem possesses general in- 
 terest for the folklore material it contains, as well 
 as for the vigor of its style and the fact that it is the 
 earliest extant specimen of dramatic verse in Scots. 
 Here a Dwarf makes a whirlwind appearance on 
 the stage, crying " See who is come now! " 
 promptly announces that he is a sergeant out of 
 Sultan-land, or " the spirit of Guy," or one who 
 can "go by the sky, light as the lind." " Yet," 
 he adds: 
 
 I trowe that I wary; 
 I am the nakit Blynd Hary, 
 That lang has bene in the Fary, 
 
 Farleis to fynd.f 
 
THE DWARF'S PART 27 
 
 It is, indeed, one of the mysteries of criticism 
 that every commentator on this passage has seen 
 in it an allusion by name to the author of the Wal- 
 lace. In his learned edition of Dunbar, Professor 
 Schipper wrote: " The poet Blind Harry, or Henry 
 the Minstrel, the author of the famous epic poem 
 ' William Wallace,' seems to be alluded to here as 
 a popular personage." Just what Professor Schip- 
 per meant by " a popular personage " is not clear; 
 but surely, to be able to identify the Dwarf with 
 the author of the Wallace, he must have given 
 scant consideration to the former's account of 
 himself. The Dwarf is particular to affirm that he 
 came of no mortal race. His fore-grandsire, he 
 tells us, was the Ossianic hero whom we have come 
 to know as Fingal: 
 
 Fyn Mac Kowie 
 That dang the devill, and gart [made] him Jowle, 
 The skyis ranyd quhen he wald scowle, 
 
 He trublit all the air. 
 
 His grandsire was Gog Magog, who, when he grew 
 up, had a mouth eleven miles wide and teeth ten 
 ells square. 
 
 He wald upon his tais stand, 
 And tak the sternis doune with his hand. 
 And set them in a gold garland 
 Above his wyfis hair.* 
 
28 THE DWARF'S PART 
 
 Gog's wife was an unholy terror. " She spit Loch 
 Lomond with her lips," and performed still stiffer 
 deeds, too indecent to repeat. And the Dwarf's 
 father, Gow Mackmorne, was so huge a champion 
 that he had to be cut even from her womb. 
 
 Or he of eld was 3eris thre, 
 He wald stepe our the Occeane se; 
 The mone sprang nevir above his kne; 
 The hevyn had of him feir. 
 
 As for the Dwarf himself, he was older than King 
 Arthur or Gawain, and now all shrivelled-up for 
 age — " this little, as ye may see." 
 
 " The genius of wealth," wrote Professor Schip- 
 per,* *' is here represented under the character of 
 a dwarfish minstrel, who introduces himself, it is 
 true, as the well-known poet Blind Harry, but who 
 probably was nobody else but Dunbar himself, 
 whose stature must have been very small." f Dr. 
 Mackay went one step farther and declared it pos- 
 sible " that Dunbar himself may have acted as well 
 as written the part of the Dwarf; " J and Mr. 
 Brown followed on with the remark that if the poet 
 was himself a dwarf, " his recitation of gests re- 
 counting the prowess of the national hero would 
 doubtless be all the more mirth-provoking on that 
 account." Such speculation was unjustified. But 
 the following comment by Professor Schipper 
 reached the lowest level of conjecture: " From the 
 
THE DWARF'S PART 29 
 
 epithet nakit connected with his [Blind Harry's] 
 name in this verse, it would appear that the old 
 minstrel lived in needy circumstances during the 
 later years of his life, when the infirmities of old 
 age may have hindered him from continuing his 
 occupation, wandering from one nobleman's seat 
 to the other and reciting pieces of his poems there." 
 This conclusion is really bewildering, both in its 
 initial assumption and in its ridiculous develop- 
 ment. One who had before him only the three lines 
 above quoted, in which the name Blind Harry ap- 
 pears, might perhaps carelessly think they con- 
 tained a reference, though a very puzzling one, to 
 an actual poet; but how an editor of the complete 
 text could stumble into so deep a pit of error is hard 
 to comprehend. Especially is that the case when 
 one realizes that Professor Schipper understood the 
 meaning of the words in the passage.* Mr. Brown, 
 on the contrary, made a grave mistake in translat- 
 ing them. " The Littill Interlud," the latter says, 
 " seems to belong to some lost masque ... in 
 which a dwarf personating Blynd Harry was 
 brought in. After introducing himself as a ' Sultan 
 from Syria, a giant that by the strength of his own 
 hand could bind bears,' he goes on to say that he 
 ' warrants himself to be the naked Blynd Harry 
 who has long been on the road in quest of strange 
 stories.' Fary or fare is simply way, road, journey; 
 
30 THE DWARF'S PART 
 
 and Major's quae vulgo dicehantur exactly corre- 
 sponds to the ' farleis,' or wonderful stories of the 
 prowess of Wallace, floating in tradition and picked 
 up by the way by the wandering minstrel." * But 
 " fary," of course, is merely " faery," fairyland,! 
 and " farleis " means " wonders." Both these words 
 are used in the familiar line at the opening of Piers 
 Plowman: " Me byfel a ferly, of fairy me thou3te." 
 Quite obviously the passage only says: " I am the 
 naked Blind Harry that have been long in faery to 
 find ferlys." There is nothing whatever in the poem 
 that can reasonably be construed as a reference to 
 the author of the Wallace, and the interpretation 
 which makes the lines under discussion mean 
 " Blynd Harry who has long been on the road in 
 quest of strange stories " of the prowess of Wal- 
 lace, is astonishingly wrong. 
 
 These lines, nevertheless, are vitally important 
 to a proper understanding of the Scottish poet's 
 name. They afford us unquestionable proof that in 
 Dunbar's time, shortly after the Wallace was writ- 
 ten, a mythical person called Blind Harry was re- 
 puted to have been long in faery and seen wonders. 
 
 Though no one should ask for more proof than 
 Dunbar's allusion to accept Blind Harry as a figure 
 in myth, many may need to be made acquainted 
 with popular traditions concerning faery, the visits 
 of mortals there, and the role of faery dwarfs in 
 
THE DWARF'S PART 31 
 
 fiction, before they can fully recognize the signifi- 
 cance of that allusion in settling the immediate 
 question of the authorship of the Wallace, or per- 
 ceive how from a consideration of tales of other- 
 world life important conclusions may be drawn 
 with regard to the ancient blind bards who so often 
 appear as mouthpieces of epic story, as well as to 
 the mysterious wise men who for ages have voiced 
 others' prophecies. 
 
 Let us however, begin, our inquiry, tending to 
 that end, by a more careful scrutiny of The Dwarf's 
 Part of the Play than has heretofore been given 
 that unique and most interesting poem. The re- 
 sults should be worth while in themselves, as ex- 
 plaining the work of Dunbar and its pagan Celtic 
 background, but still more so, for our present pur- 
 pose, as revealing the character of Blind Harry, the 
 personage of fiction. 
 
 The Interlude, it is evident, was intended not 
 simply to convey good wishes to its hearers, the 
 magistrates of Edinburgh, but to arouse their 
 mirth. Its Brobdingnagian humor was calcu- 
 lated to appeal to men at a gay assembly, and the 
 poet's exaggerated account of the exploits of Blind 
 Harry's Gaelic ancestors was certainly the more 
 appreciated by an audience who knew the fine old 
 tales concerning that illustrious band. Dunbar's 
 mood in dealing with these worthies is not unlike 
 
32 THE DWARF'S PART 
 
 that of the author of the modern song about the 
 famous Cumhail (pronounced Cool), the Dwarf's 
 great-grandsire : 
 
 Old King Cole was a merry old soul, 
 And a merry old soul was he. 
 
 It is merely jocular, amiably bacchic. Dunbar was 
 a jovial old-time Scot, and his words are a bit 
 pungent for our taste, but they imply real knowl- 
 edge on his part of the traditions he treats freely. 
 The Interlude, as should first be noted, is merely 
 a monologue in which a grotesque supernatural 
 being utters pretensions of what seem a preposter- 
 ous nature, and finally interprets himself allegori- 
 cally as Wealth, a symbol of gifts he has the power 
 to dispense. The Dwarf * tells his hearers that he 
 was born far forth in the deserts of Ind, among 
 lions and bears, yet (as has already been men- 
 tioned) that he derived directly from ancient 
 Gaels. He had lived as much as a thousand years. 
 Worthy King Arthur, we are informed, and Ga- 
 wain, and many a bold bairn of Britain, had died 
 and in the wars been slain since he could wield a 
 spear. By his explicit statement, we learn that he 
 went through " variations "; he changed his shape. 
 Now he was a sergeant out of Sultan-land, now the 
 ghost of Guy, now naked Blind Harry; he could 
 " fly by the sky, and light as the lind." 
 
THE DWARF'S PART S3 
 
 I half bene formest evir in feild, 
 And now sa lang I haif borne sheild, 
 That I am crynit in for eild 
 
 This littill, as ^e may sie. 
 I haif bene banist vndir the lynd 
 This lang tyme, that nane cowld me fynd, 
 Quhill now with this last eistin wynd, 
 
 I am cum heir perdie. 
 
 He had come to Scotland, he knew never how — 
 " with the whirlwind "! 
 
 In this work, if I mistake not, Dunbar shows fa- 
 miliarity with an old Celtic type of poem, voicing 
 pre-Christian animistic beliefs, of which we have 
 two extant specimens, put respectively into the 
 mouths of the mythical Irish and Welsh shape- 
 shifting bards Amergin and Taliessin. 
 
 What is supposed to be one of the most ancient 
 of Irish literary records * is the poem represented 
 as uttered by the former, druid-wizard of the fabu- 
 lous Milesian settlers when these first landed in 
 Erin. I am this and that, proclaims Amergin, 
 mentioning many beings and things. " I am a cun- 
 ning artist; I am a gigantic, sword- wielding cham- 
 pion; I can shift my shape like a god. ... I am a 
 bard who is called upon by seafarers to prophesy. 
 ... I prophesy victory. I end my song by pro- 
 phesying all other good things." 
 
 Likewise Taliessin, then a weak little man, is 
 made to sing of numerous aspects of himself. " I 
 
34 THE DWARF'S PART 
 
 have been in many shapes," he begins, " before I 
 attained a congenial form "; whereupon he enum- 
 erates these at length.* According to his proud as- 
 sertion in another poem, he had been everywhere 
 from heaven to hell, with all sorts and conditions 
 of men, from the beginning of the world. 
 
 I was with my Lord in the liighest sphere, 
 
 On the fall of Lucifer into the depth of hell. 
 
 I have borne a banner before Alexander; . . . 
 
 I was in the court of Don before the birth of Gwydion. 
 
 I was instructor to Eli and Enoc. . . . 
 
 I am a wonder whose origin is not known; 
 
 I have been in Asia with Noah in the Ark; 
 
 I have seen the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra; . . . 
 
 I am now come here f to the remnant of Troia. . . . 
 
 I shall be until the day of doom on the face of the earth; 
 
 And it is not known whether my body is flesh or fish. 
 
 The significance of Taliessin's boasts as reveal- 
 ing mythical notions of the origins of poesy, we 
 shall dwell on later. The importance of his claims 
 in showing his superhuman character does not 
 need to be stressed. He had been in faery. He knew 
 all about otherworld dwarfs. He appeared as a 
 " little man " himself, and spoke of his ancestry 
 and varying forms. 
 
 Amergin and Taliessin are dignified representa- 
 tives of numerous beings with like attributes who 
 meet us at every turn in Celtic folklore; with them 
 too we need acquaintance if we would fully under- 
 
THE DWARF'S PART 35 
 
 stand Dunbar's poem. Perhaps the most nearly 
 cognate in popular Gaelic tradition is a familiar 
 spirit named Luridan who, we are informed,* 
 dwelt in the Orkney Isle of Pomona in the char- 
 acter of Brownie: " This Luridan affirmed that 
 he was the genius astral of that island; that his 
 place or residence in the days of Solomon and 
 David was at Jerusalem; that then he was called 
 by the Jews Belelah [Belial]; after that, he re- 
 mained long in the dominion of Wales, instructing 
 their bards in British poesy and prophecies, being 
 called Urthin Wadd Elgin; ' and now,' said he, ' I 
 have removed hither, and, alas! my continuance 
 is but short, for in seventy years I must resign my 
 place to Balkin, lord of the Northern mountains.' 
 Many wonderful and incredible things did he also 
 relate of this Balkin . . . affirming that he was 
 shaped like a satyr, and fed upon the air, having 
 wife and children to the number of twelve thou- 
 sand, which were the brood of the Northern Fairies, 
 inhabiting Sutherland and Caithness, with the 
 adjacent islands . . . that their speech was an- 
 cient Irish, and their dwelling the caverns of the 
 rocks and mountains." 
 
 In another form of this tradition,! Luridan, 
 " spirit of the air," is said to have come over with 
 Julius Caesar and remained " some hundred of 
 years " in Wales, whence he betook himseK to the 
 
36 THE DWARF'S PART 
 
 North in the year 1500. When conjured up, it is 
 said, he will appear " like a little dwarf with a 
 crooked nose," and can go in an hour " whither 
 he will, to the Turks or to the uttermost parts of 
 the earth." Balkin, similarly conjured up, will ap- 
 pear " like the great god Bacchus upon a little 
 goat," preceded by an innumerable company of 
 dwarfs. He will deliver to the exorcist " a little 
 spirit of a span long, like a little Ethiop," which 
 will become a familiar to his possessor and may be 
 named as the latter likes. 
 
 The identification of Luridan with Brownie 
 (though brownies were not then mere playthings 
 as now) illustrates the way myth is regularly de- 
 graded and suggests the various kinds of super- 
 natural beings with whom Dunbar was acquainted. 
 The number of uncanny spirits abroad in his time 
 was legion. Reginald Scot enumerates enough in 
 the following passage: * *' Our mothers' maids," 
 he says, " have so frayed us with bull-beggars, 
 spirits, witches, urchins, elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, 
 pans, fauns, silens, kit-with-the-canstick, tritons, 
 centaurs, dwarfs, giants, imps, calcars, . . . Robin 
 Goodfellow, the spoorn, the mare, the man-in-the- 
 oak, the hell-wain, the firedrake, the puckle, . . . 
 Tom Tumbler, Boneless, and such other bugs, that 
 we are afraid of our own shadows." All of these 
 creatures of the imagination were evidently causes 
 
THE DWARF'S PART 37 
 
 of terror to the people, and against them children 
 particularly were continuously warned to " watch 
 out." The " bug," a name (probably from the 
 Welsh hwg — Irish 'puca, a spectre) that we still 
 preserve in our bugbear, bugaboo, and bogy, was 
 but another form of " puck." Langland includes a 
 " helle-pouke " among things and beings that 
 " grieve " men but that Love disarms {Caritas ex- 
 pellit omnem timorem ").* Likewise, Spenser wrote: 
 
 Ne let the pouke nor other evil sprites, 
 Ne let mischievous witches with their charms, 
 Ne let hobgoblins, names whose sense we see not, 
 Fray us with things that be not.f 
 
 With such facts in mind, we are not surprised 
 
 to have Dunbar make his roguish, shape-shifting, 
 
 aerial Dwarf exclaim: 
 
 Quha is cum heir bot I, 
 A bawld busteous bellomy, 
 Amang 30W all to cry a cry 
 With ane michty soun ? 
 
 Satyrs and Pans are associated with dwarfs and 
 fairies in Scot's list of " bugs," or pucks, and Dun- 
 bar was too good a classical scholar not to recall 
 these ancient daemonic figures when he wrote. 
 The little old naked god Pan, reputed son of 
 Hermes, has long been a particularly well-known 
 and popular figure in Great Britain, and his name 
 has given us a common word that everyone now 
 
38 THE DWARF'S PART 
 
 uses without thought of its origin. Pan, scholars at 
 least remember, like Puck, had a way of frighten- 
 ing folk by suddenly appearing among them, crying 
 fiercely, and thus creating a " panic." He even 
 frightened the Titans in their fight with the gods. 
 The Dwarf, then, who came on the stage " with 
 the whirlwind," crying a cry amongst the audience 
 " with a mighty sound," might naturally call him- 
 self " a bold busteous bellamy " if bellamy,* the 
 male counterpart of beldame, had come to mean 
 in Scots a terrifying creature, as is clearly indicated 
 by the following words in Blind Harry's Wallace, 
 where, unless I misread the passage, the hero is 
 represented as taken for one by an English soldier: 
 
 The capteyne speryt: ' Quhat bellamy may thow be. 
 That cummys so grym ? ' f 
 
 And there may be more than appears on the surface 
 in the Dwarf's statement regarding himself, im- 
 mediately after his calling attention to his Panic 
 attribute: 
 
 That generit am of Gyanis kynd, 
 Fra the strong Hercules be strynd; 
 Of al the Occident and ynd 
 My elderis woir the croun. 
 
 Undoubtedly it made the groundlings laugh to 
 hear a dwarf declare he was engendered of giant 
 race, though they perhaps remembered Wee Wee 
 
THE DWARF'S PART 39 
 
 Man of popular ballad fame * who had incredible 
 strength; and fairy-land and giant-land were to 
 them much the same. But Dunbar apparently 
 knew of a deeper connection. Hercules was said 
 to have come to the West and established a sov- 
 ereignty,! and the poet Alexander Scott makes 
 him perform exactly the feat that Dunbar ascribes 
 to the Dwarf's fore-grandsire: 
 
 Hercules, that aikkis vprent 
 
 And dang the devill of hell. J 
 
 To judge from the assertions of the Dwarf, that 
 he was born " far forth in the deserts of Ind," 
 and that of all Occident and Ind his elders wore 
 the crown, he was of the same race as the faery 
 King Oberon, and Shakespeare's Puck, who came 
 to Athens " from the farthest steep of Ind," while 
 there is much to link him with the famous Robin 
 Goodfellow. No elvish figure is more familiar to us 
 than Robin, " merry wanderer of the nighl ," the 
 shrewd and knavish spirit " that frights the maid- 
 ens of the villagery," whose mad pranks and merry 
 jests are found perpetuated in a tract printed in 
 1628.§ To these jests and pranks he is there said to 
 have been stimulated by his faery father, who thus 
 reveals the boy's power to him: 
 
 By nature thou hast cunning shifts, 
 Which I '11 increase with other gifts. 
 Wish what thou wilt, thou shalt it have; 
 
40 THE DWARF'S PART 
 
 And for to vex both fool and knave. 
 Thou hast the power to change thy shape, 
 To horse, to hog, to dog, to ape. 
 
 Robin (otherwise called Hobgoblin) does, indeed, 
 many incredible things by turning himself into 
 " divers sundry shapes," such as, in one prank, 
 into a bird, horse, and fish, and at other times into 
 various human forms.* We should note particu- 
 larly that he appears as a ghost, with a torch in his 
 hand, to frighten an old usurer into liberality, and 
 as a bard. 
 
 Robin, it will be remembered, was a naked 
 dwarf, and resented being offered clothes by a maid 
 whom he had helped to break hemp. 
 
 Because thou lay'st me, himpen, hampen, 
 I will neither bolt nor stampen; 
 'T is not your garments new or old. 
 That Robin loves: I feel no cold. 
 
 To have the royal dwarf Blind Harry described 
 as naked, need cause us, then, no surprise. As we 
 read in an amusing Scottish burlesque contem- 
 porary with the Interlude, a curiously transformed 
 bit of folklore telling of Berdok, King of Babylon, 
 another shape-shifter who found ferlys in faery: 
 
 Kingis vsit nocht to weir clayis [clothes] in tha dayis 
 But 3eid [went] nakit, as myne auctor sayis; 
 Weill cowd he play in clarschocht and on lute.f 
 
 Faery dwarfs were skilled in minstrelsy. 
 
THE DWARF'S PART 41 
 
 We shall now much better understand the varia- 
 tions of Dunbar's Dwarf, who declared he was not 
 only the naked Blind Harry, who had long been in 
 faery, but a sergeant out of Sultan-land, who could 
 bind bears by the strength of his hand. In making 
 this latter association, Dunbar had evidently in 
 mind some such figure as that of the Turk in the 
 curious little romance of The Turk and Gawain,"^ 
 where the Turk is a dwarf, possessed of a cloak of 
 invisibility, and of bewildering strength, who leads 
 the hero through a hill into the underworld and 
 then performs marvellous feats on his behalf. He 
 shows Gawain the residence of the king of the Isle 
 of Man,t whom he declares to be " a heathen Sul- 
 tan," commanding a hideous rout of giants. 
 
 Many auentures thou shalt see there 
 Such as thou neuer saw yare 
 In all the world about. 
 
 So this dwarf from Sultan-land addresses the 
 knight, who was also to find ferlys in faery. The 
 Turk, we learn, was under a spell and sought aid 
 from a mortal. Thanks to Ga wain's mediation, he 
 overcame his enemies, and himself became king of 
 the Isle. 
 
 Still another of the Dwarf's variations was " the 
 Ghost of Guy," % a spirit-personage, whose asso- 
 ciation with Blind Harry and the otherworld Turk 
 is of great interest. 
 
42 THE DWARF'S PART 
 
 Guy was a citizen of Alexti, near Bayonne, 
 " whose ghost when his body was buried, without 
 sightly form, appeared to his own wife and tor- 
 mented her greatly, eight days after his burying." 
 Inasmuch " as she ne wist whether it were a gylerie 
 of the fiend or no," she asked counsel of the prior 
 of the monastery near by. He too was afraid that 
 it might be a " gylerie of the fiend," houseled a 
 large company that no harm might come to them, 
 and went to converse with the troubled spirit. The 
 ghost was only " a mere voice and small as of a 
 child," which followed the prior " as the sound of 
 a broom sweeping a pavement "; but it carried on 
 a long argument with the prior and gave him much 
 information about evil spirits and purgatory " in 
 the middle of the earth." It explained that fiends 
 have a way of appearing to dying men to draw 
 them from their belief " by grinding of their teeth 
 and their grimly and grisly looks." The Virgin has 
 power over these fiends because she is " Queen of 
 Heaven, and Lady of the World, and Empress of 
 Hell." 
 
 Sir David Lyndsay relates, in the prefatory 
 epistle to his Dream, how he amused King James V 
 when his attendant in youth, sometimes singing 
 and dancing, sometimes " playing farces on the 
 floor," 
 
THE DWARF'S PART 43 
 
 And sumetyme lyke ane feind, transfigurate, 
 And sumetyme lyke the greislie gaist of Gye; * 
 In divers formis oft-tymes disfigurate, 
 And sumtyme dissagysit full plesandlye. 
 
 He might almost have been impersonating the vari- 
 ations of Dunbar's Dwarf. 
 
 In mediaeval Scotland, it is well to remember, 
 fairies and fiends were not far asunder, and it was 
 no more remarkable for the long-lived, shape- 
 shifting Luridan, alias Brownie, to have been called 
 Belial than for the long-lived, shape-shifting Dwarf, 
 alias Blind Harry, giant Turk, and Ghost of Guy, 
 to have had a grandsire Gog Magog. In a burlesque 
 Scottish " tragedy," Sir John RowlVs Cursing,^ 
 written about the date of the Interlude, the author 
 calls upon Belial and all sorts of devils to revenge 
 the stealing of his geese: 
 
 Gog and Magog, and grym Garog, 
 
 The devil of hell, the theif Harog, . . . 
 
 And Brawny als, that can play kow 
 
 Behind the claith, with many mow (more) . . . 
 
 And vthiris devillis thair salbe sene, 
 
 Als thik as mot in sonis heme." 
 
 After reading this poem, one feels rather like Fer- 
 dinand, who, when plagued by Ariel, cried: 
 
 Hell is empty, 
 And all the devils are here. 
 
44 THE DWARF'S PART 
 
 " When the thousand years are expired," wrote 
 St. John the EvangeHst, " Satan shall be loosed 
 out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the 
 nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, 
 Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: 
 the number of whom is as the sand of the sea." * 
 Gog and Magog were made into one giant figure 
 and his fame spread abroad in Britain by Geoffrey 
 of Monmouth,t '* in stature twelve cubits, and of 
 such prodigious strength that at one shake he 
 pulled up an oak as if it had been a hazel wand " 
 — another Hercules. The Interlude, it is clear, was 
 not only written in a mood of devilry, but notably 
 concerned devils, or faery folk who were regarded 
 as such. 
 
 The numerous otherworld beings who appear in 
 Gaelic story " in divers forms oft times disfigurate" 
 were actually represented by the pious, if not by 
 all serious folk, as " sons of Belial." | For ages the 
 clergy combated popular convictions about the 
 " people of the hills," the Tuatha de Danann,§ not 
 going so far as to deny their existence, but anx- 
 iously discountenancing them as evil spirits with 
 whom it was dangerous to have dealings. But even 
 they, with all their power, did not prevent either 
 the stories of the Celtic gods and heroes abun- 
 dantly, or the belief in them measurably, from being 
 perpetuated in Scotland even to our own day. 
 
THE DWARF'S PART 45 
 
 Dunbar, as we have seen, identified his Dwarf 
 with a heathen underworld sprite, a spirit of the 
 Christian hereafter, and a bhnd old man from 
 faery. He made him act like a bold busteous bel- 
 lamy, a noisy Pan or satyr. He ascribed to him 
 power to prophesy and provide good gifts for men. 
 The well-informed seventeenth-century Scot, the 
 Rev. Mr. Kirk, in his Secret Commonwealth of 
 Elves, Fauns and Fairies* a book that has been 
 called " a kind of metaphysic of the fairy world," 
 shrewdly remarked: "How much is written of 
 pigmies, fairies, nymphs, sirens, apparitions, which 
 though not the tenth part true, yet could not 
 spring of nothing." f Certainly not, we agree, but 
 of what ? Under pain of retarding a little the dis- 
 cussion of the main points here at issue, let us 
 stop a moment to inquire the spring of the various 
 superstitions to which the consideration of Dun- 
 bar's poem has naturally led us. And as an aid we 
 may do well to note the following striking words of 
 Thomas Nash, written soon after Shakespeare im- 
 mortalized fairy lore in his Midsummer-Nighfs 
 Dream: " The Robin-good-fellows, elfs, fairies, 
 hobgoblins of our latter age, which idolatrous 
 former days and the fantastical world of Greece 
 ycleped Fauns, Satyrs, Dryads, Hamadryads, did 
 most of their pranks in the night." This passage, 
 as Nutt pointed out, J suggests a parallel " far 
 
46 THE DWARF'S PART 
 
 closer and weightier in import than its author 
 imagined." " The parallel is a valid and illumi- 
 nating one, for the fauns and satyrs are of the train 
 of Dionysus, and Dionysus in his oldest aspect is a 
 divinity of growth, vegetable and animal, wor- 
 shipped, placated, and strengthened for his task, 
 upon the due performance of which depends the 
 material welfare of mankind, by ritual sacrifice. 
 Dionysus was thus at first a god of much the same 
 nature, and standing on the same plane of develop- 
 ment as, by assumption, the Irish Tuatha de Da- 
 nann. But in his case the accounts are at once 
 fairly early and extensive, in theirs late and 
 scanty." 
 
 Speaking of the Robin Goodfellow of 1628, Nutt 
 adds: " I believe that in this doggrel chapbook we 
 have the worn-down form of the same incident 
 found in the legends of Arthur and Merlin, of 
 Cuchulinn and Mongan, told also in Greek my- 
 thology of no less a person than Dionysus, son of 
 Zeus and Semele, the mischievous youth who, as 
 we learn from the Homeric Hymn, amused himself 
 in frightening Greek sailors by transformation 
 tricks of much the same nature as those dear to 
 Puck." 
 
 To go farther with such speculation here would 
 be out of place. SuflSce it to state that the more one 
 studies the evidence, the more one sees that the 
 
THE DWARF'S PART 47 
 
 '* idolatrous former days " of Britain had close 
 likeness with " the fantastical world of Greece." 
 The Interlude was plainly written for some gay 
 festival. The Dwarf says he has come to the as- 
 sembly at Edinburgh with three companions, Wel- 
 fare, Wantonness and Play, " to put care clean to 
 flight." His last request is for a buxom wife and 
 a bountiful drink. He declares himself the symbol 
 of Wealth, and ends the recital of his own varying 
 manifestations by predicting great prosperity to 
 his hearers, plenteous comfort, which it was his 
 mission to bring. 
 
 My name is Welth. Thairfoir be blyth 
 I am cum confort 30W to kyth. 
 Suppois wrechis will wail and wryth. 
 
 All darth I sail gar [make] die. 
 
 The Dwarf was a playful and wanton but benefi- 
 cent spirit, who was able to bring good gifts be- 
 cause he came from the chief seat of wealth, as 
 well as mirth, the land of faery. As we read in the 
 Voyage of Bran: * 
 
 Wealth, treasm-es of every hue, 
 
 Are in Ciuin [Gentle Land], a beauty of freshness, 
 
 Listening to sweet music. 
 
 Drinking the best of wine. 
 
 The Dwarf represents, in a form parallel to 
 Brownie-Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, the baser 
 
48 THE DWARF'S PART 
 
 agricultural daimones of ancient Greece, Pans and 
 Fauns and Satyrs, who followed in the train of 
 Bacchus-Dionysus. Dunbar knew Bacchus as " the 
 gladder of the table," while the author of the 
 Wallace, crediting the English with an orgy after 
 the hanging at Ayr, remarked: " Thar chyftayne 
 was gret Bachus off wyn." Dunbar also described 
 Pluto as " an elrich incubus in cloak of green,"* 
 even as Chaucer before had called him " king of 
 faerie " f and pictured him with his queen Pro- 
 serpina disporting and making melody about a 
 well. Walter Map J explicitly mentioned Pan in 
 picturing his dwarf-king Herla, who, like Blind 
 Harry, was " long in faery ferlys to find." Major § 
 connected brownies (brobne) with fauns, and 
 gravely expressed doubt whether they really could 
 prophesy, as men in his time asserted. In the Mid- 
 dle Ages, indeed, no argument was needed to con- 
 nect the classical and Celtic underworlds. The like- 
 ness of pagan British and Greek traditions was then 
 recognized by scholars, to the delight of some and 
 the discomfiture of others. 
 
 There is reason, not only to connect Dunbar's 
 Dwarf with Dionysus, but also to regard the Inter- 
 lude as a sort of satyr-play. Hesiod tells of 
 
 the worthless idle race of Satyrs 
 And the gods, Kouretes, lovers of sport and dancing. 
 
THE DWARF'S PART 49 
 
 The Kouretes, says Strabo, " inspire terror by 
 armed dances accompanied by noise and hub- 
 bub." * It was the ancient Greek custom to cele- 
 brate the feast of Dionysus, whose cult was sub- 
 stantially that of the Kouretes, with orgiastic 
 rites and Bacchanalian revels, and later were 
 enacted mystery -plays in his honor. " The Satyr- 
 play," says Gilbert Murray,t " coming at the end 
 of the tetralogy, represented the joyous arrival of 
 the Reliving Dionysus and his rout of attendant 
 daimones at the end of the Sacer Ludus." 
 
 Now the Druids held festivals to the gods which 
 were maintained in mediaeval Scotland at such 
 times as Beltane and Hallowe'en, and at the latter, 
 in special thanksgiving for the harvest, it was still 
 supposed in Dunbar's day that fairies were wont 
 to hold a great revel-rout. | 
 
 Montgomery,! in his Fly ting with Pol wart, thus 
 describes how the " good neighbours," or fairy 
 Good People, were then thought to act: 
 
 In the hinder end of haruest, on Alhallow euen. 
 When our good nighbours doe ryd, gif I read right. 
 Some buckled on a bun wand, and some on a been, 
 Ay trottand in trupes from the twilight; 
 Some sadleand a shoe aip all graithed into green. 
 Some hobland on ane hempstalke, hoveand to the hight. 
 The King of Pharie, and his court, with the Elfe Queen, 
 With many elrich Incubus, was rydand that night. 
 
50 THE DWARF'S PART 
 
 Polwart, addressing his opponent in the same 
 colloquy, referring to Argyll, declares: 
 
 Into the land where thou was borne, 
 I read of nought hot it was skant; 
 Of cattell, cleithing, and of corne, 
 Where wealth and welfaire baith doth want. 
 
 In greater or less degree, all Scotland was in want 
 of these same things, and nothing could have been 
 more appropriate than for Dunbar, if called upon 
 to contribute to a festival entertainment at such a 
 time as Hallowe'en, or more likely May-day,* to 
 picture a supernatural Dwarf, a fertility-daemon, 
 bringing upon the stage Wealth and Welfare, as 
 well as Wantonness and Play. 
 
 Even as A Midsummer-Nighfs Dream is our pre- 
 eminent fairy fantasy, so Euripides' Bacchanals is 
 the preeminent Greek presentation of a daemonic 
 revel; and it is quite as illuminating to compare 
 certain features of the latter as of the former with 
 The Dwarfs Part of the Play. It has often been 
 pointed out how marvellously Shakespeare has 
 caught the spirit of ancient fairy lore in his su- 
 premely original and sparkling drama, planned to 
 " awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth," and 
 I have already indicated basic resemblances be- 
 tween his fairy figures and Dunbar's Dwarf. But 
 Euripides brings us nearer to the more divine per- 
 sonages Dionysus and Kouros, with whom Pan and 
 
THE DWARF'S PART 51 
 
 Satyr are connected, even as Brownie and Luridan 
 with the more pretentious, if not more primeval, 
 Amergin and Taliessin. 
 
 The Bacchanals opens, like most of Euripides' 
 plays,* with a formal speech addressed to the audi- 
 ence by a solitary supernatural figure, in this case 
 Dionysus, alias Bacchus, lacchus, Bromius, the 
 Clamor-king, which is parallel in idea to the pro- 
 nouncements of the Celtic shape-shifting poets 
 just mentioned, and in expression as well, to the 
 opening of the Interlude. 
 
 The wine-god abruptly appears alone on the 
 stage and thus speaks : f 
 
 I to this land of Thebes have come, Zeus' Son 
 
 Dionysus, born erstwhile of Cadmus' child 
 
 Semele, brought by levin-brand to travail. 
 
 My shape from God to mortal semblance changed . . . 
 
 Leaving the gold-abounding Lydian meads 
 
 And Phrygian, o'er the Persian's sun-smit tracts. 
 
 By Bactrian strongholds. Media's storm-swept land. 
 
 Still pressing on, by Araby the Blest, 
 
 And through all Asia, by the briny sea 
 
 Lying with stately-towered cities thronged. 
 
 Peopled with Hellenes blent with aliens, 
 
 To this of Hellene cities first I come. 
 
 Having established in far lands my dances 
 
 And rites to be God manifest to men. 
 
 To another land 
 
 Then, after triumph here, will I depart, 
 And manifest myself. 
 
52 THE DWARF'S PART 
 
 Here we have a mysterious personage, claiming 
 to be the son of great Zeus, who has travelled all 
 over the Occident and Ind, and manifested him- 
 self in different shapes, now come to Thebes, with 
 a revel-band, " fraught with many marvels," to 
 show himself in his power and to institute his rites. 
 Dionysus belongs to the Kouretes, givers of wealth, 
 and the chorus in the Bacchanals sings : 
 
 Our God, the begotten of Zeus, hath pleasure 
 In the glee of the feast where his chalices shine; 
 
 And Peace doth he love, who is giver of treasure, 
 Who of Youth is the nursing-mother divine. 
 
 On the high, on the low, doth his bounty bestow 
 
 The joyance that maketh an end of woe, 
 The joyance of wine. 
 
 " The madding Satyr-band " he leads are all intent 
 on wantonness and play. For them no care; for 
 Thebes no dearth. Dionysus " gave men the grief - 
 assuaging wine." " Dionysus upon women will not 
 thrust chastity." Surely the mood of the Interlude 
 is the mood of the Bacchanals. 
 
 We have dwelt long — I hope not too long — 
 upon Dunbar's Dwarf and the statements put into 
 his mouth. To illuminate one of his manifestations, 
 it has been necessary to try to illuminate all; for 
 all together go to show the confused background of 
 belief that explains the mythical figure of Blind 
 Harry, long a denizen of faery, with whom we are 
 
THE DWARF'S PART 53 
 
 primarily concerned. But before we leave the Bac- 
 chanals, we may well consider the character of a 
 Greek celebrity who appears in the play in com- 
 pany with Dionysus, sense-bereft, but not, like 
 
 Pentheus, stark-mad — 
 
 The seer 
 Tiresias, in dappled fawnskins clad! 
 O sight for laughter. 
 
 " This Tiresias," said Louis Dyer,* " is not the 
 dread shade that defies in Homeric song the power 
 of darkness and seems to live in death. Nor is he 
 the Tiresias of Sophocles, that majestic incarna- 
 tion of wisdom whose mighty wrath and burning 
 scorn cowed even the spirit of Oedipus the Great. 
 Tiresias in the Bacchanals is grotesque, if we forget 
 that Dionysus has entered into him and possessed 
 him, when he comes upon the stage in a Bacchic 
 garb, ill-suited alike to his years and his priestly 
 office. He is bent upon taking his part in Bacchic 
 re veilings, and is in the act of seeking another — 
 a companion old like himself, and like himself ill- 
 suited for the dance. This companion appears; he 
 is the royal Cadmus, and shows at the outset 
 eagerness even greater than that of Tiresias for 
 gambolling in the wilderness of Cithaeron, saying: 
 
 ' Wliere leads the dance, where must we take our turn 
 And toss our gray-haired heads ? Interpret thou, 
 Aged Tiresias; lead my old age. 
 
54 THE DWARF'S PART 
 
 For thou art wise. The livelong day and night 
 Untiring with my thyrsus I '11 smite earth. 
 ' Tis sweet for us when we our age forget.' 
 
 " Tiresias ends by seeming the less grotesque of 
 the two; it is he who turns apologist for Dionysus, 
 and very skilfully his argument begins : 
 
 ' We reason not o'er nicely of the gods. 
 
 They are the heirlooms by our fathers left, 
 
 As old as time; no logic shall destroy them. 
 
 Not though the keenest wit should prompt the thought! * " 
 
 These last words of Euripides we should keep in 
 mind throughout our investigation. That Dunbar 
 read the Bacchanals, is very improbable. But the 
 conviction will grow strong that Blind Harry and 
 Blind Tiresias are products of the same primitive 
 manner of thought. 
 
 In any case, the Blind Harry of the Interlude 
 was decidedly not the author of the Wallace. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 Faery Folk 
 
 'T is Fancy's land to which thou set'st thy feet; 
 Where still, 't is said, the fairy people meet, 
 Beneath each birken shade, on mead or hill. 
 
 While airy minstrels warble jocund notes. 
 
 Collins 
 
 WE get nearer to discovering the secret of the 
 dwarf Blind Harry when we see how strik- 
 ingly what he says of himself in the Interlude — 
 
 I am the nakit Blynd Hary 
 That lang has bene in the Fary, 
 Farleis to fynd, — 
 
 reveals his similarity to Thomas Rhymer, " True 
 Thomas," the famous prophet of Erceldoun. He 
 too was once widely reputed to have been in faery 
 and found ferlys. 
 
 According to a fifteenth-century English poem, 
 which rightly charmed Sir Walter Scott, Thomas 
 Rhymer caught sight of a ravishing fairy as he lay 
 longing one merry May day on Huntly banks, and 
 followed her over a high mountain to the Eildon 
 Tree, where he swore to abide with her evermore, 
 " in heaven or hell." Imposing serious conditions. 
 
56 FAERY FOLK 
 
 she took him by a mysterious underground pas- 
 sage through dark water for three days without 
 food, to her marvellous land, where he witnessed 
 one strange f erly after another. All manner of min- 
 strelsy was there, and Thomas dwelt in that solace 
 so enthralled that several years passed as three 
 days. But then, for reasons into which we need not 
 here enter, his " lovely lady " conducted him back 
 to the land of mortals. When she was about to bid 
 him farewell, and he pleaded with her not to leave 
 him without some token of their intimacy, she 
 vouchsafed to make certain prophecies, which 
 were carefully recorded. But still Thomas pleaded 
 to hear more, saying " Tell me yet of some ferly." 
 Repeatedly she gratified his request, and thus con- 
 veyed to him much knowledge of profit to him 
 both as a minstrel and a seer. 
 
 In a somewhat later poem. The Prophisies of 
 Rymour, Beid, and Marlyng* the agent of the 
 prophecies is " a little man " who was held by one 
 who met him mysteriously by the wayside until 
 he related " uncouth tidings " of the Scottish wars, 
 and exhibited ferlys.f This poem is evidently that 
 with which Sir David Lyndsay says he comforted 
 King James V when he saw him " sorry ": 
 
 The propheceis of Rymour, Beid, and Marlyng, 
 And of mony uther plesand storye, 
 Of the Reid Etin, and Gyir Carlyng. 
 
FAERY FOLK 57 
 
 The words occur in the same passage in which 
 Lyndsay refers to the " grisly ghost of Guy " and 
 " fiends transfigurate." That Thomas Rhymer 
 might be thought to have to do with a fiend would 
 appear from the account given in the ballad of the 
 transformation of his lovely lady into a naked 
 blear-eyed hag: 
 
 Thomas stood up in that stead 
 
 And beheld the lady gay: 
 Her hair it hung over her head, 
 
 Her eyes seemed out, they were so gray. 
 
 And all her clothing was away 
 
 That he before saw in that stead; 
 Her one shank black, the other gray 
 
 And all her body like the lead. 
 
 Thomas's experience was like that which Giral- 
 dus Cambrensis * ascribes to a Welshman named 
 Meilerius, who had for some time intercourse with 
 what was evidently a fairy mistress. " Suddenly," 
 Giraldus relates, without giving the cause, " in- 
 stead of a beautiful girl, he found in his arms a 
 hairy, rough, and hideous creature, the sight of 
 which deprived him of his senses, and he became 
 mad. After remaining many years in this condition 
 he was restored to health in the church of St. 
 David's, through the merits of its saints. But hav- 
 ing always an extraordinary familiarity with un- 
 clean spirits, by seeing them, knowing them, talk- 
 
58 FAERY FOLK 
 
 ing with them, and calling each by his proper name, 
 he was enabled, through their assistance, to fore- 
 tell future events." 
 
 Meilerius was plainly a person of the same sort 
 as he who revealed the future to St. Waltheof, 
 abbot of Melrose (1148-59), as is written in the 
 early alliterative Prophecy of Waldhave* pre- 
 served in the famous Whole Prophecy of Scotland, 
 where he is pictured as a fearful hairy person 
 dreeing his weird in the wilderness. He would not 
 tell all that Waldhave desired to know, but left 
 him with the words: 
 
 Goe musing upon Merling more if thou wil, 
 For I meane for no more, man, at this time. 
 
 We certainly cannot help musing upon Merlin 
 after reading of such a figure, especially upon Mer- 
 lin Sylvester as he appears in the Vita Merlini, 
 where he seems to have the attributes of the savage 
 madman Lailoken, who prophesied to St. Kenti- 
 gern.f 
 
 It has been stated that the Thomas story was 
 perhaps the " immediate prototype " of that of 
 Tannhauser, and many have held that the simi- 
 larity between Erceldoun and Horselberg is too 
 great to be accidental. " Between the Tannhauser 
 legend at one end of the scale, and at the other 
 many a tale picked up in this century, in which the 
 
FAERY FOLK 59 
 
 mortal visitor to Faery is the object of admiration 
 and envy rather than of reprobation, every shade 
 of man's feehng towards the invisible world may 
 be noted." * 
 
 Brave efforts have been made to identify Thomas 
 Rhymer, who found f erlys in faery and thus became 
 a wise prophet, with an historical person of the 
 name,t and to give him a prominent place, along 
 with " Henry the Minstrel," in the roll of actual 
 Scottish poets; but such efforts have been ill- 
 advised. Thomas's prophecies, as has long been 
 known, are of various dates, and to call him the 
 author of the thirteenth-century romance Sir Tris- 
 trem is plainly absurd. That poem may have been 
 attributed to him in the first place because the 
 original French poem on which it is based was 
 written by one Thomas, " Thomas of Brittany "; J 
 but the ascription was no doubt encouraged in 
 order to give more currency to the work. 
 
 Scholars may yet try to identify Tam Lin, Young 
 Tamlane, the famous ballad hero, with some his- 
 torical Scot, Thomas Lynn, or Thomas Lane, Jr.; 
 but so far that has not been done, and we need not 
 labor the point that he is a personage of fiction like 
 Thomas Rhymer. He too, it will be remembered, 
 was taken to faery, but escaped by the help of his 
 mortal true-love. One feature of his story is of 
 particular interest to us in connection with Blind 
 
60 FAERY FOLK 
 
 Harry. When his otherworld mistress recognizes 
 that Tarn Lin is lost to her,* she declares that if 
 she had not been taken unawares she would have 
 made him blind. 
 
 " But had I kend, Tarn Lin," she says, 
 " What now this night I see, 
 I wad hae taen out thy twa grey een. 
 And put in twa een o tree [wood]." f 
 
 Blindness, as an infliction on one forced to leave 
 faery against the will of its most mighty ruler, ap- 
 pears similarly in a story of Celtic type incorpo- 
 rated in the long Saga of Olaf Tryggvason.X Here 
 Helgi Thorisson is released from life with Ingeborg 
 of the Glittering Plains by the prayers of King 
 Olaf; and this interesting reason for his blinding is 
 given, that his jealous fairy-mistress did not wish 
 Norway's daughters to enjoy his love. 
 
 Kirk, who was particularly well acquainted with 
 the ways of fairies, § dwells upon blindness as a 
 punishment inflicted by them on visitors to ensure 
 secrecy regarding their mode of life. " If any super- 
 terraneans," he writes, " be so subtile as to practise 
 sleights for procuring a privacy to any of their 
 mysteries, (such as making use of their ointments, 
 which as Gyges's ring makes them invisible, or 
 nimble, or casts them in a trance, or alters their 
 shape, or makes things appear at a vast distance, 
 etc.) they smite them without pain, as with a puff 
 
FAERY FOLK 61 
 
 of wind, and bereave them of both the natural and 
 acquired sights in the twinkling of an eye." 
 
 " There be many places," said Kirk,* " called 
 fairy-hills, which the mountain people think im- 
 pious and dangerous to peel or discover, by taking 
 earth or wood from them; superstitiously believing 
 the souls of their predecessors to dwell there. And 
 for that end (say they) a mote or mount was dedi- 
 cate beside every churchyard, to receive the souls 
 tUl their adjacent bodies arise, and so become as a 
 fairy -hill; they using bodies of air when called 
 abroad. They also aflBrm those creatures that move 
 invisibly in a house and cast huge great stones 
 but do not much hurt, because counterwrought 
 by some more courteous and charitable spirits that 
 are everywhere ready to defend men (Dan. 10:13), 
 to be souls that have not attained their rest." 
 
 Into a fairy-hill {sidh, shian) Thomas Rhymer 
 is said finally to have gone, as will be seen from the 
 following traditional story of the Highlands. t 
 When two fiddlers one day came to Inverness 
 " nearly three hundred years ago," they were 
 visited by a venerable-looking, grey-haired old 
 man who offered them large inducements to go 
 with him to his dwelling, outside the town and 
 play there for a dance. "When morning came they 
 took their leave highly gratified with the liberal 
 treatment they had received. It surprised them 
 
62 FAERY FOLK 
 
 greatly to find that it was out of a hill and not a 
 house that they issued, and when they came to the 
 town, they could not recognize any place or person, 
 everything seemed so altered. While they and the 
 townspeople were in mutual amazement, there 
 came up a very old man, who on hearing their 
 story, said : ' You are then the two men who lodged 
 with my great-grandfather, and whom Thomas 
 Rhimer, it was supposed, decoyed to Tomna- 
 furach. Your friends were greatly grieved on your 
 account, but it was a hundred years ago, and your 
 names are now no longer known.' It was the Sab- 
 bath day and the bells were tolling; the fiddlers, 
 deeply penetrated with awe at what had occurred, 
 entered the church to join in the oflices of religion. 
 They sat in silent meditation while the bell con- 
 tinued ringing, but the moment that the minister 
 commenced the service they crumbled away into 
 dust." This tale will be found to have great like- 
 ness to many others written down long centuries 
 before. 
 
 We may now consider the connection of Blind 
 Harry, the denizen of faery, with that illustrious 
 personage, who, as Campbell pointed out,* "is in 
 Gaelic tradition and old Gaelic lore the counter- 
 part of Thomas the Rhymour," the mythical bard 
 " to whom nearly all the old poetry in the High- 
 lands is now attributed " — Blind Ossian. 
 
FAERY FOLK 63 
 
 Curiously enough, we have all hitherto over- 
 looked the fact that Dunbar himself definitely 
 connects Blind Harry with Ossian. He represents 
 his faery dwarf as descended from Finn mac Coul, 
 who was Ossian's father; and Harry's own father 
 he makes " mickle " Gow mac Morn, one of the 
 most famous of Fenian heroes. In the fifteenth cen- 
 tury Finn and Gow were familiar figures, even in 
 the Lowlands, and various early Scottish poets al- 
 luded to them with justifiable confidence that the 
 force of their allusions would be felt. Barbour, who 
 mentions a large body of Highlanders as combat- 
 ants at Bannockburn, records that the Lord of 
 Lome incited his men to pursue Bruce by the " en- 
 sampill " of Golmakmorn in conflict with Finn.* 
 Gavin Douglas, a contemporary of Dunbar, writes 
 in his Palace of Honor,] inscribed to James IV, 
 about 
 
 Greit Gowmakmorne and Fyn Makcoul, and how 
 Thay suld be goddis in Ireland as they say. 
 
 Sir David Lyndsay a little later introduces the 
 same worthies at the court of James V. In his 
 Satire of the Three Estates (1538), he pictures a 
 pardoner as exhibiting 
 
 Ane relict lang and braid 
 Of Fine Macoull the richt chaft blaid, 
 With teith and al togidder. 
 
64 FAERY FOLK 
 
 And in another place he represents a man as swear- 
 ing by " grit Gow Makmorne." * Furthermore, 
 genuine Gaelic poems about these and other heroes 
 of the Finn-Ossian cycle were being collected in 
 Scotland by men of station and learning at the 
 beginning of the sixteenth century, as is shown by 
 the precious collection of Scottish Gaelic verse 
 made by the Dean of Lismore. 
 
 Now, one of the best known traditions of the 
 great Ossian concerns his residence in Tir na nOg, 
 the Land of Youth, and his return to the land of 
 mortals. The theme is finely treated in a Gaelic 
 poem by Michael Comyn which, though written 
 in 1748, must, Celtic scholars agree,t in matter at 
 least be very old. This Lay of Oisin, " as he related 
 it to Saint Patrick," is in the characteristic form 
 of a dialogue, and begins with these words of the 
 Saint: 
 
 O! Noble Oisin, O! son of the king! 
 Of greatest actions, valour, and conflicts, 
 Relate to us now without despondency. 
 How thou livedst after the Fians. 
 
 Ossian tells how he went to faery, and how, by 
 standing on a particular stone, he was filled with 
 homesickness; then how the faery queen, " golden- 
 haired Niamh," thrice warned him, when he got 
 leave from her to go back to see Fionn and his 
 great host, on no account to dismount from his 
 
FAERY FOLK 65 
 
 white steed, else he should never return to the Land 
 of Youth, but be an old man, withered and blind. 
 Ossian departed,* but found no tidings of Fionn in 
 Erin. As Niamh had predicted, conditions were 
 not as they had been. After a while, however, a 
 group of men approached, and their leader im- 
 plored him to remove a large flag of marble under 
 which a host of their fellows lay oppressed in dire 
 extremity. The bard speaks : 
 
 I lay upon my right breast, 
 
 And I took the flag in my hand; 
 
 With the strength and activity of my limbs 
 
 I sent it seven perches from its place! 
 
 With the force of the very large flag, 
 
 The golden girth broke on the white steed; 
 
 I came down full suddenly, 
 
 On the soles of my two feet on the lea. 
 
 No sooner did I come down. 
 
 Than the white steed took fright; 
 
 He went then on his way. 
 
 And I, in sorrow, both weak and feeble. 
 
 I lost the sight of my eyes, 
 
 My form, my countenance, and my vigour; 
 I was an old man, poor and blind. 
 Without strength, understanding, or esteem. 
 
 Patrick! there is to thee my story, 
 
 As it occurred to myself without a lie. 
 My going and my adventures in certain. 
 And my returning from the " Land of Youth." 
 
66 FAERY FOLK 
 
 The injunction put upon Ossian not to dismount 
 from his steed in the land of mortals is duplicated 
 in the ancient tale of Loegaire mac Crimthain, who, 
 after a year's residence in the faery realm of Mag 
 Mell, the Plains of Pleasure, was filled with a desire 
 to seek tidings in his old home of Connaught, but 
 who, mindful of a warning by the ruler of the sidh, 
 resisted the urging of his kinsmen to alight on 
 earth, declared that he came merely to bid them 
 farewell, and returned unscathed to the other- 
 world, whence he has not since issued.* 
 
 On the other hand, an object lesson in the result 
 of disobedience to faery command was afforded 
 Bran son of Febal, in the oldest extant tale of the 
 sort (written down perhaps as early as the seventh 
 century),! though the hero himself escaped. Bran, 
 we read, was led mysteriously on a voyage, with 
 certain comrades, to the Isle of Joy and the Land 
 of Women, but even among the delights of Elysium 
 homesickness seized one of the company, Nechtan 
 son of Colbran. " His kindred kept praying Bran 
 that he should go to Ireland with him. The woman 
 said to them their going would make them rue. 
 However, they went, and the woman said that 
 none of them should touch the land. Then they 
 went until they arrived at a gathering at Srub 
 Brain. The men asked of them who it was came 
 over the sea. Said Bran: * I am Bran the son of 
 
FAERY FOLK 67 
 
 Febal,* saith he. However, the other saith: 'We 
 do not know such a one, though the Voyage of 
 Bran is in our ancient stories.' The man [Nechtan] 
 leaps from them out of the coracle. As soon as he 
 touched the earth of Ireland, forthwith he was a 
 heap of ashes, as though he had been in the earth 
 for many hundred years." 
 
 In the Breton lay of Guingamor* possibly by 
 Marie de France, we have the same falling from 
 the horse of the mortal returned from faery and 
 his accompanying decrepitude, when he has broken 
 the command of his otherworld mistress; but here 
 the command is not that he refrain from alighting, 
 but that he refrain from eating food in his native 
 land.f Guingamor, in pursuit of a mysterious 
 white stag, is led to a faery castle where were 
 
 Sons de herpes et de vieles 
 Chanz de vallez et de puceles. 
 
 With the mistress of the place he dwells in delight 
 three hundred years, though these seem to him 
 but three days. When finally he returns home to 
 tell his kinsmen of his adventure, he learns that 
 they are all dead, but that the story of his strange 
 departure is still held in memory by their descend- 
 ants. To a charcoal-burner he recounts his other- 
 world experience, and then prepares to return. 
 Growing very hungry, however, he eats some 
 
68 FAERY FOLK 
 
 apples from a tree by the roadside, whereupon he 
 immediately becomes old and feeble.* 
 
 A Celtic tale, similar in many respects to that of 
 Bran, is told by Walter Map (tl209) in his De 
 Nugis Curialium,^ of an ancient British king, by 
 name Herla, who is conducted by a dwarf through 
 a stone J to a mysterious, brilliant underworld, 
 whence he is permitted to return with his men after 
 what seems to them only three days, but with the 
 strict injunction that none shall dismount from 
 horseback until a little dog the dwarf gives them 
 shall leap down from the arms of his holder. Herla 
 rides but a short while before he sees an old shep- 
 herd of whom he asks news of the queen. He is 
 informed that stories of Herla's disappearance re- 
 main in the tales of the Britons, but that Saxons 
 have ruled in the land for two hundred years. 
 Though nearly overcome by amazement. King 
 Herla keeps to his horse. Some of his followers, 
 however, alight, and when they touch the earth 
 they crumble to dust — a fate that reminds us of 
 what happened to the Two Fiddlers who lived for 
 a hundred years with Thomas Rhymer. 
 
 According to Map's story, Herla and his band 
 ride on and on for ages, but at last disappear in 
 the River Wye, in the year that Henry II was 
 crowned. Whether or no it was Map who first con- 
 nected this tale with the famous " Mesnie Helle- 
 
FAERY FOLK 69 
 
 kin," we cannot say; * but this we know, that Hel- 
 lekin, who afterwards became the stage-figure Har- 
 lequin, was represented in the Middle Ages as a 
 follower of Morgain la Fee,t and the idea of a 
 faery cavalcade was then widespread. Even Arthur 
 was made the leader of the Wild Chase. 
 
 In the Scottish romance of ^ger and Grime, % 
 which was written about the same time as the 
 Wallace, the " forbidden country " to which the 
 heroes go, like Chretien's Yvain, is evidently faery. 
 There the lady mistress of the place § heals Eger's 
 grievous wounds by magic ministrations and com- 
 forts him by marvellous music. When, despite her 
 urging to the contrary, she finds him determined 
 to leave her, she warns him that if he does so his 
 wounds will break out afresh, and this proves to 
 be the case. When Eger approaches his old home, 
 he feels them so sorely that he falls from his horse, 
 which immediately disappears, and he is aban- 
 doned with desperately sad longings for the " far 
 country," the land of all solace. However disfig- 
 ured, we have here at bottom the same appealing 
 story of a mortal's visit to faery,|| where the art of 
 healing flourishes supreme. The name of the chief 
 hero may be identical with that of Oger le Danois, 
 whose long life of happy youth with Morgain la 
 Fee was to end so disastrously for him when from 
 his head was taken the crown which Morgain had 
 
70 FAERY FOLK 
 
 placed there.* It was Morgain, we recall, who took 
 Arthur to Avalon, land of immortals, whence 
 some day, according to the " Briton hope," he is 
 expected to return, " rex quondam rexque futu- 
 rus." t As Lydgate wrote: 
 
 He as a king is crowned in fairye. 
 
 With sceptre and sworde, and with his regalye 
 
 Shall resorte, as lorde and souerayne 
 
 Out of fairy, and reigne in Britayne, 
 
 And repayre agayne the Rounde Table. J 
 
 Gawain too went to faery, but has not yet returned 
 to set men an example of his courtesy, as Chaucer 
 conceived might be. Both Arthur and Gawain are 
 brought into connection with Blind Harry by 
 Dunbar. 
 
 " The religion of the British tribes," wrote 
 Elton, § " has exercised an important influence 
 upon literature. The mediaeval romances and the 
 legends which stood for history are full of the ' fair 
 humanities ' and figures of its bright mythology. 
 The elemental powers of earth and fire, and the 
 spirits which haunted the waves and streams, ap- 
 pear again as kings in the Irish Annals, or as saints 
 and hermits in Wales. The Knights of the Round 
 Table, Sir Kay and Tristram and the bold Sir 
 Bedivere, betray their divine origin by the attri- 
 butes which they retained as heroes of romance. 
 It was a goddess, ' Dea quaedam phantastica,^ who 
 
FAERY FOLK 71 
 
 bore the wounded Arthur to the peaceful valley. 
 * There was little sunlight on its woods and streams, 
 and the nights were dark and gloomy for want of 
 the moon and stars.' This is the country of Oberon 
 and of Sir Huon of Bordeaux. It is the dreamy 
 forest of Arden. In an older mythology, it was the 
 realm of a King of Shadows, the country of Gwyn 
 ap Nudd, who rode as Sir Guy on in the ^Faerie 
 Queene ' — 
 
 ' And knighthood took of good Sir Huon's hand, 
 When with King Oberon he came to Fairyland.' " 
 
 Attention should also be called to a charming 
 little Scottish ballad entitled The Wee Wee Man* 
 which presents us with a similar personage bred 
 in Blind Harry's own locality, unaffected by 
 courtly array. The Wee Wee Man was so mysteri- 
 ously strong that he could fling a big stone as far 
 as eye could see, a stone, we read, so big that, even 
 if one were a " Wallace wight," one could not have 
 lifted it to one's knee. The Wee Wee Man's dwel- 
 ling is said to have been the bonny otherworld, 
 whither he apparently took his mortal lady-love on 
 horseback to see the faery queen, with her gay 
 attendants, in a castle of crystal and gold. 
 
 And there were dancing on the floor. 
 
 Fair ladies jimp and sma; 
 But in the twinkling of an eye. 
 
 They sainted clean awa. 
 
72 FAERY FOLK 
 
 In an elaborate version of this theme, a poem in 
 eight-Hne stanzas,* found in a manuscript of the 
 fourteenth century, a poem closely related to the 
 ballad yet not its source, the recounting of the 
 " ferly " (so it is called) of the " little man " was 
 planned, like that of Thomas Rhymer, to start a 
 string of prophecies. f Such instances of the use of 
 faery stories in Scotland as a prelude to prophecy 
 should be kept in mind in our inquiry. Long estab- 
 lished traditions, paralleled in Greek times, attest 
 that inhabitants of the otherworld had, and visit- 
 ors there might gain, the gift of prophecy, and such 
 beings were naturally made the mouthpieces of 
 words of wisdom whenever their utterance seemed 
 desirable to literary men. 
 
 If, as seems likely from the Celtic parallels. 
 Blind Harry was old, withered and blind because 
 he had disobeyed his otherworld mistress, and, 
 having lived long in faery, was forced to resume 
 the course of his natural years when re-entrance 
 to that eternal realm was forbidden him, it was 
 most natural for Dunbar to have the Dwarf of the 
 Interlude announce identity with him, if only be- 
 cause of his physical appearance.J But there was 
 evidently more in the situation than that. Visitors 
 to faery and inhabitants of faery were both faery 
 folk, and as such were inevitably confused in the 
 popular mind. While mortal visitors to faery might 
 
FAERY FOLK 73 
 
 be left on earth in the condition of extreme age, 
 the immortal inhabitants of faery were sometimes 
 dwarfs by nature, and sometimes assumed the 
 shape of dwarfs for purposes of their own. If 
 mortals who for a time had put on immortality 
 and become possessed of faery skill, sang and pro- 
 phesied when they returned from their otherworld 
 life, albeit perhaps afflicted with blindness and 
 physically weak, immortals in pigmy size or of the 
 pigmy realm sang and prophesied on earth as they 
 desired. Merlin, we remember, who could change 
 his semblance at will, and sometimes took the form 
 of a dwarf, once visited Arthur's court as a blind 
 minstrel, led by a little dog, and harped a Breton 
 lay.* 
 
 Innumerable, indeed, are the dwarf minstrels of 
 Celtic fable, and acquaintance with some is neces- 
 sary for the illumination of our theme. 
 
 Perhaps the tiniest of them was Esirt, "chief 
 poet, bard and rhymer " of the pigmy realm of 
 the Lupracan. After offending his ruler King Jubh- 
 dan by moderate praise, Esirt set out for Emania, 
 where at the court of Fergus dwelt Aedh, Ulster's 
 chief poet and man of science. Aedh could stand 
 on full-sized men's hands, but Esirt had room 
 enough on Aedh's palm. Fergus's men were dis- 
 posed to be playful with Esirt, but the dwarf soon 
 revealed such secret knowledge (of the sort Merlin 
 
74 FAERY FOLK 
 
 exhibited before Vortigern) that the King ex- 
 claimed: ** Esirt, thou art in truth no child, but 
 an approved man of veracity." Thereupon Esirt 
 recited a poem he had composed in praise of Jubh- 
 dan and his land, and Fergus loaded him with 
 gifts. Afterwards, Aedh accompanied his fellow- 
 poet home, riding mysteriously on a hare over the 
 seas. Jubhdan was put under bonds to come to 
 Emania and when there showed himself also a su- 
 perior poet and prophet. In a lay that Aedh indited 
 about Jubhdan's faery palace these words occur: 
 " Reciting of romances, of the Fian-lore, was there 
 every day; singing of poems, instrumental music, 
 the mellow blast of horns, concerted minstrelsy. 
 A noble king he is : Jubhdan, son of Abhdaein, of 
 the yellow horse; he is one whose form undergoes no 
 change, and who needs not to strive after wisdom." * 
 Much more prominent among the sweet singers 
 of Gaelic lore was one often mentioned in Ossianic 
 verse, as for example, by Ossian in his Dialogue 
 with St. Patrick: f 
 
 Little Cnu, Cnu of my heart, 
 
 The small dwarf who belonged to Fionn, 
 When he chaunted tunes and songs, 
 He put us into deep slumbers. 
 
 To Ossian the sound of Gnu's finger was dearer 
 than *' all the Saint's clerics in church and coun- 
 try." Gaeilte, one of Ossian's last comrades, having 
 
FAERY FOLK 75 
 
 like him a supernatural span of years, was able to 
 give St. Patrick an ample account of this same Cnu, 
 surnamed Dereoil (Diminutive Nut), " the finest 
 musician that was in either Ireland or Scotland," 
 and from him we learn * that the cause of Cnu's 
 leaving the faery realm, the land of the Tuatha de 
 Danaan, was that " the other musicians were 
 grown jealous of him." The first man that came 
 his way after he emerged from the sidh, was Finn, 
 who discovered the tiny fellow playing on a green 
 (faery) mound, and welcomed him as a friend. It 
 was " the third best windfall Finn ever had." The 
 dwarf came to be " a spell in [Finn's] companion- 
 ship." " The man's it was (and a stupendous gift) 
 to gratify the whole world's throngs at once with 
 minstrelsy "; but he did the Fianna, apparently, 
 still greater service; " when evil awaited them, the 
 dwarf would not conceal it from them." f 
 
 Still another very famous minstrel of the Tuatha 
 de Danaan, was Cascorach, son of Cainchinn, who 
 came out of the sidh of the Dagda's son, Bodhb 
 Derg, with the interesting purpose " to acquire 
 knowledge, and information, and lore for recital, 
 and the Fianna's mighty deeds of valour, from 
 Caeilte son of Ronan." Caeilte, who was now 
 preternaturally old, heard with emotion Casco- 
 rach's request. " To his heed and mind Caeilte 
 then recalled the losses of all those warriors and 
 
76 FAERY FOLK 
 
 great numerous bands among whom he had been; 
 and miserably, wearily, he wept so that breast and 
 chest were wet with him." Cascorach was a min- 
 strel of marvellous skill and played with " a cer- 
 tain fairy cadence " so that even wounded men 
 slept peacefully at the sound." Caeilte introduced 
 him to St. Patrick, who asked him for a specimen 
 of his musical art and craft. After hearing him 
 play, the saint granted him the guerdon of Heaven 
 and broke out into praise of minstrels and reciters 
 of tales. " But for a twang of the fairy spell that 
 infested it," he declared to his scribe Brogan, 
 " nothing could more nearly than Cascorach's 
 music resemble Heaven's harmony." Happily St. 
 Patrick was represented as fond of Fian-lore, and 
 the myths of ancient Erin.* 
 
 Finally, we may mention the marvellous Glas- 
 gerion of ballad fame,t who harped in the queen's 
 chamber " till ladies waxed wood (mad)." Every 
 stroke on his harp gladdened the heart of the king's 
 daughter whose love he sought. He, of course, is 
 " the Bret Glascurion," whom Chaucer speaks of 
 in the House of Fame along with Arion and Chiron 
 and mythical harpers of antiquity, and Gavin 
 Douglas along with Orpheus in his Palace of Honor. 
 The association of these four specially deserves our 
 notice, for their likeness in fundamental nature is 
 clear. 
 
FAERY FOLK 77 
 
 To tJiem, mediaeval poets might have added 
 Amphion, son of Zeus and Antiope, of whom it is 
 said that when he played his lyre the stones not 
 only moved of their own accord to the place where 
 they were wanted, but fitted themselves together 
 so as to form the wall. Different accounts represent 
 him as receiving his lyre from Hermes, Apollo, or 
 the Muses. 
 
 But most instructive perhaps of such parallels 
 between Greek and Celtic fable regarding mythical 
 harpers is that concerning Orpheus, the " tuneful 
 bard," the son of Apollo and the muse Calliope, 
 who performed marvels of minstrelsy. It was not 
 without reason that the story of Orpheus and 
 Eurydice was made over into a Breton lay, and 
 infused with the spirit of Celtic faery. In our time 
 Fiona MacLeod has poetically emphasized the 
 likeness of Orpheus's effort to conduct Eurydice 
 from the nether world with the story of Ossian.* " I 
 have wondered often," he says, " if the ancient 
 Gaelic tale of Oisin and Niamh — the later-life 
 tale of the Son of Fionn and his otherworld love, 
 in the days of his broken years and gathered sor- 
 rows — has not in it the heart of the old Greek 
 story. . . . For Oisin, too, went to the other- 
 world to gather love, and to bring back his youth; 
 but even as Orpheus had to relinquish Eurydice 
 and youth and love, because he looked to take 
 
78 FAERY FOLK 
 
 away with him what Aidoneus had already gath- 
 ered to be his own, so Oisin, the Orpheus of the 
 Gael, had to come away from the place of defeated 
 dreams, and see again the hardness and bitterness 
 of the hitherworld, with age and death as the grey 
 fruit on the tree of life. . . . Oisin did not dwell 
 evermore in the pleasant land whither his youth 
 had gone and he to seek it, but came back to find 
 the world grown old, and all he loved below the 
 turf, and the taunts of the monks of Patrick in his 
 ears, and the bell of Christ ringing in the glens and 
 upon the leas. Nor does any know of his death, 
 though the Gaels of the North believe that he 
 looked his last across the grey seas from Druma- 
 doon in Arran, where that Avalon of the Gael 
 lies between the waters of Argyll and the green 
 Atlantic wave." 
 
 How much it must have meant for Blind Harry 
 to have been " long in faery "! 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 Imaginaey Bards 
 
 My locks were not then so grey; 
 Nor trembled my hands with age. 
 My eyes were not closed in darkness; 
 My feet failed not in the race! 
 
 Who can relate the deaths of the people ? 
 
 Who the deeds of mighty heroes ? " 
 
 Macpherson 
 
 THE Dwarf's Part of the Play introduced us to 
 Amergin and Taliessin, two of the most fa- 
 mous Celtic bards, both of whom were connected 
 with invisible powers and gained their skill thereby. 
 Merlin, the great prophet of Wales (begotten by an 
 incubus and himself the consort of a fay) was simi- 
 larly allied with the other world. These three, as 
 well as Aneurin, Llewarch Hen and others of their 
 sort less well known,* unprejudiced scholars have 
 at last come to perceive, were mythical personages; 
 and yet they were credited with the composition 
 of extant poems written, as Celtic specialists af- 
 firm, in far more recent epochs than those in which 
 the authors were said, even by euhemerizing or 
 otherwise ingenious annalists, to have flourished — 
 the majority not before the twelfth century.j 
 
 79 
 
80 IMAGINARY BARDS 
 
 From primal days, indeed, it was a common 
 thing for British poets to father their own produc- 
 tions upon early celebrities, and even throughout 
 the Middle Ages mythical persons like Thomas 
 Rhymer, as well as real persons like Bede and 
 Thomas a Becket, were represented as the spokes- 
 men of prophecies concocted centuries after they 
 were supposed to, or did actually live. Ancient 
 worthies, moreover, were frequently called up 
 from " the undiscovered country from whose 
 bourn no traveller [ordinarily] returns " to con- 
 vey news to mortals; and, curiously enough, St. 
 Patrick and other saints were made to play a large 
 part in this means of perpetuating pagan lore and 
 giving it credence.* Hymns were attributed to Pat- 
 rick, as also to Columba, and a vision to Adamnan, 
 which they could not have composed. Patrick was 
 said to have codified the Brehon laws, much as old 
 proverbs were put into the mouth of King Alfred, 
 another lawgiver. 
 
 In an old Irish narrative, where " varying " like 
 Blind Harry's is given as the explanation of a hero's 
 ability to authenticate information and prophecy, 
 occurs a good example of a shape-shifter of super- 
 naturally prolonged life who became an informant 
 regarding past days and a credited seer. Tuan 
 Mac Cairill,t after one hundred years as a man, is 
 said to have changed his shape many times during 
 
IMAGINARY BARDS 81 
 
 the next three centuries and more. Finally he was 
 caught as a salmon and eaten by Cairell's wife, was 
 born of her, and grew up with a long memory and 
 superhuman insight. When he was of great age, he 
 was baptized by St. Patrick. At the request of the 
 sixth-century Irish saint Finnen of Moville, who 
 preached the gospel in Ulster, Tuan, then a hermit, 
 told the Christians the story of his life and trans- 
 formations (reciting poems of his own composition) 
 and all the history of Ireland. " There they stay 
 a week conversing together. Every history and 
 every pedigree that is in Ireland, 't is from Tuan, 
 son of Cairell, the origin of that history is. He had 
 conversed with Patrick before them, and had told 
 him; and he had conversed with Colum Cille, and 
 had prophesied to him in the presence of the people 
 of the land." 
 
 The Leabhar Gabhala, or Book of Conquests,* 
 which contaitis the Irish ethnologic legends, de- 
 clares that these were preserved by an early set- 
 tler Fintan, who had lived before the Flood and 
 had been miraculously preserved in order that the 
 memory of the events should not be lost. He was 
 baptized by St. Patrick and gave him an account 
 of everything he remembered himself. 
 
 In the Irish tract called The Champion's Ec- 
 stasy, '\ the faery prince Lug is said to have appeared 
 to Conn of the Hundred Battles (put by the annal- 
 
82 IMAGINARY BARDS 
 
 ists at A.D. 177), carried him off in a magic mist to 
 a wonderful abode, and there informed him of the 
 future history of Ireland, the length of his reign, 
 and the names of his successors for many centuries 
 afterwards. Concerning Conn's experience Nutt 
 remarks:* "It is instructive to note how in the 
 early tenth century the personages and scenery of 
 the otherworld were thus used as convenient ma- 
 chinery for the fabrication of a prophecy, which 
 doubtless owed its origin to the anxiety of some 
 Northern poet to bolster up the claim of the race 
 of Niall to the head kingship of Ireland. Instructive 
 also that, whilst the story-teller makes no attempt 
 to radically modify the primitive pagan character 
 of these beings, he is yet anxious to bring them 
 within the Christian fold by representing them as 
 sons of Adam, clear proof that the process of trans- 
 forming the inmates of the ancient Irish Olympus 
 into historic kings and warriors had already 
 begun." 
 
 Here we may also recall how the great hero 
 Cuchulinn, son of Lug, prince of faery, " after be- 
 ing nine fifty years in the grave," was awakened 
 by St. Patrick, to help him to convert Laegaire mac 
 Neill, King of Ireland, to the true faith. Laegaire 
 (Leary) would not be persuaded until he heard Cu- 
 chulinn tell of his great deeds, amongst others his 
 expedition to Scath, * the shadowy world.' 
 
IMAGINARY BARDS 83 
 
 Perhaps more interesting for our purpose is the 
 tradition of the recovery of the Tdin bo Cudlgne, 
 the most celebrated epic of ancient Ireland, in 
 which Cuchulinn's deeds are narrated. * " Two dif- 
 ferent versions of the legend, one pagan and one 
 Christian, exist. According to the first account, 
 which is preserved in the Book of Leinster, Senchan 
 Torpeist, chief poet and file of Erin about the year 
 598 A.D., called a meeting of the bards and story- 
 tellers of Erin to ascertain whether any of them 
 could recollect the whole of the Tdin ho Cuailgne. 
 They confessed that they remembered only frag- 
 ments, and he then sent away two of their body to 
 the East to seek an old book called The Cuilmenn 
 long since carried away out of Ireland, which was 
 said to contain the whole story of the Tdin. Setting 
 forth, the young bards arrive, on their journey, at 
 the grave of Fergus mac Roich at Magh Aei in Ros- 
 common, and, seating himself on the tomb, one of 
 them addressed to the spirit of Fergus a lay of his 
 own composing. Suddenly he found himself en- 
 veloped in a heavy mist, and Fergus himself ap- 
 peared to him in all his old dignity and splendor, 
 and, during a space of three days, he related to him 
 from beginning to end the Progress of the Tdin. 
 . . . According to [the second, or Christianized] 
 version, Fergus appears in response to the prayers 
 of the chief saints of Ireland collected for this pur- 
 
84 IMAGINARY BARDS 
 
 pose around his tomb. St. Cieran of Clonmacnoise, 
 who was present at the recital, is said to have writ- 
 ten down the tale from beginning to end on a fine 
 vellum manufactured from the skin of his favorite 
 dun cow, hence called the Leabhar na hUidhre, or 
 Book of the Dun Cow. Having offered up thanks- 
 giving, the saints retire, and Fergus returns to his 
 tomb." * 
 
 A similar contrast between a heathen and a 
 Christian version of a legend of poetic inspiration 
 is present, on the one hand, in the Old Norse story 
 of the shepherd Halbjorn Hali, who waited at the 
 grave of Thorleif until that skald rose and in- 
 structed him how to compose a song in his mem- 
 ory, whereafter Halbjorn sang many songs in 
 praise of princes; and, on the other hand, in the 
 Anglo-Saxon story of the herdsman Caedmon, who 
 was instructed by an angel how to compose a song 
 of Creation, whereafter he dictated various Biblical 
 narratives in the monastery of Whitby, as Bede 
 relates. Csedmon is still reputed the first of Anglo- 
 Saxon poets, though he has now been shorn of all 
 the various epics with which he was once credited. 
 
 We can see better why Blind Harry was repre- 
 sented as the author of a poem dealing with events 
 that occurred some two hundred years before when 
 we recognize that it was a persistent habit of Celtic 
 story-tellers to state that mortal visitors to faery 
 
IMAGINARY BARDS 85 
 
 recounted deeds of former days of which they had 
 first-hand knowledge.* As early as in the Voyage 
 of Bran we find the artistic motivation of the many 
 tales of ancients by ancients. After Bran's com- 
 panion Nechtan had suffered the penalty of de- 
 crepitude for disobedience to faery command, Bran 
 sang a quatrain rebuking his folly. " Thereupon," 
 we read, " to the people of the gathering Bran told 
 all his wanderings from the beginning until that 
 time, and he wrote these quatrains [describing his 
 voyage] in ogam, and then bade them farewell, and 
 from that hour his wanderings are not known." 
 
 Even as Bran is pictured as telling later kins- 
 men of his voyage to the otherworld, confirming 
 what was in their ancient stories, so the poet of the 
 Lay of Ossin,\ for artistic ends, represents Ossian 
 as recounting to St. Patrick the circumstances of 
 his journey to Tir na nOg, after the hard battle of 
 Gabhra, when many of the Fianna were slain. In 
 particular, we read of the attitude of the men of 
 Erin when he came back after his long absence. 
 
 On my coining, then, into the country, 
 I looked closely in every direction, 
 I thought then in truth 
 That the tidings of Fionn were not to be found. 
 
 'T was not long for me nor tedious. 
 
 Till I saw from the west approacliing me 
 A great group of mounted men and women. 
 And they came into my presence. . . . 
 
86 IMAGINARY BARDS 
 
 I myself asked then of them, 
 
 Did they hear if Fionn was alive, 
 
 Or did any one else of the Fianna live. 
 
 Or what disaster had swept them away ? 
 
 " We have heard tell of Fionn, 
 
 For strength, for activity, and for prowess, 
 That there never was an equal for him 
 In person, in character, and in mien. 
 
 " There is many a book written down. 
 By the melodious sweet sages of the Gaels, 
 Which we, in truth, are unable to relate to thee. 
 Of the deeds of Fionn and of the Fianna. 
 
 " We heard that Fionn had 
 A son of brightest beauty and form. 
 That there came a young maiden for him 
 And that he went with her to the ' Land of Youth.' " 
 
 '* Ossian Dall, blind Ossian," we have it on good 
 authority, was, a century ago in Scotland, " a per- 
 son as well known as strong Sampson or wise Solo- 
 mon. . . . Ossian, ' an deigh namfiann,^ is prover- 
 bial to signify a man who has had the misfortune 
 to survive his kindred." * This is the chief reason 
 why he became the mouthpiece of so many Gaelic 
 lays and tales of the Fians. Were not the deeds of 
 old heroes indubitable when told by themselves 
 or their contemporaries ? 
 
 In Ireland, Ossian's companion Caeilte attained 
 greater fame than he as a poet and narrator of past 
 events. t Caeilte it is who communicates to St. 
 
IMAGINARY BARDS 87 
 
 Patrick the great body of old lore in the Colloquy 
 of the Elders* Thus that precious anthology be- 
 gins : " When the battle of Comar, the battle of 
 Gowra, and the battle of Ollarba had been fought, 
 and after that the Fianna for the most part were 
 extinguished, the residue of them in small bands 
 and in companies had dispersed throughout all Ire- 
 land, until at the point of time which concerns us 
 there remained not any but two good warriors only 
 of the last of the Fianna: Ossian, son of Finn, and 
 Caeilte, son of Crunnchu, son of Ronan f (whose 
 lusty vigor and power of spear throwing were now 
 dwindled down) and so many fighting men as with 
 themselves made twice nine." 
 
 Ossian and Caeilte set out together in search of 
 hospitality, but after three days separated; Ossian 
 went to his mother Blai in the sidh of Ucht Cleitigh 
 (for she was of the faery folk), while Caeilte with 
 his band by chance met St. Patrick and his clerks. 
 The saint asked a favor of Caeilte, to show him a 
 certain well, and then questioned him particularly 
 about the ancients. "Success and benediction! 
 Caeilte," he finally exclaimed: " all this is to us a 
 recreation of spirit and of mind, were it only not a 
 destruction of devotion and a dereliction of 
 prayer." But Patrick's two guardian angels ap- 
 peared to him and set at rest his fear that it might 
 not be proper for him to be listening to stories of 
 
88 IMAGINARY BARDS 
 
 the Fianna. " With equal emphasis, and coneord- 
 antly, the angels answered him : ' holy cleric, no 
 more than a third part of their stories do those 
 ancient warriors tell, by reason of forge tfulness and 
 lack of memory; but by thee be it [such as it is] 
 written on tabular staffs of poets, and in ollaves ' 
 words ; for to the companies and nobles of the latter 
 time to give ear to these stories will be for a pas- 
 time." Whereupon the angels departed. St. Patrick 
 thereafter sought sedulously to elicit all the lore 
 that Caeilte had in memory. Here we have the 
 framework for the great corpus of Fenian tales con- 
 cerning the elders and, what was also important, 
 full authority for their authenticity; Caeilte was 
 one of the elders himself, supernaturally main- 
 tained alive with but a few others of his clan. 
 
 In the Book of the Dun Cow is recorded how 
 Caeilte came from the dead to help King Mongan 
 to establish the truth of his version of old events 
 against that of the bard Forgoll,* who had threat- 
 ened to satirize Mongan and his family with lam- 
 poons and bespell his land.f Caeilte advances to 
 the court through the air and presents convincing 
 evidence of his own participation in the event 
 under discussion, thus rescuing Mongan from his 
 predicament. Mongan appears from this story to 
 have been a reincarnation of Finn mac Cumhail. 
 After a lapse of several centuries, Finn was born 
 
IMAGINARY BARDS 89 
 
 again into the world, retaining the memory of his 
 past existence. 
 
 Fergus was formerly chief of those poets at 
 Finn's court in whom was " knowledge and the 
 gift of prophecy." In the remarkable story of The 
 Little Brawl at Almhain* this " sapient, trenchant- 
 worded poet, the richly rewarded good man of 
 verse," plays a conspicuous part. " Fergus True- 
 lips, Finn's poet and the Fianna's, rose and before 
 Finn son of Cumall sang the songs and lays and 
 sweet poems of his ancestors and forbears. With 
 the rarest of all rich and costly things Finn and 
 Ossian, Oscar and mac Lughach, rewarded the bard 
 wondrously; whereat he went to Goll mac Morna 
 and in front of him recited the bruidhne or ' Forts,' 
 the toghla or ' Destructions,' the tdna or * Cattle- 
 liftings,' the tochmarcha or ' Wooings,' of his elders 
 and progenitors: by operation of which artistic 
 efforts the sons of Morna grew jovial and of good 
 cheer." It would not have been surprising if this 
 had been the Fergus who was called up from the 
 otherworld to recite the surpassing Tdin. 
 
 Even the famous Finn, father of Ossian and 
 Fergus, was represented as a poet, and various 
 fragments of verse and prophecies, among the old- 
 est productions in Irish, are attributed to him.f 
 ** He was a king," said Caeilte, " a seer, a poet; 
 a lord with a manifold and great train; our magi- 
 
90 IMAGINARY BARDS 
 
 cian, our knowledgeable one, our soothsayer." * 
 Of the conditions of service in Finn's company, we 
 are informed: " Not a man was taken until he were 
 a prime poet versed in the twelve books of poesy, f 
 a curious qualification," as Rhys remarked know- 
 ingly, " for membership in a body which some 
 speak of as the ' militia of ancient Erinn.' " 
 " Two hundred years in flourishing condition and 
 thirty more free of debility (a lengthy term) 
 were Finn's existence; which brought him to the 
 point at which he perished in taking ' the leap of 
 his old age.' " J Finn, tradition affirms, rests in 
 this or that hill in the Highlands, and is expected 
 back. 
 
 It will suffice here to add a few sentences of com- 
 ment by Alfred Nutt: 
 
 " No one at the present day contends that the 
 poems ascribed to Finn, to Oisin, to Cailte, and 
 to Fergus are the compositions of these personages, 
 or are anything else than scraps of a saga, related 
 by means of narratives put into the hero's mouth 
 descriptive of adventures in which he had taken 
 part." § 
 
 " One can hardly fail to be struck by the kinship 
 of tone between the Gaelic poems ascribed to Oisin, 
 and the Welsh ones ascribed to Llywarch Hen. In 
 both cases the reputation of poet is simply due 
 to the semi-dramatic nature of the composition. 
 
IMAGINARY BARDS 91 
 
 Both Oisin and Lly warch Hen were regarded as fit 
 personages in whose mouths to place sentiments of 
 a particular cast, and later ages finding this or that 
 elegy or battle piece assigned to the Gaelic or 
 Welsh prince naturally considered them as being 
 the authors of the same. Oisin and Llywarch are 
 both old and feeble, the last survivors of a mighty 
 generation, savagely rebellious against the slings 
 and arrows of outrageous age, bitterly mindful of 
 the pride and lust of their youth." * 
 
 Blind Harry found ferlys in faery and returned 
 in utter nakedness, though not (presumably) in 
 entire forgetfulness, and trailing clouds of glory, 
 from the other world where was " long " his home. 
 We shall soon have more to say about the tone of 
 the work that passes under his name and shall find 
 that it was natural for a Fenian type of hero. 
 
 The Celtic works above mentioned remind one 
 of what is perhaps the earliest Anglo-Saxon poem, 
 Widsith, where a bard represents himself as a 
 guest at the courts of various historical monarchs, 
 some of whom lived centuries apart. He who " most 
 of all men visited kindreds and nations " now in 
 old age enumerates his wanderings, with the regu- 
 lar tone of regret of the ancient worthy who has 
 outlived his kinsmen. " Many men and rulers I 
 have known; through many stranger-lands I have 
 fared, throughout the spacious earth, parted from 
 
92 IMAGINARY BARDS 
 
 my kinsmen." His name, " Far-Traveller," and 
 what he is made to say, indicate that he is merely 
 a poetic representative of the wandering bard — a 
 figure of fiction, yet more artificially created than 
 Odin, alias Vegtamr, or Way-wont, of Old Norse 
 myth. Odin, says Snorri, was " far-travelled." He 
 was famed for his knowledge of past events.* Wid- 
 slth is only a sketch, but it might have been made 
 into a full resume of Germanic epic history, and the 
 would-be author's personality so particularized 
 that he might reasonably have been regarded as 
 an actual person. There was no good ground, of 
 course, for the former belief of scholars that the 
 real author was himself a far-traveller, and present 
 discussion of the date of the poem on the basis 
 of the references it contains seems curiously vain. 
 We ought to remember that poets have indulged in 
 such artistic fictions from the beginning of time, 
 and for sufficient cause have opened the mouths 
 of men of olden days to recite old tales which the 
 poets had reshaped to gratify their audiences, ac- 
 cording to the measure of their power. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to do more than allude to 
 imaginary bards in classical tradition, such as Or- 
 pheus, of whom mention has already been made. 
 As a result of his fabled descent into Hades, he had 
 attributed to him, amongst other things, various 
 descriptions of that region, which were spread 
 
IMAGINARY BARDS 93 
 
 abroad by itinerant singers. Aristotle held that the 
 poems known under Orpheus' name were fabricated 
 partly by Cecrops and partly by Onomacritus. 
 Who wrote them is unessential here. But we do 
 need to bear in mind that Orpheus was simply a 
 mythical figure like other Greek bards of repute, 
 Musaeus, Olen, Pamphos, Philammon, Eumolpus 
 and Linus, not to mention such personages as 
 Hyacinthus, Narcissus, Glaucus, Adonis and Man- 
 eros, who eventually came to be considered as the 
 authors of the dirges in which their memory was 
 celebrated. In the same mythical class are the seers 
 Melampus, Mopsus, Calchas, Amphiaraus, Hel- 
 enus and Cassandra, in whose names many won- 
 derful words were once spoken. 
 
 More important for us is the blind Demodocus, 
 whom Homer represents as singing of men's glori- 
 ous deeds in the hall of Alcinous, and to him makes 
 wise Odysseus say: * "I praise you beyond all 
 mortal men, whether your teacher was the Muse, 
 the child of Zeus, or was Apollo. With perfect 
 truth you sing the lot of the Achaeans, all that they 
 did and bore, the whole Achaean struggle, as if 
 yourself were there, or you had heard the tale from 
 one who was." Here clearly we have a sufficient 
 reason for putting ancient tales into the mouth of 
 an ancient bard: he might reasonably be pictured 
 as having been in the old struggles himself, or as 
 
94 IMAGINARY BARDS 
 
 hearing the tale from one who was. He might even 
 be represented as the son of a muse, as Thamyris 
 was of Erato, Linus and Orpheus of Calliope, Hy- 
 acinthus of Clio. Homer himself was said by some 
 to be the son of a nymph; likewise Ossian was 
 the son of a faery lady from the sidh. As is well 
 known, a large number of cyclic poems and hymns 
 (preludes), in addition to the Margites and the 
 Battle of the Frogs and Mice, went under the name 
 of Homer, which could not be by the author of the 
 Iliad and Odyssey. 
 
 Similar use was made of Demodocus' as of Hom- 
 er's name. Later writers who look upon this mythi- 
 cal minstrel as an historical person, describe him 
 as a native of Corcyra, and as an aged and blind 
 singer, who composed poems on the destruction of 
 Troy and the marriage of Hephaestus and Aph- 
 rodite. Plutarch refers to the first book of an epic 
 poem by him on the exploits of Heracles. But critics 
 do not now take these statements seriously; and 
 whatever poems may have existed under his name, 
 they are apt to denounce as " forgeries." 
 
 Forgery, however, is scarcely the proper word to 
 use in such cases, though it is constantly so em- 
 ployed. No obloquy need rest upon an author who 
 seeks anonymity by attributing his work to a 
 mythical bard. 
 
IMAGINARY BARDS 95 
 
 There were, of course, imaginary bards and 
 bards who had imaginary experiences, just as some 
 men, according to story, entered the otherworld in 
 the body and some simply dreamt they had gone 
 thither. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 The Mythical and the Actual Blind Harry 
 
 Angels and ministers of grace defend us! 
 
 Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd, 
 
 Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell, 
 
 Be thy intents wicked or charitable, 
 
 Thou com'st in such a questionable shape 
 
 That I will speak to thee. Hamlet 
 
 CAN we discover nothing more definite about 
 the mythical BHnd Harry, whose name the 
 author of the Wallace seems to have chosen as an 
 alias ? If, as Dunbar asserts, he was descended 
 from Finn mac Cumhaill, and all his congeners 
 were Gaels, he cannot in the beginning have been 
 called Harry. That must be an anglicized form of an 
 original Gaelic name, or due to some confusion. An 
 inquiry into this matter, though it may not yield 
 certain results, is essential here, and will be seen to 
 throw more light on conceptions of faery. 
 
 Blind Harry's father, according to Dunbar, was 
 " mickle Gow mac Morn." The poet's statement 
 that the son was " long " in faery implies that he 
 was no permanent resident of the otherworld, but 
 a mortal (fabled or real) who had resided there for 
 an extended period of time. His blindness was ap- 
 
 9« 
 
THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 97 
 
 parently not a self-imposed disguise, but an aflflic- 
 tion he was obliged to endure. Thus, both his 
 ancestry and his experience link him with Blind 
 Ossian, also a son of Gow mac Morn.* 
 
 Under these circumstances, it is not going too 
 far to suggest that Harry may be merely a corrup- 
 tion of Garry, for Celtic tradition has much to tell 
 of a son of Gow mac Morn called Garaidh (Garry), 
 which name in Scotland at the end of the fifteenth 
 century, as we see from the Book of the Dean of 
 Lismore,] was written phonetically in a form re- 
 sembling Zarri, which the first editor regularly 
 transcribed as Garry, and the latest Gairri. It may 
 have been Garry with an aspirate, which is prac- 
 tically Harry. Aedh was the name of Gow mac 
 Morn before he lost an eye, and was therefore 
 called Gow (Goll, blind). Aedh, which means Fire, 
 and is preserved in proper names like MacKay and 
 Mackie, was frequently anglicized as Hugh. 
 
 Garadh mac Morn appears in Irish documents 
 as a decrepit old man telling tales mournfully of 
 the Fianna whom he has outlived: " And his con- 
 dition this : that the major part of his life was past, 
 and his kinsmen all were slain." He is represented 
 as coeval with the fathers of a company of women 
 whom he was left to serve and entertain while the 
 men were away hunting. He could not accompany 
 them, " because," as one of them says, " he is gone 
 
98 THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 
 
 off his lustihood and his spear throwing and be- 
 cause the condition in which he is, is that of old 
 age." When the women call upon him to play chess 
 he refuses, but instead " chants at them an old 
 rhyme " of a chess-match of former days which be- 
 got a quarrel causing great slaughter of the Fianna. 
 The incident is recorded, and the lay is summar- 
 ized, by Caeilte in the Colloquy of the Elders* to 
 explain why a famous curative well at Cnoc na 
 Righ (Hill of the Kings), created by St. Patrick by 
 striking a rock-wall with his staff, was named 
 Garadh's Well. This Garadh was possibly identical 
 or confused with the Guaire Goll, Blind Guaire, 
 one of Finn's bearers of the chessboard, who is the 
 leading figure of the story which the old minstrel 
 tells, perhaps about himself. In any case, Garadh 
 of the clan of Morna, and a brother-champion of 
 Ossian, is well attested as a reciter of tales during 
 his unhappy days of prolonged life; and, as he re- 
 marks significantly, " an ancient man without an 
 ancient legend is amiss." St. Patrick blessed Caeilte 
 for repeating his story because it was " grand lore 
 and knowledge " — such as could evidently be 
 obtained only from a man of an older age. 
 
 Whether or no Garadh mac Morn is to be identi- 
 fied with Guaire Goll,t Blind Guaire, it is worthy 
 of attention that the latter appears as a reciter of 
 old tales in another Erse narrative, preserved in 
 
THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 99 
 
 the twelfth-century manuscript The Book of Lein- 
 ster, which recounts Finn's fearful struggle with 
 phantoms * who " for their sister " sought venge- 
 ance on him in a lonely hunting-lodge in a glen — 
 a tale showing such fundamental resemblance to 
 the famous story of Wallace's visitation by the 
 revengeful ghost of Fawdoun in Gask Hall,t one of 
 the most picturesque sections in Blind Harry's 
 poem, that we may surmise the author here fol- 
 lowed a Highland narrative. Blind Guaire in this 
 case, however, is only an alias for Ossian, as ap- 
 pears from the lines: 
 
 Not " Guaire the Blind " was I called 
 On the day we went at the king's call, 
 To the house of Fiachu who wrought valor 
 To the fortress over Badammar. 
 
 Which suggests the interesting question: Were 
 Blind Harry and Blind Ossian regarded as mere 
 variant names of the same mythical person ? They 
 were at all events both represented alike as sons of 
 Morn and denizens of faery, with supernaturally 
 prolonged lives, while both Blind Guaire and Blind 
 Ossian in extreme old age were tellers of former 
 events. 
 
 " By one name was I never called since I went 
 among peoples," Blind Odin (alias Harr) declares 
 in an Eddie poem,J and Snorri makes him enu- 
 merate fifty names he had adopted at one time or 
 
100 THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 
 
 another. " Then said Gangleri: 'Exceeding many 
 names have ye given him; and, by my faith, it 
 must be a goodly wit that knows all the lore and 
 the examples of what chances have brought about 
 each of these names.' Then Harr made answer: 
 * It is truly a vast sum of knowledge to gather to- 
 gether and set forth fittingly. . . . Some occasions 
 for these names arose in his wanderings; and that 
 matter is recorded in tales. Nor canst thou ever be 
 called a wise man if thou shalt not be able to tell 
 of these great events.' " * Alas that we are not wise 
 enough to tell even a small part of the great careers 
 of Blind Odin, Blind Ossian, and their kind, in 
 their varying forms ! 
 
 It is an interesting fact that in Scotland the 
 game of blindman's buff was called " Blin(d) 
 Har(r)y," and that the same game was also called 
 " Bellie Blin(d)," f for these once popular figures 
 of fiction might have been thought to be alike. 
 Now Billie Blin was the name of a well-known 
 sprite whom Professor Child has confidently identi- 
 fied with Odin in one of his many manifestations. 
 Odin, who often changed his shape, as well as his 
 name, was wont to go about as a blind wayfarer, 
 calling himself " Guest the Blind," " Blind the 
 Bale-wise," or simply " Blind." Scottish ballads J 
 show acquaintance with this mysterious figure, and 
 there is definite parallelism between one episode in 
 
THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 101 
 
 which he plays a part and certam episodes in Blind 
 Harry's Wallace. To throw light on the character of 
 Billie Blin as he appears in the ballad of Earl 
 Brand, Professor Child thus summarized the situa- 
 tion in the Eddie lay of Helgi Hundingslayer: 
 " Hunding and Helgi's family were at feud. Helgi 
 introduced himself into Hunding's court as a spy, 
 and when he was retiring sent word to Hunding's 
 son that he had been there disguised as a son of 
 Hagal, Helgi's foster-father. Hunding sent men to 
 take him, and Helgi, to escape them, was forced to 
 assume woman's clothes and grind at the mill. 
 While Hunding's men are making search, a mysteri- 
 ous blind man, surnamed the bale-wise, or evil- 
 witted (Blindr inn bolvisi), calls out. Sharp are the 
 eyes of Hagal's maid; it is no churl's blood that 
 stands at the mill; the stones are riving, the meal- 
 trough is springing; a hard lot has befallen a war- 
 king when a chieftain must grind strange barley; 
 fitter for that hand is the sword-hilt than the mill- 
 handle. Hagal pretends that the fierce-eyed maid 
 is a virago whom Helgi had taken captive, and in 
 the end Helgi escapes." Similarly, the author of the 
 Wallace twice represents his hero as dressing up as 
 a woman in order to escape from a dangerous 
 plight. We have gone but a little way in the poem * 
 when we read how Wallace, hard pressed by ene- 
 mies, took shelter in a house near-by where a good- 
 
102 THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 
 
 wife succored him, dressed him in clothing of her 
 own, " gaiff him a rok,* syn set him doun to spyn." 
 The Southrons sought him busily in the house. 
 
 Bot he sat still, and span full conandly. 
 As of his tym, for he nocht leryt lang. 
 
 They left completely foiled. On another occasion,! 
 Wallace is represented as escaping from his mis- 
 tress's house clad in her clothes, his " burly 
 brand " hidden underneath. This time, two of his 
 enemies suspected him as he passed; he seemed to 
 them " a stalwart quean." They followed, but 
 when at a safe distance Wallace turned and slew 
 them both. 
 
 In the Eddie lay that tells how Helgi did domes- 
 tic work in woman's clothes, the secret is revealed 
 by Blind Balewise, Blind Odin in his vindictive 
 mood. Odin had two sides to his nature, repre- 
 sented by the appellatives given him,| Bil-eygr 
 and Bol-eygr, the mild-eyed and the evil-eyed. 
 Both " bil " and " bale " appear in the actions of 
 Billie Blin, the blind sprite, gifted with " unco " 
 insight and prescience, who gave shrewd counsel 
 to men. 
 
 In the ballad of King Arthur and King Corn- 
 wall § the Billie Blin (Burlow Beanie) is a loathly 
 fiend in the service of the otherworld King Corn- 
 wall, who spies on the Arthurian pilgrims. He is 
 
THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 103 
 
 shut up in a " wall of stone " (which indicates that 
 he is a dwarf) and he reveals all the secrets of his 
 master, the magician, to the latter's complete 
 discomfiture. 
 
 Billie Blin and Blind Balewise are kindred figures 
 and gave their names to types of uncanny beings, 
 mentioned by scholars together, who were apt to 
 appear among men and reveal secrets. They went 
 about quite naked, and were regarded as fiends.* 
 Blind Harry, we recall, was naked, and Old Harry 
 was a popular Scotch name for the devil. f 
 
 We read of friendly household spirits, like ** the 
 drudging goblin " in U Allegro, the lubbar-fiend 
 who works more than ten laborers by day, and at 
 night " basks at the fire his hairy % strength," and 
 also of mischievous, roguish goblins, like the naked 
 Robin Goodfellow, who delight in frightening 
 and perplexing people by their cries. But all spirits 
 of the air were held to be dangerous. 
 
 Polwart, in his last fly ting exclaims: 
 
 Leaue boggles, brownies, gyr-carlings and gaists: 
 Dastard, thou daffes, that with such divilrie mels.§ 
 
 Mediaeval Scots, however, were keen about " such 
 divilrie," in fiction at least. Sir David Lyndsay, 
 as we have seen, amused his King by " pleasant 
 stories of the Red Etin and the Gyre Carling." 
 The Red Etin was a mythical figure, a being of 
 
104 THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 
 
 supernatural strength, who in Hind Etin * ap- 
 pears as a pagan elf, making strange music; yet in 
 some versions of that ballad his name is humanized 
 into Young Akin, even Young Hastings! We have 
 a Scottish poem of Dunbar's time concerning the 
 Gyre Carling, a " wild, wilroun witch," the Hec- 
 ate of Britain, which is written with robust humor 
 in a vein very similar to that of the Interlude.! The 
 coarse performances of the Carling show that she 
 was akin to the Dwarf's mother, truly, as she is 
 called, a " devilish dame." When the Wallace was 
 written, it must have been terribly hard to resist 
 the crafts and assaults of the devil, he appeared in 
 so many forms. 
 
 As a man of his time, the author naturally specu- 
 lated about the spirit world. When he pictures his 
 hero as terrified at seeing the Ghost of Fawdoun 
 before the door, he makes the brave warrior cross 
 himself for fear of evil. 
 
 In till his hart he was gretlye agast. 
 
 Rycht Weill he trowit that was no spreit of man; 
 
 It was sum dewill, at sic malice began. 
 
 The poet was no scoffer at ghosts. He exclaims in 
 person: 
 
 Traistis rycht weill all this was suth in deide, 
 Supposs that it no poynt be of the creide. 
 Power thai had witht Lucifer that fell, 
 The tyme quhen he partyt fra hewyn to hell, 
 
THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 105 
 
 Commonly in Shakespeare's time, men felt there 
 were " wicked " ghosts who had powers to blast a 
 mortal, tempting spirits who could assume differ- 
 ent forms and draw one into madness. Horatio 
 knew well of these. But he knew too of " honest " 
 ghosts, who came to earth to benefit the land they 
 left, and he addressed the spirit of Hamlet's 
 
 father: 
 
 If thou art privy to thy country's fate. 
 Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, 
 O speak! 
 
 The author of the Wallace believed that some- 
 thing was rotten in the state of Scotland, and he 
 not only brought Thomas Rhymer on the scene to 
 predict Wallace's glorious career, but also con- 
 jured up the ghost of St. Andrew, making him ap- 
 pear to the hero in a dream at Monkton Kirk.* 
 Having said his paternoster, ave, and creed, Wal- 
 lace falls asleep suddenly, when an aged man ap- 
 proaches, gives him a gleaming sword, and takes 
 him to the top of a high mountain, where he leaves 
 him alone. The hero sees a felon fire burning 
 throughout the land. But soon a queen descends to 
 him illumined with so great light that she puts the 
 fire from his sight, gives him a wand of red and 
 green, blesses his face and eyes with a sapphire, and 
 then addresses him. She chooses him, she says, as 
 her love; he is granted by God to help people suf^ 
 
106 THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 
 
 fering wrong; let him take redress and he shall have 
 lasting bliss. She gives him a book and ascends out 
 of his sight. As Wallace reads this book, he comes 
 back to consciousness, and seeks Master John to 
 interpret the vision. Blair explains that it is St. 
 Andrew who has given him the sword and shows 
 him the symbolism of the other details. Whether 
 the lady was Fortune or Our Ladjs he could not 
 surely tell, but he deemed it probable she was Our 
 Lady.* 
 
 The distinction between pagan and Christian 
 visitants was, indeed, hard to define, and no strict 
 lines were drawn. The faery queen who appeared 
 to Thomas Rhymer was confused with the Virgin, 
 and the Virgin takes the place of some otherworld 
 lady in a remarkable account of how Thomas a 
 Becket got the gift of prophecy.f 
 
 Just as Celtic thoughts of faery were always 
 tinged by Christian ideas, so paganism strongly 
 infected Christian views of the supernatural. The 
 early Church did not refuse to believe in spirits 
 that haunt the air, and influence men for good or 
 ill. Ecclesiastics argued learnedly about demonia- 
 cal possession. They used belief in the otherworld 
 to instruct men in the proper tenets of the faith. 
 Mortals were readily depicted by them as visiting 
 purgatory, or hell, or paradise, to learn the truth 
 of Biblical teaching. They brought back messages 
 
THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 107 
 
 from the great beyond, and were urged as guides 
 to their fellows by reason of their superhuman ex- 
 perience. By the aid of Divine powers they became 
 prophets of political events. 
 
 Thus prototypes in classical and Biblical lore, 
 known to scholars, as well as the common example 
 of ecclesiastics who invented visions of the future, 
 plainly encouraged a practice which often led to 
 imposture. " It would seem," says Sir Walter 
 Scott,* speaking of the legend of Thomas Rhymer, 
 " that the example which it afforded of obtaining 
 the gift of prescience, and other supernatural pow- 
 ers, by means of the fairy people, became the com- 
 mon apology of those who attempted to cure dis- 
 eases, to tell fortunes, to revenge injuries, or to 
 engage in traflSc with the invisible world, for the 
 purpose of satisfying their own wishes, curiosity, 
 or revenge, or those of others. Those who practised 
 the petty arts of deception in such mystic cases, 
 being naturally desirous to screen their own im- 
 postures, were willing to be supposed to derive 
 from the fairies, or from mortals transported to 
 fairyland, the power necessary to effect the dis- 
 plays of art which they pretended to exhibit." 
 
 This is an illuminating statement of facts fun- 
 damental to our inquiry. But let us carefully dis- 
 tinguish the kind of imposture of which Sir Walter 
 speaks from that which he himself employed in 
 
108 THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 
 
 his Minstrelsy when he imaginatively represents 
 Thomas Rhymer as singing during a feast at Ercil- 
 doun of King Arthur and various knights of the 
 Table Round. 
 
 True Thomas rose, with harp in hand. 
 
 When as the feast was done: 
 (In minstrel strife, in Fairy Land, 
 
 The elfin harp he won.) 
 
 Hushed were the throng, both limb and tongue. 
 
 And harpers for envy pale; 
 And armed lords leaned on their swords 
 
 And hearkened to the tale. 
 
 Naturally Sir Walter, since he had edited the 
 Middle-English romance of Sir Tristrem attributed 
 to Thomas, made the old man from faery sing 
 especially of Tristram and Ysolde. 
 
 Their loves, their woes, the gifted bard 
 In fairy tissue wove. 
 
 This was, he conceives, the minstrel's last song on 
 earth, for he must needs return to fairyland at the 
 sight of a snow-white hart and hind. Never again 
 was he seen " in haunts of living men," and never 
 will reappear — until another Scott wishes a mouth- 
 piece for a tale of olden time! 
 
 Again, in Redgauntlet, Sir Walter puts an un- 
 canny tale into the mouth of a strange blind min- 
 strel called Wandering Willie, who reminds us of 
 Billie Blin. " He commenced his tale accordingly, 
 
THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 109 
 
 in a distinct narrative tone of voice, which he 
 raised and depressed with considerable skill; at 
 times sinking almost into a whisper, and turning 
 his clear but sightless eyeballs upon my face, as if 
 it had been possible for him to witness the impres- 
 sion which his narrative made upon my features." 
 Most noteworthy are the words that the author, 
 who knew as much as any one of his time about 
 demonology and witchcraft, especially as it was 
 illustrated by Gaelic belief, makes this blind min- 
 strel speak: " Honest folks like me! How do ye ken 
 whether I am honest or what I am ? I may be the 
 deevil himsell for what ye ken, for he has power to 
 come disguised like an angel of light; and, besides, 
 he is a prime fiddler." 
 
 When Sir Walter in these latter days used 
 Thomas Rhymer as the mouthpiece of Arthurian 
 fable, and Blind Willie as the mouthpiece of a 
 Border tale, he was acting in a very similar way to 
 the author of the Wallace when he chose Blind 
 Harry to voice his fictions about a former champion 
 of Scottish rights. 
 
 Whoever Blind Harry was among the ancients, 
 he was reputed in the poet's time to have been long 
 in faery, where he experienced marvels. Such a 
 person, having penetrated mysteries hidden to 
 common men, would naturally be regarded by 
 them with awe, and listened to with unfeigned re- 
 
110 THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 
 
 spect, heeded, like the Ghost of Guy or St. An- 
 drew, as one who had risen from the dead, like 
 True Thomas or Ossian, as one who had tasted of 
 immortality, in possession therefore of super- 
 natural insight and knowledge, believed amply 
 when he spoke either of the past or the future. 
 
 It appears, then, that the author of the Wallace 
 had good grounds for choosing Blind Harry as his 
 pseudonym. It was as apt as Theophilus Insula- 
 nus, which was used by a Macleod who wrote a 
 treatise on second sight (Theophilus being the 
 mediaeval Faust), or Robin Goodfellow, who in 
 1590 published the News out of Purgatory by his 
 " old companion " Richard Tarlton. This latter 
 book has sometimes been attributed to Thomas 
 Nash, but whether or no he is the author, certainly 
 Tarlton the actor (tl588) had as little to do with it 
 as St. Patrick with the Purgatory that went under 
 his name, or Tundalus with the Vision with which 
 he was credited. But Robin Goodfellow was an 
 elfin spirit and served very well as a pseudonym 
 for one who wished to convey news out of 
 purgatory. 
 
 It is time now to consider an actual Blind Harry 
 who has regularly been identified with the mythi- 
 cal figure that appears in the Interlude and with 
 the Blind Harry mentioned as a poet in Dunbar's 
 Lament for the Makers. 
 
THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 111 
 
 One " Blind (e) Hary " is mentioned on five oc- 
 casions in the Treasurer's Accounts, during the 
 years 1489-1491, as the recipient of small sums of 
 money, varying from five to eighteen shillings, but 
 without any indication whatever as to his station 
 or the reason for the rewards.* The only remark in 
 connection with his name is the entry twice " at 
 the King's command." Critics have found con- 
 firmation of the view that this Blind Harry was a 
 minstrel in the fact that other persons of a min- 
 strel character were similarly mentioned at or 
 about the same time in the Accounts. There was, 
 however., no system in the entries, and gifts to all 
 sorts of persons were jumbled together. To judge 
 only from the immediately adjoining context, he 
 might have been a cobbler, a gunner, a courier, an 
 usher, or a trumpeter, quite as well as a minstrel. 
 All that we can safely assert on the basis of these 
 official documents is that a person called Blind 
 Harry was frequently in the King's employ in some 
 subordinate position during the years mentioned. 
 Apart from his name, there is nothing whatever, 
 then, to connect this person with the author of the 
 Wallace, and, considering how small are the gifts 
 and how little is said of him, one would be justified 
 in regarding him as an entirely distinct individual, 
 either a mere hanger-on at court actually named 
 Harry and blind, or one who bore the sobriquet 
 
112 THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 
 
 Blind Harry as an assumed or familiar name. As 
 Professor Kittredge reminds me, there were vari- 
 ous historical persons who were called Adam Bell, 
 Friar Tuck and Robin Hood. Professor Child 
 points out no less than six Robin Hoods between 
 30 Edward I and 10 Edward III, a period of less 
 than forty years.* 
 
 If, however, the actual Blind Harry of the rec- 
 ords was indeed the Wallace-poet, that need cause 
 no diflSculty about our regarding his name as a 
 mere pseudonym. In the Treasurer's Accounts for 
 about the same period in which Blind Harry ap- 
 pears, are recorded several gifts to one Stobo, evi- 
 dently the " maker " of that name to whom Dun- 
 bar alludes: 
 
 And he has now tane, last of aw, 
 
 Gud gentill Stobo et Quintyne Schaw,t 
 
 Of quham all wichtis hes pite. 
 
 Several entries in the Accounts witness that, like 
 Blind Harry, Stobo was rewarded " at the King's 
 command," sometimes without mention of his em- 
 ployment, sometimes for particular services, such 
 as writing letters, or issuing proclamations. J In one 
 case the King bought a horse from him, and in an- 
 other gave him £10 for a ring and chain, which he 
 took from him to give to a visitor. Stobo was one 
 of the King's clerks, and we have a valuable docu- 
 
THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 113 
 
 ment concerning him in the Exchequer Rolls, from 
 which it appears that, on March 25, 1474, James 
 III, by a charter under the Great Seal, granted him 
 a pension of £20 yearly, in consideration of his 
 clerical services.* But this entry in the Rolls refers 
 to him as " John Reide, alias Stobo," and Stobo, 
 it has been made clear, was only another name for 
 a well-known churchman and notary. Sir John 
 Reid, yet one which he bore so commonly that in 
 the accounts no explanation of his identity was 
 needed, any more than would have been a payment 
 in our time to Buffalo Bill, Melba, or Mark Twain. 
 Thus one of the clerks of the King's household, 
 while Blind Harry was also there, one of the poets 
 lamented by Dunbar along with Blind Harry, is 
 mentioned in the Treasurer's Accounts and in Dun- 
 bar's poem under his assumed or familiar name 
 only.f 
 
 Assumed or familiar names, in truth, were com- 
 mon in Great Britain in the fifteenth century. In 
 1497, for example, according to the Treasurer's Ac- 
 counts, nine shillings were paid to two fiddlers who 
 sang Gray Steil to James IV when he was holding 
 court at Stirling, and we have evidence that the 
 story of Eger and Grime, in which the mythical 
 personage of that name was celebrated, was pop- 
 ular in the circles in which the Wallace-poet lived. 
 
114 THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 
 
 But this name Gray Steel was affectionately ap- 
 plied by James V to Archibald Douglas of Kil- 
 spendie. From Hume of Godscroft's history of the 
 family of Douglas, we learn that the King, when 
 he was young, loved Archibald " singularly well, 
 for his ability of body, and was wont to call him 
 Gray Steill." William, first Earl of Gowrie, also 
 was given this name, perhaps for another cause, 
 because the Gray Steel of romance owed his power 
 to his being a magician of the " forbidden-coun- 
 try," and Gowrie, according to Spottiswood, " was 
 too curious, and said to have consulted with wiz- 
 ards." * Furthermore, according to Dempster,! the 
 poet Alexander Montgomery, " the Scottish Pin- 
 dar," went by the sobriquet {vulgo vocatus) " Eques 
 Montanus," the Highland Trooper.| 
 
 A fellow-clerk of " gud, gentill Stobo " in the 
 Secretary's office was Walter Chepman, one of the 
 firm of Chepman and Myllar, the first printers of 
 Scotland. Chepman seems to have been in the serv- 
 ice of James IV during the whole of his reign. He 
 and Myllar received a letter granting them an ex- 
 clusive privilege of printing, on September 15, 
 1507, and one of the first books they issued was 
 Blind Harry's Wallace. No doubt the publishers 
 knew who the poet was. It is probable that when 
 his book was written there were many persons in 
 
THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 115 
 
 the secret, if secret it was. But it was to no Scot's 
 advantage to discuss the authorship of the work 
 pubhcly, and the real name of the writer became 
 so soon disassociated from the poem as never to 
 have reached the ears of Major, who knew only 
 that he was called Blind Harry. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 The Real Author of the Wallace 
 
 He was a man of middle age; 
 
 In aspect manly, grave, and sage, 
 
 As on king's errand come; 
 But in the glances of his eye 
 A penetrating, keen, and sly 
 
 Expression found its home. 
 
 Marmion 
 
 TO all intents and purposes the Wallace is an 
 anonymous book; but we can now speculate 
 much more intelligently than ever before regarding 
 the rank and character of the real author, since we 
 need no longer treat his poem as the work of an 
 abnormal, aflSicted man. Forgetting, then, if pos- 
 sible, all that has been written about the poor old 
 wandering minstrel of the critics' imagination, let 
 us examine the Wallace just as we should any 
 anonymous poem and seek from mternal evidence 
 to discover the qualities of the writer. 
 
 First, we naturally ask: what does he say of 
 himself .'' Not much that is undisguised, it must be 
 admitted, but a good deal that is worth attention. 
 If any passage in the Wallace be autobiographical, 
 it is the conclusion, where the poet emphasizes cer- 
 
 116 
 
THE REAL AUTHOR 117 
 
 tain conditions under which he says he wrote, and 
 appeals to his readers for their indulgence. In some 
 twoscore lines, he here reaffirms that he had dili- 
 gently followed a Latin book by the hero's chaplain 
 Master Blair; gives new would-be proofs of the 
 reliability of that fabulous work, from which he 
 asserts he departed but once and then only under 
 strong pressure on the part of certain knights, who 
 on one point caused him to " make a wrong rec- 
 ord "; dwells upon the value of advancing the 
 fame of noble Wallace, whose good deeds it was 
 " great harm " to blot; and bespeaks the gratitude 
 of " worthy men " for his own conscientious efforts 
 to that end; after which he indulges in the follow- 
 ing envoy: 
 
 Go nobill buk, fulfiUyt off gud sentens, 
 Suppos thow be baran of eloquens. 
 Go wortlii buk, fulfillit off suthfast deid; 
 Bot in langage off help thow has greit neid, 
 Quhen gud makaris rang weill in to Scotland, 
 Gret harm was it that nane of thaim ye fand. 
 Jeit thar is part that can the weill awance; 
 Now byd thi tym, and be a remembrance. 
 I yow besek, off your beneuolence, 
 Quha will nocht low, lak nocht my eloquence; 
 It is weill knawin I am a burel man. 
 For her is said as gudly as I can: 
 My spreyt felys na termys asperans. 
 Now besek God, that gyffar is off grace, 
 Maide hell and erd, and set the hewyn abuff. 
 That he ws grant off his der lestand luff. 
 
118 THE REAL AUTHOR 
 
 These are the words of a clever, self-conscious, 
 literary man, evidently intent on the impression 
 his book is likely to make. He presents himself as 
 particularly anxious to establish the truth of his 
 matter (" though it be not pleasant to all ") while 
 extremely modest with regard to his own artistic 
 power. Insisting that he feigned not for friendship 
 or for foes, he ostentatiously proclaims his work 
 to be merely a faithful record of facts. 
 
 In all his conclusion, it appears, the author was 
 simply throwing dust in the eyes of credulous 
 readers, to induce them the more willingly to fol- 
 low his fictions. He was merely imitating the de- 
 vices of that arch-impostor of the Middle Ages, 
 Geoffrey of Monmouth, author of the Historia 
 Regum Britanniae, who with similar humility as- 
 serted his reliance solely on a mysterious book 
 which he alone was privileged to possess, and with 
 similar anxiety protested the soothfastness of his 
 account, through it might not tally wholly with the 
 information obtainable from other sources. 
 
 Geoffrey, like Blind Harry, wrote with a political 
 purpose, hoping to arouse pride of independence 
 and encourage a martial spirit in his land, and he 
 was wise enough not to maintain that he was him- 
 self responsible for the perversion of past history 
 that he presented. Writing in Latin, he declares 
 that he had been given " a very ancient book in 
 
THE REAL AUTHOR 119 
 
 the British tongue," which, in a continued regular 
 story and elegant style, related the actions of all 
 the kings of Britain from Brutus down. He claims 
 that he got this book from one Walter, Archdeacon 
 of Oxford, and makes bold to dedicate his composi- 
 tion to Robert, Earl of Gloucester. " Of the matter 
 now to be treated of, most noble Earl," so he be- 
 gins his eleventh book, " Geoffrey of Monmouth 
 shall be silent; but will, nevertheless, though in a 
 mean style, briefly relate what he found in the Brit- 
 ish book above mentioned, and heard from that 
 most learned historian, Walter, Archdeacon of 
 Oxford, concerning the wars which this renowned 
 king [Arthur] upon his return to Britain after this 
 victory, waged against his nephew." And he ends 
 his work with a warning to his contemporaries, 
 Caradoc of Llancarvan, William of Malmesbury 
 and Henry of Huntingdon, to be silent about the 
 kings of the Britons, " since they have not that 
 book written in the British tongue, which Walter, 
 Archdeacon of Oxford, brought out of Brittany, 
 and which, being a true history published in honor 
 of those princes, I have thus taken care to translate.'^ 
 Geoffrey, moreover, explains with engaging mod- 
 esty that while in the midst of his history he was 
 obliged to publish the prophecies of Merlin, who 
 was then " the subject of public discourse," be- 
 cause urgently requested to do so by Alexander, 
 
120 THE REAL AUTHOR 
 
 Bishop of Lincoln. He declares that he has merely 
 translated Merlin's prophecies out of British into 
 Latin and eagerly apologizes for his " low genius," 
 entailing lack of polish and other faults. " Not- 
 withstanding," he writes, " since the deference 
 which is paid to your penetrating judgment will 
 screen me from censure, I have employed my rude 
 pen and in a coarse style present you with a trans- 
 lation out of a language with which you are un- 
 acquainted." * 
 
 With like-purposed solemnity the Wallace-poet 
 affirms his veracity. " I haiff had blayme to say the 
 suthfastnes," he exclaims in the midst of his work,t 
 with the tone of a martyr, and again at its end ap- 
 peals to his readers to be grateful to him for having 
 spared no travail to arrive at the truth. His general 
 asseverations as to the trustworthiness of his nar- 
 rative are plainly make-believe. As to his particular 
 statements linked with them, that he was prom- 
 ised no reward for his labor, that he had no 
 " charge " from a king or other lord, that no man 
 was bound to him for the " costs," — these are not 
 capable of proof or disproof. Major takes up part 
 of his preface to justify himself " in the eyes of 
 those who pretend that it is not fitting to dedicate 
 an historical work to any person, seeing that he 
 who seeks for a patron must put on the mark of a 
 flatterer rather than that of an historian, whose 
 
THE REAL AUTHOR 121 
 
 first law is to write the truth "; and, if these words 
 be not due to Blind Harry's, they may indicate 
 that it was conventional at the time to disclaim 
 the influence of a patron in order to establish the 
 veracity of a narrative of events. 
 
 Yet in one particular point. Blind Harry goes 
 out of his way to note, he " said amiss "; in one 
 small matter he really did depart somewhat from 
 Master Blair! His " autour " affirmed that Wal- 
 lace took the crown one day on Allerton Moor, but 
 two knights of the poet's acquaintance, the lords 
 Wallace of Craigie and Liddell, made him put the 
 matter in a different way.* This is a curious avowal; 
 the poet might have altered the text if he felt he 
 was wrong, for there is no evidence that the con- 
 clusion was not in the first form of his book. He 
 doubtless consulted Wallace and Liddell about his 
 material, as he asserts; but his statement looks as 
 if it were chiefly pose to suggest his complete hon- 
 esty, and to confirm the high authority of his 
 " autour," Master Blair, whom he had come to 
 recognize was never wrong, even when at variance 
 with those of his contemporaries who ought best 
 to know.f 
 
 In any case, we should observe, the poet claims 
 collusion with contemporary lords in misshaping 
 his story. He was undoubtedly shrewd and ingen- 
 ious, like the Archdeacon Geoffrey, not simple- 
 
122 THE REAL AUTHOR 
 
 spirited like Geoffrey's successor, the parish priest 
 Layamon. He knew who was who in his day. His 
 epilogue was written for effect. 
 
 Very innocently, too, like Geoffrey, he main- 
 tains a humble mien, disclaiming any literary 
 merit of his own. " Blaym nocht the buk, set 
 [though] I be wnperfyt," he implores his readers; 
 it is only a " rurall dyt."* The work is " noble " 
 and *' worthy," but only because of its " good 
 sentence; " he, the poet, was not of the old-time 
 " gud makaris "; his language had great need of 
 help; he lacked all eloquence; he must really be- 
 seech his readers for their " benevolence." The fol- 
 lowing words offer a clear example of mock 
 modesty: 
 
 It is Weill knawin I am a burel man. 
 For her is said as gudly as I can. 
 My spreyt felis na termys asperans. 
 
 That passage alone ought to have sufficed to 
 make everyone doubt the composition of the poem 
 by any ignorant blind minstrel, not to mention 
 Dunbar's naked dwarf. Its literary character leaps 
 to the eyes. Nevertheless, critic after critic down 
 to the present has seen fit to isolate the statement 
 " I am a burel man," and use it as evidence that 
 the author was of low degree. To do this argues, 
 if not lack of candor, at least lack of acquaintance 
 with early literature. What literary scholar but 
 
THE REAL AUTHOR 123 
 
 ought to feel himself transported by the envoy 
 straight into the realm of Chaucer, Lydgate, 
 Hawes, the author of the Court of Love, Spenser, 
 and many others ? Some at least, before seeing Mr. 
 Brown's valuable comments on the passage,* had 
 recalled in connection with it the words of the 
 Franklin : 
 
 But, sires, by-cause / am a hurel man, 
 
 At my bigynnyng first I you biseche 
 
 Have me excused of my rude speche; 
 
 I lerned never rethoryk certeyn; 
 
 Thyng that I speke it moot be bare and pleyn. 
 
 My spirit feleth noght of swich matere 
 But if you list, my tale shul ye here.f 
 
 Blind Harry almost certainly had this very pas- 
 sage in mind when he wrote, but, in truth, apolo- 
 getic envoys like his were common among sophis- 
 ticated writers, in Scotland as well as in England. 
 I shall cite here but one, and that partly for an- 
 other reason, from the Quare of Jelusy,X an elabo- 
 rate poem, conjectured to have been written about 
 1480 by one of Blind Harry's immediate circle. 
 Master James Auchinleck, " servitor " or secretary 
 to the Earl of Ross, and at the time of his death 
 (1497) chantor of Caithness in the Cathedral 
 Church of Dornoch — the James Afflek noted, 
 along with Master John Clerk, for " ballat-making 
 
124 THE REAL AUTHOR 
 
 and tragedie," whom Dunbar bewails in his La- 
 ment. Near the beginning of the poem, we read : * 
 
 And of my termes, and my rude endite, 
 Excusith me, sett [though] thai be inperfyte, 
 Beseking you at lovis hie reuerence; 
 Takith gude will in stede of eloquence. 
 
 And again at the end: 
 
 Sou loueris all rycht hertly I exhort, 
 This litill write helpith to support. 
 Excusith it, and tak no maner hede 
 To the endyte, for it most bene of nede, 
 Ay simpill wit furth schewith sympilnese. 
 And of vnconnjTig cummith aye rudnese. 
 But sen here ar no termes eloquent, 
 Belevith the dyte, and takith l>e entent. 
 
 The more carefully one compares this passage 
 with that above quoted from the Wallace, the 
 more evident it becomes that they follow the same 
 literary convention. It is specially worthy of note, 
 however, that the Wallace resembles the Quare in 
 that it is written in a combination of heroic coup- 
 lets and stanzas like those in Chaucer's Anelida. 
 Such elegance was suitable to the Quare type of 
 poem; it startles in a biography like the Wallace. 
 
 To indicate the similar character of the writing, 
 as well as to illustrate the identical metre, a stanza 
 from each of the poems is here given. From the 
 Quare: f 
 
THE REAL AUTHOR 125 
 
 Quho schall me help, allace! for to endite, 
 For to be waill, to compleyne, and to write 
 
 This vice, that now so large is and commoun ? 
 What sail I say ? quhom sail I awite ? 
 For hie, nor law, is non estate to quite! 
 
 Now all hath fele of thilke poysoun. 
 
 Allace! this false and wickit condicioun, 
 The lustyhede, and every glade delyte 
 
 Hath of Jjis world full nere ybroght a doun. 
 
 And this from the Wallace, the sixth of a series of 
 twenty-one regarding the hero when a captive: * 
 
 Compleyn, Sanctis thus, as your sedull tellis; 
 Compleyn to hewyn with wordis that nocht fellis: 
 
 Compleyne your woice wnto the God abuffe; 
 Compleyne for him in to that sitfull sell is; 
 Compleyne his payne in dolour thus that duellis ; 
 
 In langour lyis, for losyng of thar luff. 
 
 His fureous payne was felloune for to pruff. 
 Compleyne also, yhe birdis, blyth as bellis. 
 
 Sum happy chance may fall for your behuff. 
 
 Like the author of the Quare, the Wallace-poet 
 had skill " to bewail, to complain, and to write." 
 He knew all the gentle art of " enditing " with 
 many a rhetorical question, such as " Quhat suld 
 I mor of Wallace turment tell ? " and many an 
 " Alas! " in the following fluent passage: f 
 
 Allace, Scotland, to quhom sail thou compleyn! 
 Allace, fra payn quha sail the now restreyn! 
 Allace, thi help is fastlie brocht to groimd, 
 Thi [best] chyftane in braith bandis is bound! 
 
126 THE REAL AUTHOR 
 
 Allace, thow has now lost thi gyd off lycht! 
 Allace, quha sail defend the in thi rycht ? 
 Allace, thi payn approchis wondyr ner, 
 With sorow sone thow mon bene set in f yr ! 
 
 And so on for another dozen lines ! 
 
 All will agree that the author of the Wallace 
 wrote with entire ease and competence in the arti- 
 ficial manner of courtly poets. The " high style " 
 that he employs, of a type natural to such books 
 as the Quare addressed to " Lovers," is evidently 
 out of place in a realistic account of fierce war. But 
 the inference as to the character of the poet is 
 all the more important if his decoration is merely 
 lugged in for show. He plainly belonged to a so- 
 phisticated group who aimed at literary display. 
 
 Being used, it would seem, to poetical orna- 
 ments, he was loth to forego them even in the Wal- 
 lace. If he was not actually enamoured of current 
 literary conventions, how else can we explain the 
 hackneyed nature-preludes, astrological and myth- 
 ological allusions, ruminations on Fortune, in- 
 veighing (with examples) against " coveitise," and 
 the like, that, from our point of view, mar the 
 book. Surely only a rhetorician would write of 
 Wallace in balanced phrase: 
 
 Now want, now has; now loss, now can wyn; 
 Now lycht, now sadd; now blisful, now in baill; 
 In haist, now hurt; now sorouffuU, now haUl; 
 
THE REAL AUTHOR 127 
 
 Nowe weildand weyle; now calde weddyr, now hett; 
 Nowe moist, now drowth; now wauerand wynd, now weit. 
 So ferd with hym for Scotlandis rycht ful ewyn, 
 In feyle debait vi Jeris and monethis sewyn.* 
 
 " In frustyr [vain] termys I will nocht tary lang," 
 the poet says directly after this outburst. He knew 
 he was indulging in the very " eloquence " the lack 
 of which, following convention, he asked his readers 
 to excuse in his writing. 
 
 Professor Skeat and Mr. Brown f have pointed 
 out plain borrowings from Chaucer on Blind 
 Harry's part, and Mr. Brown in particular has 
 shown how much he derived from the Knight's 
 Tale and Troilus.X Professor Childs has further 
 developed the point. That Blind Harry was a dis- 
 ciple of Chaucer, is an important fact to remember 
 if we would estimate aright the value of certain 
 ** I " passages in the Wallace, to which we now 
 turn. Recalling how Chaucer by convention as- 
 serted imperfection in the art of love, and declared 
 he was far from the god of love's help " in derk- 
 nesse," we shall not attach any autobiographical 
 significance to the aside of Blind Harry after telling 
 of his hero's welcome of the woman of St. Johnston 
 in her chamber: 
 
 Quhat at thai wrocht, I can nocht graithly say; 
 Rycht wnperfyt I am of Venus play.§ 
 
128 THE REAL AUTHOR 
 
 It has not been hitherto noted, but it is certainly 
 true, and deserves mention here, that the poet de- 
 veloped the story of Marian Bradfute * with that 
 of Cressida in mind. 
 
 Another would-be personal reference, of which 
 some critics have made a good deal, may be dis- 
 posed of in the same way. In the Knight's Tale, 
 after raising a question of foreknowledge, Palamon 
 remarks: " Th' answer e of this I lete to divynis,^^ and 
 the knight himself later inserts a remark regarding 
 that hero dead: 
 
 His spirit chaunged hous, and wente ther. 
 
 As I cam never, I can nat tellen wher. 
 
 Therefor I stinte, 7 nam no divinistre; 
 
 Of soules finde I nat in tliis registre. 
 
 Ne me ne list thilke opiniouns to telle 
 
 Of hem, though that they wry ten wher they dwelle.f 
 
 In the same fashion, as has already been remarked. 
 Blind Harry raises the subtle question of Faw- 
 doun's ghost, as difficult for Wallace as that of the 
 ghost of Hamlet's father for Horatio, and, after 
 some discussion of devils intent on malice, con- 
 tinues: 
 
 Be sic myschieff giff his men mycht be lost, 
 Drowynt or slayne amang the Inglis ost; 
 Or quhat it was in liknes of Faudoun, 
 Quhilk brocht his men to suddand confusioun; 
 Or giff the man endyt in ewill entent, 
 Sum wikkit spreit agayne for him present; 
 
THE REAL AUTHOR 129 
 
 I can nocht spek of sic diuinite. 
 
 To clerkis I will lot all sic materis be: 
 
 Bot of Wallace, furth I will yow tell* 
 
 Just previous to this, after telling of Wallace's 
 slaying of Fawdoun (a man, he had noted,! who 
 was "melancholy of complexion"), Blind Harry 
 paused to pass judgment in what might be re- 
 garded as an open question, saying with sober 
 modesty : 
 
 Sum demys it to ill, and othyr sum to gud; 
 And I say her, into tliir termys rude, 
 Better it was he did, as thinkis me.X 
 
 " First," he begins as a logician, then goes on to 
 state his argument, and concludes: 
 
 Mycht he do ocht bot tyne him as it was ? 
 Fra this questioun now schortlye will I pass, 
 Deyme as yhe lest, ye that best can and may; 
 I bot rahers as my autour will say. 
 
 Here Blind Harry clearly wrote with the 
 Knight's Tale in mind. In a passage shortly after 
 that in which appear the words " Th' answere of 
 this I lete to divynis," we read: 
 
 Yow loveris axe I now this questioun. 
 Who hath the worse, Arcite or Palamoun ? 
 That oon may seen his lady day by day. 
 But in prison he moot dwelle alway. 
 That other wher him list may ryde or go. 
 But seen his lady shal he never-mo, 
 Now demeth as yow liste, ye that can. 
 For I wol telle forth as I bigan.§ 
 
130 THE REAL AUTHOR 
 
 The Knight's Tale, it has been recognized, is 
 indeed fundamentally a tale of " questions." 
 Chaucer even makes the plot hinge on a debate 
 between Palamon and Arcite, a question of love- 
 theory as to who best deserved Emelye. 
 
 Greet was the stryf and long bitwixe hem tweye, 
 If that I hadde leyser for to seye.* 
 
 In the Franklin's Tale, the question is openly 
 stated in the final words: 
 
 Lordinges, this question wolde I aske yow. 
 Which was the moste free, as thinketh yow ? 
 Now telleth me, er that yeferther wende. 
 I can na-more, my tale is at an ende. 
 
 The Wallace-poet was similarly given to questions. 
 A good example on his side is in the passage be- 
 ginning ^^ At men off wit this questioun her I as{k)," 
 where he goes on to compare his hero with other 
 nobles who fought against England, and ends 
 
 Quhilk hald ye for the best ? 
 Rycht clayr it is to ransek tliis questioim: 
 Deyme as ye lest, gud men of discrecioun; 
 To my sentence breyffly will I pass.j 
 
 Still another question is posed in the extremely 
 interesting stanza where the poet appeals to " all 
 worthi men that has gud witt to waille" to judge in 
 favor of Wallace as against Bruce. | The latter was 
 indeed the " heir " of the kingdom and had the 
 "right," but Wallace was "baulder in battaill" 
 
THE REAL AUTHOR 131 
 
 and thrice saved the realm by his might (" right 
 vs. might" in a new sense!). Which then was the 
 better man to rule ? The passage is as ingenious 
 as mendacious, the thought at this point as subtle 
 as the metre. 
 
 Blind Harry's questionings were merely imita- 
 tive of Chaucer. He was no ecclesiastic, but he had 
 a clerkly interest in disputation. He had, moreover, 
 as many readers have observed with wonderment, 
 considerable knowledge of antiquity, astrology, 
 and mythology, and claimed to have drawn his 
 material from a Latin book. Even though his as- 
 severations on that subject are mere artifice, as 
 will presently appear,* it is hardly credible that he 
 should have made such a claim if he could not read 
 Latin. t He may not have been a " gud makar," 
 but he certainly had ambitions in that direction; 
 he appealed openly to an audience of men of wit 
 and discretion; he had " lerned retorik, certeyn." 
 
 Remembering that Chaucer based his Troilus 
 on an Italian poem by Boccaccio, and not on a 
 Latin work by " Lollius," as he claims, that he 
 greatly amplified and altered his " auctor's " mat- 
 ter, that he was a " servant of Venus " all his days, 
 and in the Troilus sought, with infinite care, using 
 all the art he could master, to write a great poem of 
 love, the following stanzas from the Prologue of 
 the second book are instructive: 
 
132 THE REAL AUTHOR 
 
 O lady myn, that called art Cleo, 
 
 Thou be my speed fro this forth, and my muse, 
 
 To ryme wel tliis book, til I have do; 
 
 Me nedeth her noon other art to use. 
 
 For-why to every lovere I me excuse. 
 
 That of no sentement I this endyte. 
 
 But out of Latin in my tonge it wryte. 
 
 Wherefore I nil have neither thank ne blame 
 Of al this werk, but pray yow mekely, 
 Disblameth me, if any word be lame. 
 For as myn auctor seyde, so seye I. 
 Eek though I speke of love unfelingly. 
 No wonder is, for it no-thing of newe is; 
 A bUnd man can nat juggen wel in hewis. 
 
 *' Go, litel book," says Chaucer at the end of his 
 great work, and " subgit be to alle poesy e." " Go, 
 nobill buk," says Blind Harry, with similar ambi- 
 tion. Chaucer was ready to " kiss the steps " of the 
 supreme poets of antiquity. Blind Harry those of 
 his supreme predecessor in Britain. Each dwelt on 
 the " sentence " of his work, while sparing no pains 
 to display art. The Wallace is one of the most care- 
 ful and correct poems in Scots. That it is not more 
 beautiful in form or feeling, is due merely to the 
 limitations of the author's talent and temperament. 
 
 The Wallace, like the Troilus, ends with an ap- 
 peal to God, Creator and giver of grace, in the 
 name of heavenly love. But just before that, each 
 poet mentions two of his contemporaries who 
 
THE REAL AUTHOR 133 
 
 either have already corrected, or are asked to cor- 
 rect, the poem " ther nede is." We must assume 
 that " moral Gower " and " philosophical Strode " 
 knew perfectly well where Chaucer got the chief 
 material of his poem, and that he had departed 
 from his " auctor " as he had seen fit.* We have 
 no record that they protested at his novelties, any 
 more than William of Malmesbury and Caradoc 
 of Llancarvan at Geoffrey of Monmouth's after 
 he referred to these worthies in his new-found His- 
 tory. We may surmise that Blind Harry's reference 
 to the knights Wallace and Liddell, who could well 
 estimate the " originality " of his treatment of the 
 war of independence, was conceived in a similar 
 sly mood, and disarmed any protest they or others 
 like them may have been inclined to make. 
 
 The Wallace-poet was eager to explain that he 
 had no " charge " (commission) from any king or 
 lord to write his book; that no one had promised 
 him reward for his labor; that no one was bound 
 to him for the costs of the undertaking. But he 
 does not indicate that he would refuse considera- 
 tion if it was offered. " Thar is part that can 
 the(e) Weill awance," he says suggestingly in his 
 envoy, and seems there almost to be making an 
 indirect plea for help, a sort of hinting complaint 
 for (if not to) an empty purse. We recall Chaucer's 
 envoy: 
 
134 THE REAL AUTHOR 
 
 O conqueror of Brutes Albioun ! 
 Which that by line and free eleccioun 
 Ben verray king, this song to you I sende; 
 And ye, that mowen al our harm amende, 
 Have minde up-on my supplicacioim. 
 
 And we wonder for what purpose the Wallace- 
 poet indulged in long digressions in praise of noble 
 persons, such as Sir John Ramsay: 
 
 Schir Jhon Ramsay, that rychtwys ayr was borne 
 OS Ouchterhous, and othir landis was lord, 
 And schirreff als, as my buk wUl record; 
 Off nobHl blud, and als haill ancestre; 
 Contenyt weill with wortlii chewalre.* 
 
 This is not the only passage where Blind Harry 
 goes out of his way to praise noble persons. He was 
 probably not above arranging things right for his 
 friends, even though he was not " promised " re- 
 ward. His much-protesting about not feigning " for 
 friendship nor for foes " makes one suspicious. 
 But it was only just, he may have argued, that he 
 should praise those who " rabellit nocht contrar 
 thair richtwis croun," f and any noble might well 
 have been grateful to him, in a time when rebels 
 and traitors were abroad, if that noble's ancestors 
 were conspicuously placed among the loyalists in 
 the great struggle against the invader.| 
 
 Mr. Brown connected the praise of the Ramsays 
 with the fact that the scribe of the poems was a 
 
THE REAL AUTHOR 135 
 
 Ramsay, and tried to show that Blind Harry, the 
 ignorant minstrel, had a collaborator named Sir 
 John Ramsay, whom he identified with the Ross 
 Herald.* Obviously, I do not subscribe to that view. 
 I can find no evidence whatever that the author of 
 the Wallace had any collaborator. But Mr. Brown 
 was justified in calling attention to the frequent 
 mention of heralds in the poem as a matter of sig- 
 nificance, for it is more than likely that the author 
 was himself a herald, one of the class of whom 
 Chaucer speaks in the House of Fame: 
 
 pursevauntes and heraudes. 
 That cryen riche folkes laudes. 
 
 If it had not been for his preconception of a 
 " blind bard," Thomas Warton would probably 
 have proposed herald-authorship of the Wallace, 
 for immediately after his discussion of the poem, 
 which he thought translated from the Latin, and 
 from which he quotes some eight pages to show the 
 poet's mastery in painting, his terse and elegant 
 style, and allegorical invention, he goes on directly 
 to speak of various historical romances many of 
 which appear to have been written by heralds. 
 *' It was customary," he states, to " appoint none 
 to this office [of herald] but persons of discernment, 
 address, experience, and some degree of education. 
 . . . They were necessarily connected with the 
 
136 THE REAL AUTHOR 
 
 minstrels at public festivals and thence acquired a 
 facility of reciting adventures. . . . They fre- 
 quently received fees or largesse in common with 
 the minstrels." 
 
 The Wallace-poet emphasizes the role of heralds 
 in three notable scenes. The first is in the sixth 
 book, where Edward I is pictured with a fabulous 
 host of sixty thousand men at Biggar, making a 
 demand of submission from Wallace, who repudi- 
 ates it violently. 
 
 The awfull king gert twa harroldis be brocht, 
 GaifiF thaim commaund, in all the haist thai mocht, 
 To charge Wallace, that he sulde cum him till, 
 Witht out promys, and put him in his will. 
 
 The heralds are clearly instructed as to what they 
 shall say to the hero on their arrival. As soon as 
 they are received by him, they offer their " cre- 
 dence " (credentials) and he reads the summons in 
 the presence of his knights, asks the messengers 
 whether they prefer to have his answer " be wryt 
 or word," and when they ask for it in writing, 
 indites in haste his defiant reply, beginning " thow 
 reyffar king " — words which have been skilfully 
 used by Mr. Neilson to determine the date of the 
 poem, for they seem to reflect circumstances of 
 the poet's own day. 
 
 This wryt he gaiff to the harraldis but mar, 
 And gud reward he gart delyuer thaim thar. 
 
THE REAL AUTHOR 1S7 
 
 The " good reward " is sarcastic. First Wallace 
 has the head removed from a young squire Fehew 
 (Fitz Hugh), a nephew of King Edward, who has 
 accompanied the heralds in disguise. 
 
 A cot off armes he tuk on him but baid; 
 With the harroldis full prewaly he raid. 
 
 Having been detected by Wallace's strange com- 
 panion Jop, alias Grimsby, who was formerly a 
 " pursiwant " of Edward, he is thus made to suffer 
 for wearing " feigned arms." One herald has his 
 tongue removed, and another has his eyes put out. 
 Then the two are sent back to their " false " king, 
 whose anger at the " despitfull " deed knows no 
 bounds. The deed was assuredly " a fell outrage " 
 as he declared, even if the reason given, that the 
 heralds were " fals till armys and maynsuorn," 
 was true. At all events, the author knew circum- 
 stances under which a herald might justifiably, ac- 
 cording to custom, be severely punished.* 
 
 Of course, this whole episode is fiction. Edward 
 was not even in Scotland at the time assigned. He 
 had no nephew Fitz Hugh. No such battle as is 
 described ever took place at Biggar. The mutila- 
 tion of the heralds, also, is happily unconfirmed 
 by fact, — so far, at least, as concerns any such 
 deed on the part of William Wallace. 
 
 In glaring contrast with the attitude of the false 
 Edward, the noble king of France is said to have 
 
138 THE REAL AUTHOR 
 
 admired the " conqueror " Wallace and longed to 
 have the " great delight " of seeing him. He there- 
 fore dispatches a herald, rehearses to him his in- 
 tent, and sends him off with a " closed letter," the 
 substance of which in ceremonial form is recorded. 
 The herald seeks Wallace's presence properly and 
 " salutes him with honor reverently." Wallace re- 
 ceives him " with lawly obeysance," and asks his 
 " credence," which is handed him by the herald, 
 with new ceremonies and respects, whereupon Wal- 
 lace bids him welcome " with a fre hartly will," 
 and says he shall soon have his answer. 
 
 The harrold baid, on to the xxty day, 
 With Wallace still, in gud weillfayr and play; 
 Contende the tyme with worschip and plesance; 
 Be gud awys maid his deliuerance. 
 With his awn hand he wrait on to the king 
 All his entent, as twyching to this thing, 
 Rycht rych reward he gaiff the harrold to, 
 And him conwoyde, quhen he had leyff to go. 
 Out oflF the toun with gudly cumpanye. 
 His leyff he tuk, syn went on to the se.* 
 
 Then an account is given of the herald's return, 
 via La Rochelle, " sekand the king, als gudly as he 
 may," until he reaches the royal court at Paris, 
 " peirles off renoun." He is well received and tells 
 his monarch the result of his mission, commending 
 Wallace highly, and communicating his letter — 
 " this hie affect and dyt off hys writyng " — the 
 
THE REAL AUTHOR 139 
 
 statement in formal language that he would visit 
 him within a year. 
 
 Again, in that still more preposterous scene * 
 where the Queen of England tries unsuccessfully to 
 enamour Wallace and cajole him to her will, we 
 hear much talk of heralds and their safe-conducts 
 in carrying on a negotiation for peace. Three lords, 
 chosen as messengers and provided with the King's 
 seal, sought Wallace, and showed him " many 
 subtle case." Wallace heard all their " sopham- 
 mis," but got his own terms. " For nakyn thing 
 the pees thai wald nocht faill." 
 
 It will be noticed that every scene in which 
 heralds play a leading part is a concoction of the 
 poet's, without any historical justification. All 
 the more importance should surely attach to these 
 incidents if borrowed or invented; they would 
 seem to show on his part special interest in heralds. 
 
 One remark in the poem, however, may be 
 thought to show that the author was not a herald 
 himself. In an interesting passage he stops his nar- 
 rative to start a " discussion " as to what con- 
 stitutes a lord, saying: 
 
 Wallace a lord he may be clepyt weyll, 
 
 Thocht ruryk folk tharofif haiff litill feill; 
 
 Na deyme na lord, bot landis be thair part. 
 
 Had he the warld, and be wracliit ofiF hart. 
 
 He is no lord as to the worthines; 
 
 It can nocht be, but (without) fredome, lordlyknes. 
 
140 THE REAL AUTHOR 
 
 At the Roddis thai mak ful mony ane, 
 
 Quhilk worthy ar, thocht landis haiflf thai nane. 
 
 This disscussyng I leiff herroldis till end* 
 
 The style of this reference is parallel to the re- 
 marks, already discussed, in which the poet follows 
 Chaucer, but, considered in the light of what pre- 
 cedes, it may mean somewhat more. It may well 
 be compared with one by Holland,! where he re- 
 lieves himself of telling further of the arms of the 
 knights he mentions by referring the matter to 
 heralds : 
 
 Now giff I sail schewe 
 The order of thar armis, it war to tell teir (hard), 
 The barris of best gold, thocht I thaim hele knewe. 
 It suld ws occupy all day; tharfor I end heir, 
 Referris vie to harraldis, to tell ^ow the hale.X 
 
 Holland was secretary to the Earl of Moray and 
 wrote his book at Darnaway Castle. Whether or 
 no he was actually a herald in practice, he knew 
 completely, as he takes pains to assert, the order 
 of arms. Blind Harry borrowed other features from 
 Holland and may have imitated him here. His 
 knowledge of heralds impresses one as intimate 
 and real. His referring of the dispute about lord- 
 ship to them may have been only a way of ending 
 his own remarks, made with a graceful bow to his 
 superior comrades in the profession. 
 
THE REAL AUTHOR 141 
 
 Another parallel may be cited from a Scotch 
 poem on heraldry, contained in a book of Sir Wil- 
 liam Cummyns's of Inverallochy, Marchmond 
 Herald, of about the year 1500 (not far from the 
 date of the Wallace) and composed with much 
 artifice in the Troilus stanza.* The author makes 
 himself out to be a person of " simplest conceit " 
 and on certain topics refers to his betters. 
 
 How thai be born, in quhat kindis, and quhare. 
 Also be quhom, and eftir in excellence. 
 
 That I refer to my lordis to declair, 
 Kingis of armes, and heraldis of prudens. 
 And persewantis, and grant my negligens 
 
 That I suld not attempe thus to commoune, 
 
 Bot of ther grace, correctioune, and pardonne. 
 
 The same sort of deference appears in his con- 
 clusion: 
 
 And I confess my simple insufficiens: 
 Litill haf I sene, and reportit weil less. 
 
 Of this materis to haf experience. 
 
 Tharfor, quhar I al neidful not express, 
 In my waiknes, and not of wilfulnes. 
 
 My seid lordis correk me diligent, 
 
 To maid menis, or sey the remanent. 
 
 This poem shows at least that at the latter part 
 of the fifteenth century one Scottish herald was 
 ready to compose Chaucerian verse, and that self- 
 depreciation was for such as he a convention. 
 
142 THE REAL AUTHOR 
 
 Of more interest for us, however, is the fact that 
 the chief Scottish poet of the sixteenth century, Sir 
 David Lyndsay, whom we have had so often oc- 
 casion to quote, was a herald. About 1529 Lynd- 
 say, who had served James V as attendant in boy- 
 hood, was appointed Lyon King at Arms, and 
 filled that important post until his death in 1555. 
 As Lyon Herald, Lyndsay supervised the prepara- 
 tion of the elaborate Register of Arms of the Scot- 
 tish nobility and gentry, which was completed in 
 1542 and is now preserved in the Advocates' Li- 
 brary at Edinburgh.* One of his last duties was to 
 preside at a chapter of heralds convened at Holy- 
 rood for the trial and punishment of William 
 Crawar, a messenger, for abuse of his function. 
 With such a distinguished poet as an example, it 
 need not surprise any one if the Wallace was com- 
 posed by a herald. t 
 
 Heralds, of course, were regularly used as mes- 
 sengers, and if Blind Harry was a herald-messenger 
 by profession, it would explain why the topo- 
 graphy of the Wallace is so exact, a feature to 
 which Mr. Brown has called particular attention. J 
 
 One king's messenger, who is frequently men- 
 tioned near Blind Harry in the Treasurer's Ac- 
 counts, and who bore the very name of Wallace, 
 also played a role which it is important to consider. 
 He appears in the Accounts as the bearer of letters 
 
THE REAL AUTHOR 143 
 
 to Lamerik, to the abbots of Galloway, the Earl of 
 Erroll, to the Lords Gray, Glamis, and Olyfant, 
 and to others. He was given money to pass " a 
 ij dyverss tymis owre the water with letteris to 
 summonde certane personis in Awdy "; " to pass in 
 Fyfe to warne the lardis to meyt the King to pass 
 with him to Sanct Johniston "; "to pass with the 
 Kingis lettrez to the lordis in Lowdiane and the 
 Mers for warning to the raids," etc.* For us it is 
 most noteworthy, however, that this Wallace, as 
 we are informed in the Accounts, " tauld geistis 
 to the king," and may therefore have been called 
 a minstrel. 
 
 The heralds, messengers, and minstrels of a 
 court were closely associated both in life and pro- 
 fession. Blind Harry himself groups heralds and 
 minstrels together as alike rewarded abundantly 
 by the admirable Queen of England, who besought 
 them to be her friends. f There is, in truth, no 
 reason why Blind Harry may not be called a " min- 
 strel," if it is understood that that term may be 
 properly used of a dignified person in high employ. 
 Many critics seem to be unaware that there were 
 as many diflPerent kinds of minstrels in the four- 
 teenth and fifteenth centuries as there are actors 
 to-day. There were some so-called of a disreput- 
 able vagabond type, " otio addicti," against 
 whom acts of parliament were directed, and some 
 
144 THE REAL AUTHOR 
 
 of a pathetic type, " blind crowders," who sang 
 ballads for a pittance. But there were others who 
 might almost be called poets-laureate. Two of the 
 most interesting biographies of great leaders in 
 Wallace's time and shortly after, those of Bertrand 
 du Guesclin and the Black Prince, were written in 
 French verse by dignified minstrels in the service 
 of nobles. On the one hand. La Vie du Prince 
 Noir * was composed in octosyllabic couplets in a 
 " romantic " style, not unlike that of Barbour, by 
 the herald of the Earl of Chandos. On the other 
 hand. La Vie Vaillant Bertran du Guesclin f was 
 written in long lines in " epic " style by a minstrel 
 Cuvelier, and dedicated to a prince. Blind Harry 
 is a sort of Scottish Cuvelier brought up on 
 Chaucer, and any one with patience would find it 
 very instructive to compare The Acts and Deeds 
 of the Illustrious and Valiant Champion Sir Wil- 
 liam Wallace with the huge chanson de geste, 
 nearly twice as long (22790 lines), concerning the 
 great Constable of France of the early thirteenth 
 century, like Wallace a foe of the English. In 
 features large and small, the Wallace reminds one 
 of this " chronicle " of the dispute regarding the 
 succession in Brittany and subsequent events in 
 which Bertrand played, or could be made to play, 
 a part, and both authors wrote in the same uncon- 
 strained fashion as to facts. The term " minstrel " 
 
THE REAL AUTHOR 145 
 
 was also applied to one of the chief French writers 
 of the early fourteenth century, Watriquet de 
 Couvin, the eulogist of Gauchier de Chatillon, 
 Bertrand's successor as Constable, a poet who in- 
 fluenced Chaucer in painting his portrait of the 
 illustrious Knight.* The Wallace-poet might have 
 felt honored in the company of such as these. If 
 Blind Harry was really reputed as a " ministrel " 
 to princes — Major makes no mention of peasants 
 — it would have been easy for that learned man to 
 have written about him as he did in his Latin his- 
 tory, and knowing nothing about his personality 
 save what he took his name to indicate, but recog- 
 nizing that the poet was peritus in his carmen, he 
 might very naturally, according to the custom of 
 the time, have hinted as he did at a likeness to the 
 greatest of blind bards. 
 
 None, it has been made evident, of the might-be 
 autobiographical references in the Wallace turn out 
 on inspection to be of definite value in determining 
 who the author was, but they show the character 
 of his literary training, and by inference his station. 
 
 As is evident from his solicitude to make Wal- 
 lace " gentle born," and his disdain for MacFadden 
 because " low born he was and of low simple 
 blood," " of right low birth, suppose he took on 
 hand," f as well as from other considerations, the 
 poet was sympathetic to the higher classes, whether 
 
146 THE REAL AUTHOR 
 
 or no he belonged to them himself. In his discussion 
 of nobility, already quoted, he set himself against 
 " ruryk (rustic) folk," who have "litill feill " in 
 such matters, matters that greatly interested him.* 
 The fact that he shows no signs of much inner re- 
 finement, or cosmopolitanism, does not affect the 
 question of his birth. The burly person who wrote 
 the rough alliterative poem on Flodden in which 
 we read " a gentleman by Jesu this geste made! " f 
 was a follower, perhaps a herald, of the house 
 of Stanley. The Wallace-poet in any case was 
 certainly no quiet scholar or amiable, chivalric 
 ecclesiastic, like Barbour, but a vigorous propa- 
 gandist, a ferocious realpolitiker, without principle 
 when it was a question of Scotland's place in the 
 sun, without reluctance to lie in manipulating his- 
 tory to his own end.| He was no common strolling 
 bard. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The Purpose and Spirit of the Wallace 
 
 'T is the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, 
 And coming events cast their shadows before. 
 
 LochieVs Warning 
 
 O, from this time forth. 
 My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth! 
 
 Hamlet 
 
 WE can better understand why the author of 
 the Wallace chose his pseudonym if we con- 
 sider the political circumstances under which he 
 wrote and certain contemporary methods of in- 
 fluencing public opinion; and we can better under- 
 stand the spirit of his work if we consider the 
 background of pagan morality which the pseu- 
 donym connotes. 
 
 Thanks to Mr. George Neilson, we are at last in 
 a position to date the Wallace pretty exactly. Mr. 
 Neilson's chief argument * is drawn from the 
 epithet " reyflFar," applied by Wallace to Edward I, 
 which he has shown to be merely an echo of words 
 used in an Act of the Scottish Parliament in 1482 
 regarding Edward IV. 
 
 " The * Revare Edward/ " he says, " of himself 
 alone is conclusive of the date of Harry's poem, and 
 
148 THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 
 
 is so much the more satisfactory in that respect as 
 supplying the clearest possible explanation of the 
 bitterness of spirit at the core of the poem, the 
 malignant ruthlessness it displays towards Eng- 
 lishmen, and the glaring failure of the poet to re- 
 deem the hereditary sense of enmity by associating 
 it with any generous note towards an enemy so 
 worthy of the Scottish steel. In all these respects 
 it is far as the poles asunder from Barbour's Bruce, 
 which, never vindictive or savage, achieves its 
 purpose of patriotism in the spirit of chivalry with- 
 out the incessant vengeance and refusal of quarter 
 which make Harry's Wallace reek of the shambles. 
 Written in or about 1482 or 1483, the poem was 
 shaped when Scotland and England were at war, 
 when Edward IV, intriguing with the exiled Duke 
 of Albany and Earl of Douglas, was the object of 
 intense exasperation. He had supported Albany's 
 pretension to the crown, and fomented every trea- 
 son against the Scottish throne; his armies had over- 
 run the borders with fire and sword; his fleets had 
 assailed — though not with impunity — Scottish 
 ships in the Firth of Forth; and his bargain with 
 Albany was that, as the price of English support, 
 Albany, if successful in winning the kingdom, 
 should hold it as Edward's feudatory, and should 
 further cede to him the fortresses of Berwick and 
 Lochmaben and the territories of Liddesdale and 
 
THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 149 
 
 Eskdale and Annandale. There was justification, 
 therefore, for Scottish indignation against such a 
 policy of conquest by intrigue and against a ' king 
 of reyff .' 
 
 " The phrase was radically a Lancastrian taunt. 
 Scotland had long, and with fair consistency, fa- 
 vored the red rose. Margaret of Anjou and Henry 
 VI had once found shelter in exile at the Scottish 
 court. The French and the Scots were leagued en- 
 emies of the House of York. Edward IV, the York- 
 ist victor, veritably enough a ' king of reyff ' in 
 England, had both by war and policy become a 
 * revare ' in Scotland too, and the country was up 
 in arms. Of the national indignation Harry's poem 
 is a passionate expression. Tending so directly to 
 explain its violence and ruthlessness of tone, the 
 ascertainment of its date thus considerably intensi- 
 fies its political and historical significance. In vir- 
 tue of this explanation, it becomes of real value 
 historically, as reflecting the vehemence of Scot- 
 tish antagonism to England and Edward IV, circa 
 1483." 
 
 Now, it is important for us to observe that at 
 that very time belief in prophets was real, even in 
 high quarters,* and it was the custom to use popu- 
 lar delusions regarding political prophecy to arouse 
 national bitterness. Thomas Rhymer and Merlin 
 were then particularly famous personages and 
 
150 THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 
 
 their vaticinations counted as of genuine value. 
 The greater part of the documents later comprised 
 in that extremely popular book, the Whole Proph- 
 ecy of Scotland* prophecies of Bede, Banister, 
 Waldhave, and Bridlington, as well as of True 
 Thomas and Merlin, were then widely current, and 
 influential, to a degree that we nowadays find it 
 hard to credit, in engendering strife. It will be re- 
 membered how Bacon in his time took sober note 
 of such prophecies, giving it as his judgment " that 
 they ought all to be despised, and ought to serve 
 but for winter-talk by the fireside." " Though," he 
 adds, " when I say despised, I mean it as for belief, 
 for otherwise the spreading or publishing of them 
 is in no sort to be despised. For they have done 
 much mischief, and I see many severe laws made 
 to suppress them. That that hath given them grace 
 and some credit consisteth in three things. First, 
 that men mark when they hit and never mark when 
 they miss; as they do generally of dreams. The 
 second is, that probable conjectures, or obscure 
 traditions, many times turn themselves into proph- 
 ecies; while the nature of man, which coveteth divi- 
 nation, thinks it no peril to foretell that which 
 indeed they do but collect. . . . The third and last 
 (which is the great one) is, that almost all of them, 
 being infinite in number, have been impostures, 
 and by idle and crafty brains merely contrived and 
 
THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 151 
 
 feigned, after the event passed." This last aspect 
 of prophecies is for us the most important. But 
 criticism was of no avail and the vogue continued. 
 " Perhaps it may be thought," says Lord Hailes, 
 in his Remarks on the History of Scotland (1773), 
 " that I have bestowed unnecessary pains in dis- 
 crediting the popular predictions ascribed to 
 Thomas the Rhymer. Let it, however, be consid- 
 ered that the name of Thomas the Rhymer is not 
 forgotten in Scotland, nor his authority altogether 
 slighted even at this day. Within the memory of 
 man, his prophecies, and the prophecies of other 
 Scottish soothsayers, have not only been reprinted, 
 but have been consulted with a weak, if not crimi- 
 nal, curiosity." 
 
 Quite recently. Dr. Rupert Taylor, in a valuable 
 thesis,* has traced the source of political prophecy 
 after its vogue was established by Geoffrey of Mon- 
 mouth in the twelfth century, and has made it 
 evident that historians have paid far too little heed 
 to its importance in determining popular feeling 
 at crises in the relations of England and Scotland. 
 Here I need only dwell on certain evidence of 
 special interest to us which Dr. Taylor omitted, 
 that, namely, of Major, who has much to say of 
 the prophets of Great Britain. 
 
 Merlin interested Major particularly.! He de- 
 votes a whole chapter to him, in which he discusses 
 
152 THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 
 
 at length the mage's incubus origin and the rela- 
 tion of that fact to his gift of prophecy.* But he 
 also treats him humanly as a potent personage in 
 British history, rebuking him, on moral grounds, 
 for helping King Uther in the deception of 
 Ygerne. " Many rhymes," says Major, " are cur- 
 rent as to all that Merlin foretold in the presence of 
 King Vortiger as about to happen. But they are 
 ambiguous, being of this nature : that till the event 
 his prophecies are not recognized as such. Where- 
 fore, to augur anything from his prophecies is as if 
 one had to find one's way through the mists of a 
 clouded sky. I should have placed more faith in 
 the prophecies of this man had he foretold with 
 certainty the purely contingent. That method of 
 proceeding is but darkness. Quite otherwise does 
 it stand with John the Evangelist in the Apoca- 
 lypse, a book which the Church has received 
 as divinely inspired, and in such a matter the 
 Church cannot err. Merlin it merely permits to be 
 read." t 
 
 Merlin was surely taken seriously when he was 
 brought into comparison with St. John. But per- 
 haps the most interesting of Major's comments on 
 prophets is that which forms an immediate pre- 
 lude to his account of Wallace. He there repeats 
 from the Scottish chronicles a familiar prophecy of 
 Thomas of Erceldoune (" hoc est Thomas Rhyth- 
 
THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 153 
 
 mificator ") long before delivered in the castle 
 of Dunbar, adding the following comment: " Our 
 writers assure us that Thomas often foretold this 
 thing and the other, and the common people 
 throughout Britain give no little credence to such 
 stories, which for the most part — and indeed they 
 merit nothing else — I smile at. For that such per- 
 sons foretold things purely contingent before they 
 came to pass I cannot admit; and if only they use a 
 sufficient obscurity of language, the uninstructed 
 vulgar will twist a meaning out of it somehow in 
 the direction that best pleases them." * 
 
 The important feature of this remark is its attest 
 that the prophecies of Thomas and " such persons " 
 were given no little credence by the common people 
 throughout Britain and readily accepted by the 
 uninstructed vulgar. Any one, then, who desired 
 to influence the people at large might naturally 
 employ their belief in such stories for his own ends. 
 But belief in prophecies was not confined to com- 
 mon folk. It held in the highest circles. King James 
 I was a reader of prophecies, and it was known 
 that in 1437 his murder was predicted by a woman 
 soothsayer from Ireland. Buchanan says that 
 James III was greatly addicted to certain witches, 
 and one of their prophecies, it is alleged, aroused 
 his enmity against the Earl of Mar, which caused 
 the latter's tragic death in 1479. f 
 
154 THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 
 
 That the author of the Wallace was interested in 
 prophecy, and determined to draw what advantage 
 he could from it, is evident from his open appeal 
 to Thomas Rhymer. He, of course, knew of the 
 reliance placed in Thomas by Scottish chroniclers 
 like Wyntoun,* Gray, and Bower. But he was 
 doubtless stimulated most by the example of Bar- 
 bour's Bruce, which his own poem was intended to 
 offset, if not to counterblast.! Early in his work,J 
 Barbour quoted Thomas's prophecy that Bruce 
 should be king " and haiff this land [Scotland] all 
 in leding." The author of the Wallace, however, 
 goes him one better, and makes English prophets 
 as well as Thomas vaticinate about his hero. Near 
 the beginning of his poem we read: § 
 
 Als Inglis clerks in prophecys thai fand 
 How a Wallace suld putt thaim of Scotland. 
 
 It is more important that he represents Thomas as 
 actually staying with the minister at Faile when 
 news of Wallace's death is brought there. Thomas 
 at once denies the report, and when he hears that 
 Wallace still lives, he makes his prophecy : 
 
 Than Thomas said: " Forsuth, or he decess, 
 Mony thousand in feild sail mak thar end. 
 Off this regioune he sail the Sothroun send ; 
 And Scotland thris he sail bryng to the pess." 1 1 
 
 This, indeed, is a line of structure in the poem. The 
 author proceeds formally to show how Thomas's 
 
THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 155 
 
 prophecy, elsewhere unheard-of, was verified by 
 events. He develops his story by personal devices, 
 adapting history at pleasure, to show how Scotland 
 was thrice brought to peace by Wallace's exploits. 
 ** Thus Wallace thrys has maid all Scotland fre " * 
 — a fine fiction ! 
 
 The author of the Wallace lined himself up with 
 those who were glad to make one or other of the 
 goodly fellowship of prophets a mouthpiece of 
 their own thoughts. He took as the burden-bearer 
 of his new message a mythical personage of the 
 same character as Thomas Rhymer, Merlin, Os- 
 sian, and others less well known, all of whom were 
 reputed to have been in the otherworld; and he 
 thus subtly justified the startling statements of 
 his book by an implicit appeal to supernatural au- 
 thority.! 
 
 We are now ready for the interesting question: 
 Does the attribution of the Wallace to such a per- 
 son as Blind Harry, son of Gow mac Morn, and 
 great grandson of Finn mac Cowl, reveal anything 
 with regard to the tone of the work ? 
 
 In the Book of the Dean of Lismore, gathered in 
 Scotland about the author's time, is a poem often 
 called Ossian's Prayer. Here, in response to the 
 bard's inquiry, St. Patrick declares that the Fe- 
 nians are not in Heaven and he cannot secure them 
 entrance there. Whereupon Ossian, a " mourn- 
 
156 THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 
 
 ful, poor old man," breaks out in savage condem- 
 nation of the Christian faith. 
 
 Better the fierce conflict of Finn and his Feinn 
 Than thy holy master, and thyself together. 
 
 And he is not convinced by the Saint's rebukes: 
 
 Ossian, Prince's son, 't will be thy soul's great loss. 
 That thou now think'st only of the battles of the Feinn. 
 
 In another poem in the same book, Ossian thus 
 exults at the deeds of the old warriors: 
 
 It was on Fintray's strand, down at the sea. 
 
 Our people made this slaughter. 
 
 Of these, the kings of all the world. 
 
 And drank our full of vengeance. 
 
 Our fierce and conquering arms 
 
 Laid many a noble warrior low; 
 
 Many a sword and sliield 
 
 Lay shattered on the strand. 
 
 The strand of Fin tray of the port; 
 
 Many dead bodies lay upon the earth, 
 
 Many a hero with a vacant grin. 
 
 Much was the sport we gathered in the fight. 
 
 Perhaps the best embodiment of this Fenian 
 spirit is found in the elaborate Dialogue of Oisin 
 and Patrick, where Oisin laments his departed 
 fellows : 
 
 O Patrick, sad is the tale. 
 To be after the heroes, thus feeble; 
 Listening to clerics and to bells. 
 Whilst I am a poor blind old man.* 
 
THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 157 
 
 The Saint rebukes him earnestly: 
 
 Thou art old, withered, and hoary, 
 Thy understandmg is gone, and mirth; 
 Leave oflf thy vehement talk. 
 And thy bed shall be in heaven beyond. 
 
 Thou art piteous and devoid of sense. 
 That is worse for thee than being blind; 
 If thou didst get thy sight within, 
 Great would be thy attachment to heaven beyond. 
 
 But Oisin fervently persists in his praise of the old 
 ** mighty men " (among them Gow mac Morn) 
 who were " not slow in making slaughter." There 
 was no hero in heaven or hell the equal of Finn: 
 he surpassed St. Patrick's Lord. 
 
 'T was not in forming fields and grass. 
 That my king took delight; 
 But in mangling the bodies of heroes, 
 In contesting kingdoms and spreading his fame. 
 
 Many a battle, victory and contest. 
 Was celebrated by the Fians of Fail; 
 I never heard that any feat was performed 
 By the king of Saints; or that he reddened his hand. 
 
 Oisin said, sorrowful is my tale! 
 
 The sound of thy hps is not sweet to me; 
 
 I will cry my fill, but not for God, 
 
 But for Fiorm and the Fians not being alive! 
 
 Again we are reminded of Billie Blin, " the mali- 
 cious personage " whom Professor Child has iden- 
 
158 THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 
 
 tified with "Blind the Bad," "the Carl Blind, 
 surnamed Bavis," " Old Carl Hood," who " comes 
 for ill, but never for good." " Odin," says Professor 
 Child, " though not a thoroughly malignant di- 
 vinity, had his dark side, and one of his titles in 
 Saemund's Edda is Bolverkr, maleficus. He first 
 caused war by casting his spear among men, and 
 Dag, after he has killed Helgi, says Odin was the 
 author of all the mischief, for he brought strife 
 among kinsmen." * 
 
 Saxo Grammaticus f tells of a certain blind man 
 Bolwis " who was bribed to bring the sons of Sigar 
 and the sons of Hamund to turn their friendship 
 into hatred." " King Sigar," we read, " had been 
 used to transact almost all affairs by the advice of 
 two old men, one of whom was Bolwis. The temper 
 of these two men was so different that one used to 
 reconcile folk who were at feud, while the other 
 loved to sunder in hatred those who were bound 
 by friendship, and by estranging folk to fan pesti- 
 lent quarrels." 
 
 " So Bolwis began by reviling the sons of Ha- 
 mund to the sons of Sigar, in lying slanders, de- 
 claring that they never used to preserve the bonds 
 of fellowship loyally, and that they must be re- 
 strained by war rather than by league." 
 
 Bilwis and Bolwis are akin to the two brothers 
 of Welsh myth Nissyen and Evnissyen, as set 
 
THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 159 
 
 forth in the Mabinogi of Branwen. Nissyen was a 
 lover of peace and would always " cause his family 
 to be friends when their wrath was at the highest," 
 but Evnissyen *' would cause strife between his 
 two brothers when they were most at peace." In 
 Layamon's Brut* Merlin, counselor of Arthur, 
 says of himself that his mind is bale- wise ("mi 
 gsest is bseliwis ") and that he is not disposed to 
 gladness, mirth, or good words. 
 
 Here we have the key to the tone of the Wallace : 
 it is the tone of the Fenians, of Odin, of Evnissyen, 
 and Merlin the bale-wise. The opening words of 
 the author are an appeal to his countrymen to re- 
 member their ancestors and oppose their " aid 
 ennemys cummyn of Saxony s blud," and presently 
 we learn, what the rest of the book abundantly 
 proves, that his hero's " haile mynde, labour and 
 besynes, was set in war." f 
 
 It was his lyflF, and maist part of his fude, 
 
 To see thaim sched the byrnand Sothroun blude. 
 
 The Wallace, indeed, is bale-wise from beginning 
 to end, a perfect welter of slaughter and revenge. 
 " Be ready for revenge " was the author's most 
 urgent appeal to his countrymen — the fundamen- 
 tal teaching of his book. 
 
 Yhe nobill men, that ar off Scottis kind, 
 Thar peteous dede yhe kepe in to your mynd; 
 And ws rawenge, quhar we are set in thrang.^ 
 
160 THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 
 
 His prime object was to fan a pestilent quarrel, and 
 lie could have chosen no person more suitable to be 
 the mouthpiece of his violent hate than a bard of 
 Fenian blood, one of the race of Ossian, and akin 
 to Billie Blin, alias Odin, balewise, baleworker, 
 sower of enmities, " who first brought strife among 
 kinsmen." 
 
 The ferocity of the Wallace constituted no doubt 
 a chief element of its early appeal, and unques- 
 tionably helped to establish the prejudice which 
 for centuries kept interest in the poem keen. Now 
 that that prejudice has passed, now that more 
 gentle sentiments prevail everywhere among the 
 Scots, their historians are more and more prone to 
 slight Blind Harry's work, and to minimize its 
 value — because they dislike its tone. But much 
 too readily do they explain its faults as due to the 
 fact that the author was an ignorant blind old 
 minstrel, " the oracle of the unlettered crowd," 
 " bitter as a man of limited knowledge, circum- 
 scribed by his blindness and the spirit of his time," 
 would naturally be, his temper " on a level with 
 the temper of the common people of his time, 
 from whom he sprang." * The Wallace we have 
 outgrown, let us hope, because its tone is out- 
 rageously pagan. The poet's non-Christian im- 
 pulses are in accord with those of the so-called 
 " wild Scots " of whom Major tells so much, the 
 
THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 161 
 
 Gaels, who perpetuated Ossian's contempt for 
 apostles of mercy and peace.* 
 
 Were the Sons of Morn alive. 
 The priestly order soon must quit; 
 You would find yourselves cut up, 
 Ye men of the spotted crooks. 
 
 Were the Sons of black Garry alive, 
 Or Caoilte, who was ever so brave. 
 Neither the sounds of bells or priests 
 Would now be heard in Rath Cruachan.f 
 
 Contemplating Blind Harry, whoever he was 
 who for good reason chose that alias, our thoughts 
 turn naturally to that excellent writer who more 
 than any other in Scotland in our time was fired 
 by Gaelic flame. William Sharp wrote under the 
 pseudonym Fiona Macleod, a name which " flashed 
 ready made " into his mind, because he wished in 
 disguise to mirror a side of his nature which he 
 could not bring himself to expose openly. " Some- 
 times," he wrote in 1893, " I am tempted to be- 
 lieve I am half a woman, and so far saved as I am 
 by the hazard of chance from what a woman can 
 be made to suffer if one let the light of the com- 
 mon day illuminate the avenues and vistas of her 
 heart. J " He used the woman's name Fiona Mac- 
 leod because the works in which he first used it 
 " grew out of the subjective or feminine side of his 
 nature." His friend Grant Allen at once recog- 
 
16^ THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 
 
 nized in Pharais " that shadowy Ossianic spirit, as 
 of your misty straits and your floating islands." 
 " It is instinct," he wrote, " with the dreamy 
 Celtic genius, and seems to come to us straight 
 from the Isles of the Dead." 
 
 This was true. But the Celtic Muse had different 
 tones, as Fiona Macleod was well aware. Hear 
 what she wrote to the same critic after his review 
 of Pharais : 
 
 " What you say about the survival of folklore as 
 a living heritage is absolutely true — how true per- 
 haps few know, except those who have lived among 
 the Gaels, of their blood, and speaking the ancient 
 language. The Celtic paganism lies profound and 
 potent still beneath the fugitive drift of Christian- 
 ity and Civilisation, as the deep sea beneath the 
 coming and going of the tides. No one can under- 
 stand the islander and remote Alban Gael who 
 ignores or is oblivious of the potent pagan and in- 
 deed elementally barbaric forces behind all ex- 
 terior appearances." * What, we may ask, led Wil- 
 liam Sharp to publish The Pagan Review ? 
 
 The mythical Blind Harry came from faery and 
 was no Christian, and if the poet into whose mind 
 that pseudonym sprang, as suitable for the ex- 
 pression of his pagan side, never felt sorrow for his 
 exhibition of ire, then one may well fear that for 
 centuries Mahoun has been leading him a merry 
 
THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 163 
 
 dance " amangis the feyndis fell." His fellow 
 
 maker Dunbar had a glimpse of Hell and there 
 
 discovered wild Scots galore, with one MacFadden 
 
 at their head, chattering Gaelic and dancing a 
 
 Highland fling. 
 
 Than cryd Mahoun for a Heleand pad3ane; 
 
 Syne ran a feynd to feche Makfad3ane, 
 
 Ffar northwart in a nuke; 
 
 Be lie the correnoch had done schout, 
 
 Erschemen so gadderit him abowt 
 
 In Hell grit rowme thay tuke. 
 
 Thae tarmegantis, with tag and tatter, 
 Ffull lowd in Ersche begowth to clatter, 
 And rowp [croaked] lyk revin and ruke: 
 The Devill sa devit wes with thair 3ell, 
 That in the depest pot of hell. 
 He smorit thame with smvke.* 
 
 The Gaelic element in Dunbar's inspiration, and 
 indeed in that of all the independent Scottish poets 
 of mediaeval times, has never been properly de- 
 fined. That inquiry remains yet to be made. But 
 Gaelic inheritance surely forms part of that much- 
 discussed quality " Scotticism," the old perfervi- 
 dum ingenium Scotorum, which is something more 
 than simple love of country, amor Scotiae, as some 
 would have it, and has little to do with rank. The 
 writer of the article on Harry the Minstrel in the 
 latest edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica was 
 possibly justified in speaking of the Wallace as 
 
164 THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 
 
 " the earliest outstanding work which discloses that 
 habit of Scotticism which took such strong hold of 
 the popular Northern literature during the coming 
 years of conflict with England. In this respect it 
 is in marked contrast with all the patriotic verse 
 of preceding and contemporary literature." But he 
 was unwise to add: " This attitude of the Wallace 
 may perhaps be accepted as corroborative evi- 
 dence of the humble milieu and popular sentiment 
 of its author." On the contrary, this attitude 
 merely evidenced the general " savage vitality " 
 of Scotland, much of which, as Professor David 
 Masson maintained, " yet remains to be articu- 
 lated in civilized books." * 
 
 " One does not like to say severe things about a 
 poor old wandering minstrel," writes Professor 
 Minto-t " Like many other bygones that were in- 
 teresting to bygones, he and his heroic verse, once 
 an acceptable arrival at many a lively feast and 
 proud residence, would be considered a terrible 
 visitation in modern society. Blind Harry has not 
 the elements of perennial interest. Only strong 
 patriotism could have composed, and only strong 
 patriotism could have listened to, his strains." 
 
 We may well admit that the writer as well as the 
 readers of the Wallace were strong patriots. But let 
 us not deceive ourselves. If we must say severe 
 things about certain aspects of the poem, it is not 
 
THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 165 
 
 because it is the work of a poor blind wandering 
 minstrel, or even because the events it records are 
 now deemed in large part fictitious. We must no 
 longer confuse our literary with our moral ap- 
 preciation of the book's worth. Scots, in truth, dis- 
 like Blind Harry nowadays for the very reason that 
 their ancestors formerly liked him, and Barbour, 
 offering so great a contrast in personality, being so 
 much less violent and bloodthirsty, so much more 
 generous and kindly, is applauded instead. It is not, 
 therefore, as Dr. Craigie has ironically suggested,* 
 because " fact must be more poetic than fiction," 
 that Barbour is more praised, but because chivalry 
 appeals to us more than cruelty, and gentleness 
 more than lust for revenge. Mr. Craigie did a serv- 
 ice in calling attention to the high literary quality 
 of parts of the Wallace, but its general tone, he 
 would have done well to emphasize, is abominable. 
 The poet's art is that of an admiring disciple of 
 Chaucer, and deserved proper applause as such; 
 but his sentiments would have made Chaucer 
 wince. 
 
 In fairness, however, it should be said that vitu- 
 peration was not confined to the North. Such 
 Englishmen as Skelton, sometimes very foul- 
 mouthed, delighted in abuse of " the rude rank 
 Scots " — Scots of the Out Isles. After the battle 
 of Flodden, Skelton composed a poem: 
 
166 THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 
 
 Agaynst the proude Scottes clatteryinge, 
 That never wyl leave theyr tratlynge, 
 
 in which we read: 
 
 Are not these Scots 
 Fools and sots 
 Such boast to make, 
 To prate and crake, 
 To face, to brace. 
 All void of grace ? 
 So proud of heart. 
 So overthwart. 
 So out of frame, 
 So void of shame. 
 As it is enrolled, 
 Written, and told. 
 Within this quaire ? 
 
 Only a few years later Major wrote: " I have 
 read in histories written by Englishmen that the 
 Scots are the worst of traitors, and that this stain 
 is with them inborn. . . . The Scots, on the 
 other hand, call the English the chief of traitors, 
 and, denying that their weapon is a brave man's 
 sword, affirm that all their victories are won by 
 guile and craft. I, however, am not wont to credit 
 the common Scot in his vituperation of the English 
 nor yet the Englishman in his vituperation of the 
 Scot. ... In the matter of prejudices that have 
 their root in hatred, bear this in mind: that two 
 neighboring kingdoms, striving for the mastery, 
 never cherish a sincere desire for peace." * 
 
THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 167 
 
 And later he reverts to the same topic: " It is not 
 of yesterday that I have observed how it is the 
 custom of the vulgar Scot to say nasty things about 
 the English, and contrariwise. Love and hatred 
 have this in common: that alike they tend to be- 
 cloud and blind our intelligent judgment of things, 
 and give an erroneous and even perverse interpre- 
 tation of actions the most excellent, when these 
 are the work of the other side. Now it behoves 
 every man, and most of all a priest, to rid himself 
 of this pestilent habit, and to weigh in equal scales 
 whatever comes before him before judgment. 
 Otherwise such an one is unworthy of confidence."* 
 
 It was a Scot, Wyntoun, who, before the Wal- 
 lace-poet's day, thus counselled his countrymen: 
 
 Set [though] we haiff nane affectioune 
 
 Off caus till Ynglis natioune, 
 
 Yeit it ware baith syn and schame 
 
 Meir than thai [de]serve, thaim to defame.f 
 
 Major, not the Wallace-poet, followed Wyntoun's 
 advice — to his honor ! 
 
 The only spirit that quickens one in the Wallace 
 is the spirit of patriotism; but so malignant is that 
 spirit, so stimulating to cruelty and barbarity, that 
 it seems like the spirit not of God but of the Devil. 
 The spirit of hate animates the Wallace through- 
 out, and no power on earth can cast it out, so as to 
 make its body wholly clean, 
 
168 THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 
 
 The best in the Wallace was set forth by Henry 
 Charteris in the prologue to his edition of 1570,* 
 where he defends himself against some one's accu- 
 sation that by publishing the poem he was stirring 
 men to the remembrance of old injuries rather than 
 to the desire of peace: " God (who is the searcher 
 of men's hearts) does know how far that is from 
 my mind. Although that in the days of Wallace, 
 England did vehemently oppress this realm, where- 
 through most justly he did oppose himseK to them, 
 yet I esteem it a thing not impossible but that old 
 enemies may become new and perfect friends, and 
 again old friends become new and plain enemies, 
 as it befell betwixt the Scots and Picts. Yet I mean 
 nothing less than to stir up the hearts of any men 
 against any nation, realm or country. My intent 
 and chief scope is this in general, to move all men 
 (after the example of Wallace) to the defence of 
 their native realm, and commonwealth, to hazard 
 whatsoever they have in this earth, for the main- 
 tenance thereof against any nation, French or 
 English, Spanish, or others whatsoever, that would 
 invade the same. And also that the valiant acts 
 and deeds of such as have spent and given their 
 travails and their lives therefor should never come 
 into oblivion, but remain in fresh and recent mem- 
 ory to the perpetual glory of their name and fame, 
 during all ages and posterities unto the world's 
 end." 
 
THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 169 
 
 Charteris' " intent and chief scope " deserves 
 commendation and we can only wish that he had 
 had a finer instrument to work with. Caxton had 
 considerable difficulty in defending the Morte 
 Darthur against such as thought it a false narrative 
 of vain slaughter and bold bawdry, and he had to 
 resort to the advice: " Do after the good and leave 
 the evil, and it shall bring you to good fame and 
 renown." But Caxton had much the easier task, 
 for few, we fancy, have ever found his Book of 
 Arthur other than an incentive to noble deeds. In 
 it what linger longest in our memories — and how 
 long they do linger! — are the numerous "renowned 
 acts of humanity, gentleness, and chivalry." 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 Master Blair 
 
 And of his song nought only the sentence, 
 
 As writ myn autour called LoUius, 
 
 But pleynly, save our tonges difference, 
 
 I dar wel seyn in al that Troilus 
 
 Seyde in his song, lo ! every word right thus 
 
 As I shal seyn. 
 
 Chaucer 
 
 AFTER the poet's blindness, the most vexed 
 ^ question in connection with the Wallace con- 
 cerns a " Latin book " by " Master Blair," which 
 the poet explicitly mentions as his principal au- 
 thority, — one, he claims, superior to all others 
 regarding Wallace, yet unknown to any one else.* 
 
 Off Wallace lyff quha has a forthar feill 
 May schaw furth mair with wit and eloquence; 
 For I to this haiff don my diligence, 
 Eftyr the pruff geyffyn fra the Latyn buk, 
 Quhilk Maister Blayr in his tym wndyrtuk. 
 In fayr Latyn compild it till ane end. 
 
 This Master Blair, according to the poet, was : 
 
 A worthy clerk bath wys and rycht sawage.f 
 Lewyt he was befor in Parys toune, 
 Amang maistris in science and renoune. 
 Wallace and he at hay me in scule had beyne; 
 Sone eftirwart, as verite is seyne. 
 179 
 
MASTER BLAIR 171 
 
 He was the man that pryncipall wndirtuk, 
 That fyrst compild in dyt the Latyne buk 
 Oflf Wallace lyff, rycht famous of renoun; 
 And Thomas Gray persone oflf Liber tomie.* 
 With him thai war, and put in story all, 
 OflFt ane or bath, mekill of his truaill. 
 
 Eftir Wallace thai lestit mony day, 
 
 Thir twa knew best off gud Schir Wil3hamys deid.f 
 
 Master Blair, " in his priest's weed," is once sent 
 by Wallace to warn the west, and he figures 
 further as a companion of the mysterious Jop, 
 whose name before he was rechristened by the 
 Scots was Grimsby. f He is pictured as writing in 
 his book the absurd account of Wallace's appear- 
 ance and attitudes, which was curiously made up by 
 the author, in part from the description of char- 
 acters in the Knight's Tale.§ Blair is also made to 
 participate in the fantastic sea-struggle with John 
 of Lynn, in which he is described as a doughty 
 bowman, who himself cast the chief brigand's re- 
 mains overboard; but in this last case, since it 
 would not do for him to exalt himself in his own 
 book, his exploits are said to have been recorded 
 by his friend Gray, who was their " steerman " for 
 the nonce. 1 1 
 
 Until recently, nearly all historians and critics 
 accepted the worthy French clerk. Master Blair, as 
 an actual person, and merely speculated as to what 
 
17^ MASTER BLAIR 
 
 Blind Harry owed to him,* whether he was re- 
 sponsible for the descriptions of nature in the 
 poem,t or for the variations from other chroniclers 
 that it exhibits, and so on. On the ground of his 
 statement that he used a Latin book, it has some- 
 times been argued that the author was not a min- 
 strel, or that he was an ecclesiastic, as well as that 
 he was not blind from birth.| 
 
 But of late Master Blair has begun to play a dif- 
 ferent role. It is probably true, as Dr. Ross wrote, § 
 that *' no human being possessing the faculty of 
 reason could now be got to believe that any con- 
 temporary of the illustrious patriot could by any 
 possibility have penned such a biography as Blind 
 Harry gives us." Therefore, those who believe in 
 Blair must apologize for Blind Harry. Mr. Hen- 
 derson, who holds that the poet was always blind, 
 maintains that he merely carried on the tradition 
 of a Latin book from some earlier " bard," em- 
 phasizing that " so far from affirming that he had 
 either seen or read the aforesaid book, Harry does 
 not even affirm that it then existed; and if he does 
 not actually imply that it no longer existed, he 
 refrains from stating where, or from whom, he had 
 access to it." |1 On the other hand. Dr. Moir, who 
 holds that Harry was not born blind, believes that 
 his mistakes might have been due to the fact that 
 he grew more and more " rhapsodical " in old age, 
 
MASTER BLAIR 173 
 
 and forgot " the true historical sequence of his 
 tale." " Starting from his Latin original in the 
 days of his youth, when perhaps he to some extent 
 could read the original, he would gradually forget 
 the exact facts of history as given by Blair and 
 Gray, and give his enthralled and prejudiced audi- 
 ence something which he honestly believed was 
 true, but which he could no longer from blindness 
 verify or check. ... I must say that Harry's al- 
 lusions to his ' autor ' are made in so guileless a 
 way, that I do not consider him to be a wilful im- 
 postor. I think there had been some such book, but 
 that, as I said above, Harry, carried away by 
 rhapsodical fervour, gradually departed from his 
 original. ... If Blair wrote a Latin Book on Wal- 
 lace, probably but one or two copies of it ever ex- 
 isted, and it is no wonder if these were lost at the 
 Reformation, if not before." * 
 
 Though belief in Blair's book thus remains, the 
 present trend of opinion is to regard it as a fic- 
 titious authority, f "an apocryphal work os- 
 tentatiously cited by the poet, which criticism 
 ought to combat." J So far the best arguments in 
 favor of this view have been advanced by Mr. 
 Brown. § " To none of the critics," he says, " does 
 it seem to have occurred that the poet's statements 
 may be quite otherwise interpreted by comparing 
 them with similar passages in other early works. 
 
174 MASTER BLAIR 
 
 They seem to have forgotten that early authors in 
 order to give their works the stamp of authority, 
 very frequently, as Dunlop remarks, ' feigned that 
 their fables had been translated from Latin, or 
 derived from ancient French prose, in which they 
 had been originally written, — averments which 
 should never be accepted unless otherwise estab- 
 lished to be true.' . . . The putting forth of works 
 under a false name was not in early times associ- 
 ated with any sense of literary dishonesty. The 
 practice arose from a desire on the part of authors 
 to fortify themselves by alleging authority for 
 their statements." 
 
 Mr. Brown cites among other less pertinent ex- 
 amples that of Chaucer's giving credit to " myn 
 auctour called Lollius," instead of to Boccaccio, 
 for the chief matter of the Troilus. The case of 
 Lollius has very recently been discussed in most 
 illuminating fashion by Professor Kittredge, who 
 puts the situation as follows : * 
 
 " When Chaucer came to write this novel 
 [Troilus], he wished — as all writers of fiction did, 
 and do still — to lend his work an air of truth and 
 authenticity. A ready and familiar device was, and 
 still is, to appeal to some source that might be ac- 
 cepted as authoritative. Benoit and Boccaccio 
 would not answer, for the conditions of the prob- 
 lem required an ancient (or at least an antique) 
 
MASTER BLAIR 175 
 
 personage, and preferably one who had written in 
 a learned language. Homer was manifestly out of 
 the question. Dares, Dictys, and Geoffrey were 
 likewise unavailable, for their works were current, 
 and notoriously did not contain any such story as 
 that which Chaucer meant to tell. Guido's name 
 might perhaps have been used at a pinch; but he 
 also was well-known and current, and except at a 
 pinch indeed, his dry, compendious, and unsym- 
 pathetic account of the love affair could not be 
 cited as the source of Chaucer's warm and de- 
 tailed narrative. For it was not only facts that 
 Chaucer wished to ascribe to his audor, but feel- 
 ings, since he himself, so he tells us, is an outsider 
 in matters of love: * 
 
 Of no sentement I this endite, 
 But out of Latin in my tonge it write. 
 
 And, in fact, there was no pinch at all. For Lollius 
 was at hand, a venerable and veritable Latin name, 
 and his vanished history, just because it had van- 
 ished, was precisely the stalking-horse that the 
 fiction needed. Hence as a part of that fiction, 
 Chaucer credited his material en bloc to Lollius, 
 and proposed with a light heart, to be merely a 
 translator from the Latin." 
 
 " Lollius, then, in Chaucer's fiction, is not Boc- 
 caccio or Benoit or Guido or Statins or Ovid or 
 
176 MASTER BLAIR 
 
 Boethius: he is simply Lollius, an alleged Latin 
 author on the Trojan War, to whom Chaucer 
 chooses, for his artistic purposes, to credit practi- 
 cally every thing that the Troilus contains — every- 
 thing, that is, that Chaucer drew from Boccaccio 
 and Benoit and Guido and Statins and Ovid and 
 Boethius, and likewise everything that he drew 
 from the brain of Geoffrey Chaucer. In other 
 words, Chaucer's pretended use of Lollius is not 
 an acknowledgment of obligations to Boccaccio 
 or to anybody else: it is a fiction, deliberately 
 adopted in advance, impressed upon the reader 
 with all the emphasis of which the poet is capable, 
 and fostered and supported by repeated assertion 
 and skilful innuendo." 
 
 Blind Harry acted like his master Chaucer. He 
 gathered material for his narrative from written 
 documents of various sorts, as well as from oral 
 traditions connected or not with Wallace. Into the 
 question of these his sources, however, I have now 
 no desire to enter. I should like simply to indicate 
 the person who seems to have led him, as a means 
 of covering his tracks, to cite the authority of 
 Master Blair. Again the road leads to the prophets. 
 The worthy French clerk. Master Blair, fictitious 
 recorder of the deeds of Wallace, seems to be merely 
 an echo of the worthy French clerk. Master Blaise, 
 fictitious recorder of the deeds of Merlin. 
 
MASTER BLAIR 177 
 
 Of this Blaise we read in Malory's Morte 
 d' Arthur: " Then Merlin took his leave of Arthur 
 and of the two kings, for to go and see his master 
 Bleyse that dwelt in Northumberland, and so he 
 departed and came to his master, that was passing 
 glad of his coming. And there he told how Arthur 
 and the two kings had sped at the great battle and 
 how it was ended, and told the names of every 
 king and knight of worship that was there. And so 
 Bleyse wrote the battle, word by word, as Merlin 
 told him, how it began, and by whom, and in like- 
 wise how it was ended, and who had the worse. All 
 the battles that were done in Arthur's days Merlin 
 had his Master Bleyse do write." * 
 
 This is the only place where Malory refers to 
 Master Blaise, but he is repeatedly mentioned 
 in Arthurian story, and in the Roman de Merlin 
 he is never lost sight of. After the beginning, when 
 he is identified with the chaplain-confessor of 
 Merlin's mother, he takes little part in the action, 
 save as the constant recipient of Merlin's intimate 
 accounts of the conduct of affairs in Britain, The 
 romance- writer tells us that " cil Blayses estoit 
 moult boins clers & soutis," and that it was at 
 Merlin's request he undertook to compile a book 
 of all the " aventures " of the land in their days. 
 Merlin bade him procure ink and parchment and 
 promised to convey him matter which he could get 
 
178 MASTER BLAIR 
 
 from no one else. He would often come to him, he 
 said, and tell him all he needed for his great work, 
 which would be more praised than any other 
 " uie de royaus ne de sages," bringing him in this 
 life " acomplicement de cuer " (happy Blaise!) and 
 in the life to come joy everlasting. " Biaus Maistres 
 Blaises " dwelt in Northumberland and there the 
 national leader (for so he practically was — " li 
 maistres conseillers le roy Artu ") came over and 
 over again to sojourn with him, and to discuss 
 events of the present and future. The "preu- 
 dome " Blaise always welcomed Merlin, his "biaus 
 dous amis," with great joy, " car moult lauoit 
 desire a ueoir & il lui." * 
 
 " Lors li dist Merlins toutes les choses que li 
 estoient auenues puis quil sen parti de lui & li con- 
 toit comment li Sesne estoient entre en la terre as 
 barons & comment il les guerroient. Et Blaise mist 
 tout che en escrit & par lui le sauons nous encore." f 
 Such statements about Blaise and his book almost 
 always include the formula " par lui (li, lequel) 
 nous le savons encore," the purpose of the author 
 of the Roman being, exactly like that of the author 
 of the Wallace with respect to his narrative, to 
 establish the impression that the history of Britain 
 in Arthur's days depended solely on the records of 
 Master Blaise, these being taken down " mot a 
 mot " from Merlin himself.| 
 
MASTER BLAIR 179 
 
 The picture of Master Blaise taking down the 
 sole authoritative narrative of Merlin's deeds from 
 his own lips evidently appealed to the illuminators 
 of the Middle Ages, for there are several miniatures 
 in the manuscript subscribed : " Ensi que Merlins 
 fait escrire .j. liure plain de merueilles a Blase sen 
 clerc," * and the like. One had only to thumb the 
 pages of the romance to have the situation fixed 
 in one's mind. 
 
 Furthermore, " Blase's books " were mentioned 
 by chroniclers. Robert of Brunne, in a passage con- 
 cerning Merlin in his Story of England^ remarks: 
 
 Penne seyde Merlyn many thynges. 
 What y ]>\s lond schuld tide of kynges, 
 pat are in Blase bokes write, — 
 pey I^at hauyt, mowe hit wyte, — 
 And in Tolomer & sire Amytayn; 
 Pyse hadde Merlynes bokes playn, 
 flFor l?yse Jjre write his prophecyes. 
 And were his maistres in ser partyes.f 
 
 What Merlin said about happenings to British 
 kings was written in a Latin book by Master Blase. 
 *' They that have it, may it wit! " What Thomas 
 Rhymer said about Wallace and the British kings 
 of his days was written in a Latin book by Master 
 Blare. " They that have it, may it wit! " 
 
 Whether mediaeval readers took Master Blaise 
 seriously or not, we cannot say for certain. No 
 modern scholar, at any rate, has regarded him 
 
180 MASTER BLAIR 
 
 otherwise than as an imaginary figure.* He is too 
 strikingly parallel a person to Master Blair to per- 
 mit us to believe that the Wallace-poet was not 
 thinking of him when he invented his own recon- 
 dite authority. Blaise (Blase), to be sure, is not 
 absolutely identical with Blair (Blare). f The two 
 names dififer by the difference of an s and an r; but 
 that is of small account. Accepting the idea of 
 Master Blaise, it would have been as natural as 
 judicious for the poet to make this name of Wal- 
 lace's supposed chaplain more Scottish in appear- 
 ance,! and the form Blair would inevitably occur 
 to him at once. But why John Blair .'* A fact cited 
 by Mr. Brown § provides us with an easy explana- 
 tion. One " Magister John Blare " was a king's 
 chaplain at the Scottish court in Blind Harry's 
 time, and (in 1467) was given a robe by royal au- 
 thority " pro scriptura unius lihri dicti Mandevile.'* 
 This is a precious bit of information. The Wallace- 
 poet had evidently read the voyages of Sir John 
 Mandevile before he wrote his own envoy, in 
 which he asserts that he had done his " diligence," 
 
 Eftyr the pruff geyffyn fra the Latyn buk 
 Quhilk Maister Blayr in his tym wndertuk 
 In fayr Latyn compild it till ane end. 
 
 For he continues, in words that point directly to 
 Mandevile's final paragraph: 
 
MASTER BLAIR 181 
 
 With thir witnes the mar is to commend. 
 Byshop Synclar than lord was off Dunkell, 
 He gat this buk, and confermd it him sell 
 For werray trew; thar off he had no dreid, 
 Himselff had seyn gret part off Wallace deid. 
 His purpos was for till haue send it to Rom, 
 Our fadyr off kyrk tharon to gyff his dom. 
 
 Sir John Mandevile (or rather Jean de Bour- 
 gogne, dit a la harbe; for he, like the author of the 
 Wallace, wrote under an assumed name) tells us 
 similarly in his closing words what he did to pro- 
 mote belief in his fabulous book when once it was 
 " compyled." * 
 
 *' For as much," he says, " as many men beleve 
 not that they see with theyr eyen or that they may 
 conceive and know in their mynde, therefore I 
 made my way to Rome in my coming homewarde 
 to shew my boke to the holy father the Pope and 
 tell hym of the mervayles that I had sene in diverse 
 countreys; so that he with his wise counsel wold 
 examine it, with diverse folke that are at Rome, 
 for there dwell men of all nations of the world, and 
 a lytle time after when he and his counsel had ex- 
 amined it all through, he sayde to me for a certayne 
 that it was true, for he sayd he had a hoke of Latyn 
 contayning all that and much more, of the which 
 Mappa Mundi is made, the which boke I saw, and 
 therefore the Pope hath ratyfied and confirmed my 
 boke in all poyntes." 
 
182 MASTER BLAIR 
 
 It is curious to find the author of the Wallace 
 thus following the lead of Mandevile, for his own 
 book is to be placed in the same category of narra- 
 tive imposture, covered with a thin veil of pre- 
 tension to recondite authority. GeofiFrey of Mon- 
 mouth's History and Sir John Mandevile's Voyages 
 were apparently books of a kind that a man of his 
 temperament would desire to have " at his beddes 
 heed." His taste was not singular. No narrators of 
 the Middle Ages compared in vogue with these 
 two writers of fiction. He and they together form 
 an incomparable trio. By no others, perhaps, have 
 readers ever been more willingly led away from the 
 strait and narrow path of fact. We may well doff 
 our hats to these men's power of imagination. But 
 perhaps it would be just as well in a future edition 
 of the Dictionary of National Biography to remove 
 altogether the curious account of Master Blair there 
 given, as far from truth perhaps as the Wallace 
 itself, but set down with no intent to deceive. 
 
 Master Blaise, in his turn, one may conjecture, 
 is no other than Master Blihis,* the mysterious au- 
 thority for much Arthurian fiction, including the 
 story of the Grail and its mysteries, the " famosus 
 fabulator Bledhericus " of whom Giraldus Cam- 
 brensis speaks, and who, under the name Breri, is 
 cited by the Anglo-Norman poet Thomas as the 
 
MASTER BLAIR 183 
 
 most trustworthy source of information about 
 
 Tristram. 
 
 Ky solt les gestes e les cuntes 
 De toz les reis, de toz les cuntes 
 Ej orent este en Bretaingne. 
 
 There must have been many " masters " of the 
 sort. Master Blair reminds one further of Master 
 Brogan, St. Patrick's supposed scribe, who recorded 
 Caeilte's wonderful tales. " ' Success and benedic- 
 tion, Caeilte! ' Patrick cried, ' and where is Bro- 
 gan ? be that tale written down by thee, so that to 
 the chiefs of the world's latter time it prove a 
 diversion.' And Brogan penned it." * 
 
 Thanks to Master Blair and Blind Harry, Wil- 
 liam Wallace has become one of the most famed of 
 Scottish chiefs of the world's latter time, and the 
 narrative of his exploits has proved a diversion to 
 many — " recreation of spirit and mind," f such 
 as St. Patrick found the tales of Caeilte. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 The Wallace as History 
 
 A Scotchman must be a very 
 sturdy moralist who does not 
 love Scotland better than truth. 
 
 Dr. Johnson 
 
 THE nature of the Wallace and the cause of its 
 permanent influence become clearer when we 
 consider the poet's method of make-believe and 
 the way his work was treated by learned historians. 
 In these respects the Wallace presents a striking 
 parallel to Geoflfrey of Monmouth's History of the 
 Kings of Britain, a book which, despite its obvious 
 inventions, has been taken seriously by multitudes, 
 and been gravely argued about by historians, dur- 
 ing the bewilderingly long period of over seven 
 hundred and fifty years since it was launched upon 
 a world fain to believe. 
 
 Immediately after his book appeared, sober his- 
 torians like William of Malmesbury set down 
 Geoffrey's statements as " fallacious fables " and 
 " ridiculous figments." " He disguised," said Wil- 
 liam of Newbury, " with the honest name of his- 
 tory the fables about Arthur taken from the old 
 tales of the Britons with increase of his own." 
 
 184 
 
THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 185 
 
 Giraldus Cambrensis soon after grew witty at 
 GeoflFrey's expense, as appears from the following 
 amusing story: 
 
 *' A certain Meilerius, having always an extraor- 
 dinary familiarity with unclean spirits, by seeing 
 them, knowing them, talking with them, and call- 
 ing each by his proper name, was enabled through 
 their assistance to foretell future events. . . . He 
 knew when any one spoke falsely in his presence, 
 for he saw the devil as it were leaping and exulting 
 on the tongue of the liar. If the evil spirits op- 
 pressed him too much, the Gospel of St. John was 
 laid on his bosom, when like birds they immediately 
 vanished away. But when that book was removed, 
 and the History of the Britons by Geoffrey Arthur, 
 for the sake of experiment, substituted in its stead, 
 they settled in far greater numbers and for a much 
 longer time than usual, not only upon his entire 
 body, but on the book that was placed upon it." * 
 
 Such protests, however, were unable to stem the 
 tide of popular belief in the glorious king which 
 soon surged on all the intellectual shores of Europe; 
 and, though they might gravely question this or 
 that feature of Geoffrey's account, most mediaeval 
 chroniclers calmly accepted in general his attitude 
 towards Arthur, while they deemed true beyond 
 cavil his narrative of the Trojan Brutus, illustrious 
 head of Britain's royal line. 
 
186 THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 
 
 Almost exactly at the same time that Blind 
 Harry wrote, in 1485, Caxton indicated, in his 
 preface to Malory's Morte d' Arthur, the kind of 
 controversy that was still being carried on respect- 
 ing Arthur. When certain noble gentlemen urged 
 him to print a history of that monarch, prominent 
 among the Nine Worthies of the world, he pointed 
 out to them that " divers men hold opinion that 
 there was no such Arthur, and that all such books 
 as been made of him be but feigned and fables, 
 because that some chronicles make of him no 
 mention, nor remember him nothing, nor of his 
 knights. Whereto they answered, and one in special 
 said, that in him that should say or think that 
 there was never such a king called Arthur, might 
 well be aretted great folly and blindness. For he 
 said that there were many evidences of the con- 
 trary." The evidences of Arthur's existence which 
 Caxton goes on to enumerate are not such as would 
 convince an historian to-day, unless he longed for 
 conviction, but they were strong enough to per- 
 suade the printer that it was worth while to " draw 
 briefly into English the noble histories of the said 
 King " and leave his readers to decide what was 
 true and what false. " And for to pass the time this 
 book shall be pleasant to read in, but for to give 
 faith and belief that all is true that is contained 
 herein, ye be at your liberty." In any case, he 
 
THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 187 
 
 felt, the Morte d' Arthur was a noble book of 
 example. 
 
 Caxton's attitude resembles that of Henry 
 Charteris, who published the Wallace in 1570, and 
 in a long preface to the Gentle Reader * thus ex- 
 plained his position towards the poem: "As I do 
 not be the furthsetting ... of this warke, follow- 
 ing, preciselie affirme, the haill contentis thairof , to 
 be of ane infallibill treuth: Swa do I na thing less 
 than allow the judgement and opinioun of them, 
 that rashlie, and at the first sicht, dois dampne the 
 samin, or maist pairt thairof, as friuoll, and fen3eit. 
 And that becaus thair is sum strange, and meruel- 
 lous thingis conteinit thairin, quhilk scarcely semis 
 can be creditit." Whereupon he discusses at length 
 the reasonableness of certain episodes in the poem, 
 particularly the story of Fawdoun's ghost, and the 
 journeys to France, and gives proofs of Wallace's 
 existence. 
 
 Such hedging remained characteristic of Scottish 
 critics. The Wallace has never been accepted by 
 them as a fully authentic account of the hero's life, 
 but nearly all have tried to credit as much of it as 
 possible, wish begetting belief that Blind Harry 
 was largely right. 
 
 The tone of the long line of comments was really 
 set by Major. After inveighing against Caxton for 
 the " incoherencies " and " silly fabrications " of 
 
188 THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 
 
 his English account of Wallace, Major assumes his 
 regular academic air and rebukes " native chroni- 
 clers " for their injudicious treatment of the 
 theme. Blind Harry, whom he here mentions by 
 name, was obviously the source of the fables he 
 then repudiates, as follows: " About this William 
 Wallace our chroniclers in the English tongue relate 
 that he twice visited France. They tell of his hav- 
 ing had a sea-fight with Thomas Longueville, a 
 French pirate, and John Lyn, an Englishman, and 
 of many other notable feats of his they make men- 
 tion, which I reject as false; and my rejection of 
 them I base, firstly, hereon, that our Latin chroni- 
 clers relate nothing that he did of any mark after 
 Varia Capella [Falkirk], but give us to understand 
 that he then went into hiding; and, in the second 
 place, I reject them inasmuch as the French his- 
 tories make mention of Scots of far less renown in 
 war than Wallace, and say scarce one word about 
 him. I conclude, therefore, that he never visited 
 France." But Major never concluded anything 
 finally, and so, after much learned argument, he 
 ends: "I am reluctant nevertheless to deny ab- 
 solutely, on the ground of such reasons as I have 
 ventured to state, that he never saw the shores of 
 France " — which was very shrewd.* 
 
 The questioning attitude of Major towards 
 Blind Harry was altogether commendable, and we 
 
THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 189 
 
 should praise him for it whole-heartedly were it not 
 for the fact that he quietly appropriated various 
 features of the chronicler's narrative otherwise un- 
 substantiated, and presented the " notable deeds " 
 of Wallace of renown, his appearance, prowess and 
 character, so as to confirm that author's original 
 narrative. 
 
 Not long after Major, Bellenden, in his para- 
 phrase of Hector Boece (1536), unable to refrain 
 from adding new material about Wallace, whose 
 reputation had so suddenly increased, refers such 
 of his readers as desire further information to 
 Blind Harry's book, but declines to say " if it has 
 any strength of soothfastness or yet of verity," 
 adding: " Therefore as now I lat al sic thingis be." 
 Bellenden must have seen that the author's claims 
 to credence amounted to little. Still, he encouraged 
 the course of the fiction, as numerous other his- 
 torians have done since. 
 
 Skipping nearly three centuries, we come to one 
 worthy of high respect. Patrick Eraser Tytler opens 
 his life of Wallace * in a way that makes one feel 
 he is to be an exception to the general rule, so well 
 does he recognize the dangers attendant on the use 
 of " the rhyming chronicler: " " The brilliant and 
 romantic colours with which the associations of 
 youthful years continue, even in later life, to invest 
 the memory of Wallace, render the task undertaken 
 
190 THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 
 
 by his biographer one of difficult execution and un- 
 certain success. His story, as recounted by Henry 
 the Minstrel, has been familiar to his countrymen 
 almost from childhood; and although its marvels 
 must be questioned, and often condemned, by the 
 severity of maturer judgment, there lingers a secret 
 disposition rather to believe what they wish to be 
 true, than to investigate with calmness what they 
 dread to find false." 
 
 Yet, having once made humble confession, even 
 he seems to have felt himself absolved from sin in 
 indulging this secret disposition. After reading 
 his splendidly sound prologue to his subject, it is 
 indeed a great disappointment to find that Tytler's 
 life of Wallace, like all the rest, records statements 
 for which he must have known Blind Harry was 
 the sole and a most doubtful authority, and per- 
 petuates incidents of a purely imaginative char- 
 acter, simply because they enlivened his narrative 
 and were the chief means he had of making Wal- 
 lace out to be, as he avows he conceived him, both 
 in character and actions, "in all respects colossal."* 
 
 There can, of course, be no objection to follow- 
 ing Blind Harry's work " where corroborated by 
 contemporary annals, or authentic records "; the 
 difficulty rests in the nature and extent of the cor- 
 roboration. If Blind Harry states facts that au- 
 thentic records also state, then his poem may be 
 
THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 191 
 
 held to be in so far true, but if on the basis of these 
 facts he spins out a narrative otherwise unsub- 
 stantiated, it cannot be argued that this developed 
 narrative is necessarily also true: most of what a 
 writer says about a situation may be fiction when 
 the situation itself is fact. This point seems to have 
 escaped all the biographers of Wallace, or they 
 have thought well to ignore it, the more easily to 
 satisfy their desire to paint an appealing portrait 
 of a celebrated hero. Realizing, as Tytler himself 
 said apologetically in concluding his story, that 
 " the bulk of mankind are ever more captivated 
 by what is wonderful and romantic than interested 
 in truth," they have yielded to the soft induce- 
 ment of popularity, and deviously accepted from 
 Blind Harry features for the adornment of their 
 pseudo-histories which they could not honestly 
 have said were corroborated by authentic records. 
 Lord Hailes certainly went far to discredit Blind 
 Harry as an historical authority by exposing some 
 of his " specious tales " and *' childish stories." * 
 But there came an inevitable reaction from his 
 heterodox attitude the moment there was a straw 
 of new evidence for Blind Harry's supporters to 
 cling to. Much was done to reinstate his poem 
 among trustworthy documents when Joseph Ste- 
 venson published his volume of Wallace Papers f 
 for the Maitland Club in 1841, 
 
192 THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 
 
 " Is it a fair inference," he asks, " because some 
 errors are found in a poem, containing several 
 thousand of lines, written by a blind and ignorant 
 versifier, and in a poem, too, handed down for a 
 long period by recitation, that the whole is utterly 
 worthless ? The present collection of documents 
 places this subject in a new and interesting posi- 
 tion; for it shows us that those very particulars, 
 which, from their romantic character, were sup- 
 posed to be fictitious, and which contributed to 
 throw discredit upon the whole production, are, 
 in reality, genuine and authentic history." And 
 again (apropos of a record showing that Wallace 
 visited France and perhaps Rome) : "It is inter- 
 esting to notice how the authentic details in this 
 volume here bear out, to a great degree^ the wild 
 romance of Blind Harry." * 
 
 All we can say is : we disagree. No one questions 
 that Wallace visited France. Major forgot when he 
 disputed the fact that this was asserted in the 
 Scotichronicon. But no document that Stevenson 
 or any one else has published confirms in a small 
 let alone a great degree Blind Harry's account of 
 Wallace's visits to France. That is certainly noth- 
 ing but " a wild romance," entirely unjustified by 
 any authentic historical record. 
 
 It is one thing to apologize for Blind Harry's in- 
 accurate statements and ask all to treat his errors 
 
THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 193 
 
 with lenity, like Irving, because of " his own situa- 
 tion and the state of learning during that age," * or, 
 like Chambers, because of " the unlettered char- 
 acter of the author and the comparative humility 
 of the class from whom he could chiefly derive 
 his facts." t It is another to go on, knowing that it 
 was the practice of the poet to make inaccurate 
 statements, and eliminate only those that are 
 grotesquely untrue, or to assert that if the " fun- 
 damentals " of some of his stories are verified by 
 " little morsels of evidence " J that have turned 
 up, the stories themselves as the poet gives them 
 are in any real sense worthy of belief. 
 
 " A blind and ignorant versifier " might un- 
 questioningly report reliable facts; " a poem 
 handed down for a long period by recitation " 
 might even more easily perpetuate reliable facts; 
 but the Wallace in its present form was neither 
 composed by a blind and ignorant versifier nor 
 handed down for a long period by recitation. With- 
 out question Blind Harry used current traditions 
 respecting his hero, but his poem may in an ample 
 sense be called an "invention"; the author was 
 a fabulator, quite insensitive to accusations of 
 untruth. 
 
 Major did well to call attention to the unflatter- 
 ing opinions of contemporary Englishmen regard- 
 ing Scotland as a warning to his countrymen to 
 
194 THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 
 
 advance only the truth. Robert of Brunne, follow- 
 ing Pers de Langtoft, calls Wallace a " master of 
 thieves," and Caxton describes him as " a rybaud 
 and an harlot, comen up of nought." Major thought 
 these were " silly fabrications." Perhaps they were. 
 But it does no good to encourage prejudice by 
 other " silly fabrications." Wallace has enough to 
 commend him on the basis of veritable achieve- 
 ment. 
 
 This is not the place to examine in detail Blind 
 Harry's record of events. That has already been 
 admirably done by Dr. Francis Lane Childs in the 
 unpublished Harvard dissertation already men- 
 tioned, and I have no wish to trespass on his 
 ground or anticipate his conclusions. However, I 
 may say that they strongly fortify the opinion of 
 recent Scottish scholars, particularly that of Mr. 
 George Neilson, who asserts that " as history the 
 poem is the veriest nightmare." * The Wallace is 
 so plainly under suspicion throughout that it 
 should never be regarded in any way as an inde- 
 pendent historical source. Surely it is time to give 
 over talking about its " inaccuracies," " blun- 
 ders," "mistakes," "errors," and the like, because 
 these words as used imply innocency of intent on 
 the part of the poet. Why not do him justice by 
 declining to judge his poem from the standpoint of 
 the chronicler ? 
 
THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 195 
 
 It is interesting to note that, not far from the 
 time when Blind Harry celebrated William Wal- 
 lace as the preeminent champion of the Scots in 
 their wars of independence, William Tell was simi- 
 larly exalted and made the ideal of Swiss patriots 
 in their struggle against Austria. Melchior Russ of 
 Lucerne, who began his chronicle in 1482, refers to 
 an earlier ballad of " the first Confederate," and 
 narrates certain of his exploits. In a short chronicle 
 of about 1470, the Tell story and the atrocities of 
 the tyrannical bailiffs are first found combined. 
 " Der Thall," that is, the simpleton of popular 
 fable, who corresponds to the Tokko of Saxo Gram- 
 maticus and the William of Cloudesley of English 
 ballads, was curiously transformed into an im- 
 mortal champion of Swiss rights — " assertor 
 patriae, vindex ultorque tyrannum." * " The gen- 
 eral result [of recent investigations] has been to 
 show that a mythological marksman and an impos- 
 sible bailiff bearing the name of a real family [Gess- 
 ler] have been joined with confused and distorted 
 reminiscences of the events of 1245-47, in which 
 the names of many real persons have been inserted 
 and many unauthenticated acts attributed to 
 them. . . . The alleged proofs of the existence of 
 a real William Tell in Uri in the fourteenth century 
 break down hopelessly." f 
 
196 THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 
 
 Scots, no less than others, have been willing to 
 profit by literary impostures, as is evident from 
 Macpherson's Ossian, which called forth Dr. 
 Johnson's caustic comment quoted at the head of 
 this chapter,* or the ballad of Hardyknute, which 
 Ritson rightly termed a " palpable and bungling 
 forgery." f Of a Scottish family,^ and certainly 
 acquainted with Ossian, probably also with Blind 
 Harry, was an American historian who has had an 
 immense influence in fashioning the fame of George 
 Washington — Parson Weems. 
 
 In 1800 the Reverend Mason L. Weems, pastor 
 of a church near Mt, Vernon, Virginia, issued a 
 Life of Washington, which went through over 
 forty editions, and is popular still. In the second 
 edition appeared for the first time the cherry-tree 
 episode with which all American boys are early 
 made familiar. Of Weems Mr. Sydney G. Fisher 
 has excellently said: "It is in vain that the his- 
 torians, the exhaustive investigators, the learned, 
 and the accurate rail at him or ignore him. He is 
 inimitable. He will live forever. He captured the 
 American people. He was the first to catch their 
 ear. He said exactly what they wanted to hear. 
 He has been read a hundred times more than all 
 the other historians and biographers of the Revo- 
 lution put together. He fastened his methods so 
 firmly upon the country that the learned historians 
 
THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 197 
 
 must, in their own dull and lifeless way, conform 
 as far as possible to his ideas or they will be neither 
 read nor tolerated. 
 
 " Out of the social, genial, card-playing, fox- 
 hunting Washington, Weems manufactured the 
 sanctimonious wooden image, the Sunday school 
 lay figure, which Washington still remains for most 
 of us, in spite of all the learned efforts of Owen 
 Wister, Senator Lodge and Paul Leicester Ford. 
 Weems was a myth-maker of the highest rank and 
 skill and the greatest practical success. Of the Rev- 
 olution itself he made a Homeric and Biblical com- 
 bat of giants, titans and mammoths against the 
 unfathomable corruption and wickedness of about 
 a dozen dragons and fiends calling themselves 
 King and Ministry in England." 
 
 " Reckless in statement, indifferent to facts and 
 research, his books are full of popular heroism, 
 religion and morality, which you at first call trash 
 and cant and then, finding it extremely entertain- 
 ing, you declare with a laugh, as you lay down the 
 book, what a clever rogue." * 
 
 One comes to much the same conclusion after a 
 close study of the Wallace as history. After one 
 has been convinced that the author had a different 
 object in writing the book from that of narrating 
 real events, and that he succeeded marvellously 
 in what he undertook to do — stirring the people 
 
198 THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 
 
 to defence of their realm — one ceases to inveigh 
 against his fabrications. The Wallace is of first im- 
 portance as an historical document just because it 
 perverted facts. 
 
 Not in the mood of a parson, still less of a fero- 
 cious Gael, but in that of a genial inventor, resem- 
 bling Geoffrey of Monmouth, another American 
 writer wrote a fabulous " History " of great influ- 
 ence — Washington Irving. 
 
 The legend of Blind Harry, who was long in 
 faery, is fundamentally not unlike that of Rip van 
 Winkle, who consorted with dead men in the 
 mountains, and there passed twenty years which 
 seemed to him but one night. Regarding his ac- 
 count of Rip's adventures, Irving wrote slily in a 
 preface : 
 
 " The following tale was found among the pa- 
 pers of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker, an old 
 gentleman of New York, who was very curious in 
 the Dutch history of the province, and the man- 
 ners of the descendants from its primitive settlers. 
 His historical researches, however, did not lie so 
 much among books, as among men; for the former 
 are lamentably scanty on his favorite topics; 
 whereas he found the old burghers, and still more 
 their wives, rich in that legendary lore so invalu- 
 able to a true history. Whenever, therefore, he hap- 
 pened upon a genuine Dutch family, snugly shut- 
 
THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 199 
 
 up in its low-roofed farmliouse, under a spreading 
 sycamore, he looked upon it as a little clasped vol- 
 ume of black letter, and studied it with the zeal of 
 a bookworm. 
 
 " The result of all these researches was a history 
 of the province, during the reign of the Dutch gov- 
 ernors, which he published some years since. There 
 have been various opinions as to the literary 
 character of his work, and, to tell the truth, it is 
 not a whit better than it should be. Its chief merit 
 is its scrupulous accuracy which, indeed, was a 
 little questioned on its first appearance, but has 
 since been completely established; and it is now 
 admitted into all historical collections, as a book 
 of unquestionable authority." 
 
 If Irving had represented Rip van Winkle as the 
 author of his History of New York, he would have 
 acted precisely like the author of the Wallace. But 
 he had already made himself famous under the 
 name of Diedrich Knickerbocker. One has only to 
 read Knickerbocker's charming narrative with the 
 Wallace in mind, to be struck by how much they 
 have in common, in method of composition as well 
 as in resultant influence.* We lack, to be sure, all 
 account of Blind Harry in his poem, because he 
 wrote in person, while Kiiickerbocker's appearance 
 is made quite clear to us by Irving, the supposed 
 editor, but we see equally plainly in both cases the 
 
200 THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 
 
 reason for the pseudonym. That Irving never ex- 
 pected to have his work taken as literally true, and 
 that he was himself amazed at its success, is appar- 
 ent from the " Author's Apology " which he 
 printed forty years after the History first ap- 
 peared. Though it would be illuminating to repro- 
 duce the whole of that apology here, space permits 
 of only the concluding words : 
 
 " I please myself," says Irving, " with the per- 
 suasion that I have struck the right chord; that 
 my dealings with the good old Dutch times, and 
 the customs and usages derived from them, are in 
 harmony with the feelings and humors of my 
 townsmen; that I have opened a vein of pleasant 
 associations and quaint characteristics peculiar to 
 my native place, and which its inhabitants will not 
 willingly suffer to pass away; and that, though 
 other histories of New York may appear of higher 
 claims to learned acceptation, and may take their 
 dignified and appropriate rank in the family library 
 Knickerbocker's history will still be received with 
 good-humored indulgence, and be thumbed and 
 chuckled over by the family fireside." 
 
 If the name of Knickerbocker, a hundred and 
 more years after he appeared as an American 
 author, is still familiar to countless folk who do not 
 know that he was a fictitious personage, the same 
 may be said of Blind Harry, equally fictitious, 
 
THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 201 
 
 who, over four hundred years after his appearance 
 as a Scottish author, continues a name to conjure 
 with. Thousands repeat enhvening features of his 
 account of the national hero without reahzing 
 their essential untruth. For the most part, how- 
 ever, they are not acquainted with the whole story 
 and do not realize that as a whole (to quote Mr. 
 Neilson) " it requires an almost deranged patriot- 
 ism to accept as worthy of the noble memory of 
 Sir William Wallace so vitiated a tribute." Hap- 
 pily the time is past when a publisher of the poem * 
 could suggest that the concluding words of the 
 Scotichronicon might be "in some respect, peculi- 
 arly applicable to Henry's Book." 
 
 Non Scotus est, Christe, cui non liber placet iste. 
 
 He is not a Scotsman whom this Book does not please. 
 
 " I believe," said Isocrates, " that the poetry of 
 Homer won greater glory because he nobly praised 
 those who warred against the barbarians, and that 
 this was the reason why our ancestors conceived 
 the desire to make his art honored both in the con- 
 tests of the Muses and in the training of young 
 men." The Wallace is not a great epic. It does not 
 deal with a very remote hero. It bears on its face 
 the stamp of individual invention. But it was an 
 astonishingly successful incentive to patriotism, 
 and this because the author so skilfully gathered 
 
202 THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 
 
 up floating traditions and welded them together to 
 foment war against an alien enemy. We shall never 
 be able to judge how great was the effect of his 
 putting his narrative into the mouth of a mysteri- 
 ous blind bard. It subtly gave the poem an almost 
 supernatural authority, and evoked a background 
 of Homeric suggestion that lingers still. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 Blind Harry and Blind Homer 
 
 Neither am I ignorant how fickle and 
 inconstant a thing fiction is, as being 
 subject to be drawn and wrested any way, 
 and how great the commodity of wit and 
 discourse is, that is able to apply things 
 well, yet so as never meant by its first 
 authors. 
 
 Bacon 
 
 IT has always been the custom of critics to name 
 one poet after some other among predecessors 
 in his art, who, by a process of transmigration of 
 souls, as it were, might be fancied to live again 
 in a modern descendant.* Major who, it will be re- 
 membered, referred to King James as " a second 
 Orpheus," hinted at the likeness, obvious by mis- 
 apprehension, between Blind Harry and Blind 
 Homer. That he did not go the full length of his 
 thought and openly call Blind Harry " a second 
 Homer " was probably due simply to the disrespect 
 he felt for vernacular verse, except such as was 
 written elegantly by illustrious personages, and 
 to his inherited, overpowering reverence for the 
 great bard of antiquity. " Quis in scriptis Homero 
 
204 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 
 
 major " ? asked Walter Map. " Quegli e Omero 
 poeta sovrano," wrote Dante. There was unanim- 
 ity of opinion in the Middle Ages as to Homer's 
 greatness, even among those who had not read 
 him,* and no one then doubted that the real author 
 of the glorious epics that went under his name was 
 really blind. The first edition of a Greek Homer was 
 published at Florence, by Demetrius Chalcondylas, 
 in 1488, almost synchronously with the appearance 
 of Blind Harry's Wallace, and it is no wonder that 
 the two poets were connected. Dunbar, in his 
 Goldyn Targe, a poem spiced as thick with classi- 
 cal references as a ham with cloves, refers to 
 Homer and his " ornate style so perfect," along 
 with Tully, whose " lips sweet of rhetoric " he 
 wished were his. The Wallace-poet likewise ad- 
 mired the aureate tongues the old poets were 
 figured to possess, and, as we have seen, adorned 
 his tale with as rich robes of rhetoric as it would 
 bear. When Macpherson came to write of Ossian, 
 he made that blind ancient echo phrases of Homer. 
 Possibly, knowledge of the eyeless bard of the 
 Greeks may have encouraged the author of the 
 Wallace in the use of his pseudonym. 
 
 Though Major apparently balked at frankly 
 reincarnating Homer in " Henricus caecus " (he 
 perhaps suspected he should have been laughed 
 at by his Parisian colleagues if he had done so), he 
 
BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 205 
 
 enforced the likeness enough to make it natural for 
 a less cautious reader to rush in where he had 
 feared to tread and suggest a resemblance be- 
 tween the actual authors of the Wallace and the 
 Iliad. " Another Homer," soon exclaimed the ec- 
 clesiastical Dempster,* gratified by his own 
 shrewdness in catching the point of Major's veiled 
 remarks, and praised Blind Harry extravagantly 
 for his " operose and grand work." The comparison 
 henceforth became inevitable among critics, 
 though some took Dempster to task for pushing it 
 so far. Thus, in the introduction to Morison's 
 print of the Wallace in 1790, we read: " Henry, as 
 Homer is said to have done, recited his verses, 
 which were of a patriotic kind, to the people 
 among whom he travelled. In any other respect, 
 it must be owned, it was rather ridiculous to say 
 he was another Homer. He was blind from his 
 birth, which Homer was not, who is supposed to 
 have become blind in the latter part of his life, 
 chiefly from the meaning of his name, which 
 name can admit of other interpretations." 
 
 It was, of course, the supposed blindness of 
 Blind Harry that chiefly justified and kept alive 
 the parallel. To men like Ambrose Philips, 
 " Homer was nothing more than a blind ballad- 
 singer." t Blackwell, in his Life of Homer,X dwelt 
 upon the advantages of the wandering life to a 
 
206 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 
 
 poet, arguing that " Homer's being born poor, and 
 living a strolling indigent bard, was in relation to 
 his poetry, the greatest happiness that could be- 
 fall him." And Irving, in his Lives of the Scottish 
 Poets,* applied Blackwell's views to Blind Harry, 
 adding: "If we consider it as the production of a 
 man blind from his birth, his heroic poem cannot 
 fail of ranking him among the most remarkable 
 characters commemorated in the annals of litera- 
 ture." Whereupon he quotes from Ellis: f " That a 
 man born blind should excel in any science, is suflS- 
 ciently extraordinary, though by no means with- 
 out example; but that he should become an excel- 
 lent poet is almost miraculous; because the soul 
 of poetry is description. Perhaps, therefore, it may 
 be safely assumed, that Henry was not inferior, in 
 point of genius, either to Barbour or Chaucer; nor 
 indeed to any poet of any age or country; but it is 
 our present business to estimate the merit of the 
 work, rather than the genius of the author." In 
 all this we have a clear echo of the great discus- 
 sion of Homer by Edward Young, William Duff, 
 Robert Wood, and others, the Greek bard being 
 to them the chief example of " original genius." 
 
 How a strolling indigent bard could have come 
 by his culture has, indeed, been debated almost as 
 persistently of Harry as of Homer, and scholars 
 even before the time of Wolf (1795), but still more 
 
BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 207 
 
 since, have discussed in the one case as in the other 
 how a blind man, or any author before the age of 
 writing, was physically able to compose such long 
 and carefully-wrought poems as those with which 
 they were credited. Josephus declared that the 
 works of Homer were not preserved in writing, but 
 were sung and retained by memory. Henry Morley 
 thought the Wallace might possibly have been 
 written from Blind Harry's dictation, " or from 
 the memory of parts of it by other minstrels who 
 recited this or that adventure out of it among the 
 people." * No matter how preserved, there are 
 critics still who hold that its composition was " a 
 wonderful effort of memory." j 
 
 Such are the reaches of criticism. The Wallace 
 question has run parallel to the Homeric question 
 even to theories of interpolation and collaboration, 
 as the summary of opinion in the first chapter has 
 shown, while reminiscential comment on " the 
 blind old Scottish Homer of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury "I continues, even in this the twentieth. In the 
 Cambridge History of English Literature § we find : 
 " From Major's account it is clear that Harry be- 
 longed to the class of wandering minstrels who 
 recited, like Homer of old, the deeds of heroes to 
 their descendants. . . . There is nothing in Harry, 
 any more than in Homer, to show that the author 
 was born blind. On the contrary, some of his de- 
 
208 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 
 
 scriptions seem to show considerable powers of 
 observation." * And Dr. Garnett, after quoting 
 Major, wrote: t "He [Henry the Minstrel] was, 
 therefore, a rhapsodist, J and Homeric in other par- 
 ticulars than his blindness. . . . There is no doubt 
 of his privation of sight, but the evidence of cul- 
 ture in his poems, including traces of Chaucer, in- 
 dicate that before his affliction he must have em- 
 ployed his eyes in study. According to his own 
 statement, indeed, his poem is mainly founded 
 upon a Latin biography of Wallace, now lost, by 
 his chaplain, John or Arnold Blair." 
 
 To recapitulate, then, concerning the poet's 
 blindness: Major stated that Harry was blind 
 from birth, and this, being the sole evidence on the 
 point, has of course remained the orthodox view. 
 Those who have held it agree that the fact of 
 blindness from birth constituted him one of the 
 world's wonders; but Major said so, the poet's 
 name bore it out, and there was for them there- 
 fore no escape; a miracle was a miracle. Those 
 nowadays who, denying Major's evidence at will, 
 maintain that he only later became blind, argue 
 merely on the basis of antecedent probability. 
 They contend that the poet's descriptions of natu- 
 ral scenes would be impossible for a blind man, and 
 so on. Besides, he has to be given a chance to learn 
 to read Blair's Latin book! Those, finally, who are 
 
BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 209 
 
 convinced that the work was not written by a 
 blind man hold that Harry was not its author. 
 
 Now, this is not merely the modern sort of argu- 
 ment about Homer but exactly the kind that went 
 on formerly with regard to him. In antiquity noth- 
 ing really was known of Homer. In early times his 
 blindness was assumed,* for example, by Thucy- 
 dides, — who accepted the Hymn to the Delian 
 Apollo as Homeric, and must therefore (according 
 to verse 172) have counted him blind, — and by 
 Aristophanes, who also quotes it as Homeric. The 
 etymology of his name by Ephorus f also presumes 
 belief in his blindness. Whether he was blind from 
 birth was at first not asked. Later, some writers 
 declared that he was, obviously to enhance the 
 wonder. Cicero, however, seems to have ques- 
 tioned how, if so, the vividness of his descriptions 
 was to be explained. Ephorus and Heraclides 
 thought that he was not blind from birth, and the 
 latter (as well as Pausanias) indicated circum- 
 stances under which his affliction was brought 
 about. Lucian denied his blindness altogether. 
 Some gave credit to Pisistratus and others for the 
 collection and arrangement of his poems. J 
 
 Blind Harry mentions a knight. Sir Richard 
 Wallace, blinded " through courage " in a struggle 
 against the English; § whereupon his editor. Dr. 
 Moir, felt constrained to note: " When Harry in- 
 
210 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 
 
 troduces this blind hero, he says nothing of his 
 own bHndness, any more than Homer does when 
 he introduces his bhnd bard in the 8th Odyssey. 
 Contrast with this reticence Milton's noble passage 
 in the beginning of the third book of ' Paradise 
 Lost.' Harry is in this respect more true to the epic 
 spirit than Milton is." How irrelevant is this re- 
 mark if the author of the Wallace was not blind at 
 all! Mayhap the Greek Homer anticipated the 
 Scottish Homer in " reticence " for the same rea- 
 son. But Dr. Moir probably simply remembered 
 that even in antiquity Homer was said to have 
 pictured himself as Demodocus. The parallel treat- 
 ment of Blind Harry with Homer illustrates for 
 our instruction, how in modern criticism of a mod- 
 ern poet the same things have been fancied as were 
 fancied in ancient criticism of an ancient poet, and 
 this not simply because the Hall of Criticism is 
 notoriously a hall of echoes, but because conven- 
 tions of thought are regularly established by 
 reminiscence. 
 
 Henceforth we shall probably hear no more 
 about the Wallace-poet as a rhapsodist. That 
 ghost is surely laid. But the present inquiry would 
 be unenlightened if it did not lead to the percep- 
 tion that Blind Harry and Blind Homer as tradi- 
 tional figures have something in common; and with 
 that idea we shall now deal. 
 
BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 211 
 
 The ancients knew as little as we about Homer. 
 At no time had the Greeks any consistent or au- 
 thentic biography of him. He was assigned by them 
 a date anywhere from 1159 B.C. (that given him 
 by some authorities quoted in Philostratus) to 
 686 B.C. (that given him by the historian Theo- 
 pompus).* The oldest evidence put the poet simply 
 in the time of the Trojan War. His father was said 
 to be a contemporary of Priam. Seven, even seven- 
 teen, cities claimed to be his birthplace, all the way 
 from Ithaca to Colophon. 
 
 Not until the sixth century B.C. does interest ap- 
 pear to have been aroused in Homer as a person. 
 But then many inventions arose, in part due to the 
 contest of the cities which declared themselves to 
 be his birthplace and sedulously adduced proofs in 
 support of their claims. The poet's journeys were 
 held to be established by his great geographical 
 knowledge. He was said to have visited cities that 
 were particularly praised in his poems. He was 
 brought into connection with well-known men of 
 olden time like Hesiod, Lycurgus, Medon, Creo- 
 phylus, and with minor persons in the epics. 
 Steadily his legendary life grew from more to 
 more. We are told of his stay in Ithaca because of 
 his love for Penelope, of his Egyptian or Baby- 
 lonian origin, of the conjuring of spirits and the 
 prophecies of sibyls. Perhaps the most important 
 
212 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 
 
 features of his storied biography was an extraor- 
 dinary dispute with Hesiod in Chalcis. According 
 to one account, the poet died of grief, Hke Calchas 
 after his defeat by Mopsus, because he could not 
 solve a riddle. Eugaion gives him as mother a 
 nymph Cretheis. According to Alexander of Paphos 
 his nurse was the daughter of Horus, a priest of 
 Isis; out of her breast flowed honey. He is said to 
 have known the language of birds. No one in an- 
 tiquity ever tried to paint an individual portrait 
 of Homer — for obvious reasons. 
 
 If we assume Blind Homer to be a strictly his- 
 torical figure, then the many mythical features of 
 his ancient biography must of necessity be deemed 
 spurious accretions and disregarded. But if we 
 start with the assumption that he was originally 
 a figure of fiction, like Blind Ossian, a general 
 pseudonym for those who wrote the Greek poems 
 of the ancients, then the mythical traditions that 
 attach to him may be regarded as the varying 
 myths about other similar bards, and we must 
 deem misleading the efforts of old euhemerizers to 
 make him out a human being like unto themselves, 
 according to their desires. 
 
 It is not so long ago that Ossian, about whom so 
 much fable clings, was accepted as an historical 
 personage, a genuine leader of armed militia in 
 ancient Erin. The true pedigree of his father Finn 
 
BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 213 
 
 was supposed to be set forth in the Book of Leinster, 
 and his death to have surely occurred in 283 a.d. 
 But while politic persons, in deference to popular 
 prejudice, still admit that "it is possible " that 
 the Fians of story once lived, few Celtic scholars 
 now treat them as other than mythical beings. In 
 any case, " it is certain," as Alfred Nutt says, 
 " that 99-lOOths of what is ascribed to them bears 
 no relation whatever to historic fact, but is simply 
 older myth slightly humanized, or new invention 
 on the lines of older myth." * And we need not 
 worry about the " possibility " of the other one 
 hundredth having some basis in fact. The " it is 
 possible " compromise of the politic, here as in 
 other cases, has really been worked to the limits 
 of sense, modern critics sometimes making con- 
 fusion worse confounded in their anxious endeavors 
 to unravel the skein of legend, and separate in mat- 
 ter fundamentally fabulous the true from the 
 false. " The art of transforming untrue impossi- 
 bilities into untrue possibilities." f is surely 
 profitless. 
 
 The Scandinavians have gone beyond the Celts 
 in a proper view of their old myths. In the North, 
 by common consent, the old gods and heroes are 
 for the most part relegated to the domain of fable. 
 This, however, was not always the case, and it is 
 illuminating to see how Odin, the wind-god, the 
 
214 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 
 
 god of battle, the god of song and wisdom, who 
 was plausibly identified by classical writers with 
 Mercury, was gravely chronicled as an ancestor 
 of the royal line of Norway by no less a person than 
 Snorri Sturluson, one of the most brilliant his- 
 torians in the world. Though, according to Snorri, 
 Odin was " foreseeing and wise in wizardry," 
 though " he knew the art and craft whereby he 
 could change his hue and shape in any wise that 
 he would," though " in battle he could make his 
 foes blind or deaf or fear-stricken," though " he 
 could wake up dead men from the earth," and 
 " had might to know the fate of men and things 
 not yet come to pass," nevertheless we find him 
 presented in the opening of the Heimskringla as 
 an historical monarch who ruled in Asia (As-gard 
 being so interpreted),* and had we only Snorri's 
 narrative, it would be open to any one to main- 
 tain that the fabulous was merely an accretion to 
 the record of a real person, or that two persons, 
 one real and one fabulous, had got confused, even 
 as Tzetzes postulated more than one Homer to 
 account for the poet's supposed dispute with 
 Hesiod.f 
 
 This last is what is actually asserted of Bragi, 
 the Old Norse god of poetry. In the Eddie lays J 
 he appears as the son of Odin, the best of skalds, 
 an old man {inn gamli) with a long white beard. 
 
BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 215 
 
 His wife is Idunn, a goddess, who keeps the apples 
 of immortality.* In a section of the prose Edda 
 that bears his name, the Bragaroethr, or Sayings 
 of Bragi, he is represented as telling the sea-god 
 ^gir how the kennings arose out of old myths and 
 sagas. And yet, with curious perversity, excellent 
 scholars maintain that this was all an after- 
 thought. Bragi to them is the first provable skald. 
 He lived in the ninth century. He went about from 
 court to court and composed songs in praise of 
 princes. t But gradually his human life and activity 
 were forgotten; he became the prototype of all 
 courtly skalds; he was made the god of poetry. 
 That, however, is not the way of such processes. 
 Bragi the Old is probably no more a real skald than 
 Brig(it), the Irish goddess of poetry, whose name 
 became celebrated as that of a saint, and the 
 poems that pass under his name were no doubt 
 ascribed to him as similar poems were ascribed to 
 Ossian and the rest, merely to give them currency. 
 Like all the poems put into the mouths of mythical 
 bards, Bragi's dealt with old events, as for example 
 with the story of Gefion, who aided by her four 
 sons, begotten by a giant, ploughed herself a land, 
 Selund, the modern Denmark, separate from 
 Sweden — a story that Snorri amusingly rational- 
 izes and makes occur in Odin's time, when that 
 chieftain had lands in Turkey ! 
 
216 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 
 
 It seems almost incredible that Snorri, wlio 
 knew the real myths of the Elder Edda, could have 
 permitted himself to repeat such absurdities from 
 the point of view of the historian as he put in the 
 Ynglingasaga, his only justification being that he 
 here followed " olden songs, or story-lays, which 
 men have had for their joyance," and " though 
 we wot not surely the truth thereof, yet this we 
 know for a truth, that men of lore of old time have 
 ever held such lore for true." * But this was not 
 much more than was done by Milton in his treat- 
 ment of the Trojan story in the History of Britain; 
 " It is curious," says Tylor,t " to watch Milton's 
 mind emerging, but not wholly emerging, from 
 the state of the mediaeval chronicler. He men- 
 tions in the beginning of his * History of Britain,' 
 the * outlandish figment ' of the four kings. Magus, 
 Saron, Druis, and Bardus; he has no approval for 
 the giant Albion, son of Neptune, who subdued the 
 island and called it after his own name; he scoffs 
 at the four sons of Japhet, called Francus, Roma- 
 nus, Alemannus, and Britto. But when he comes 
 to Brutus and the Trojan legend, his sceptical 
 courage fails him : ' those old and inborn names of 
 successive kings, never any to have bin real per- 
 sons, or don in their lives at least som part of 
 what so long hath bin remember'd, cannot be 
 thought without too strict an incredulity.' " 
 
BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 217 
 
 The material that Milton used in his History he 
 knew to be mainly fable, but he stilled his con- 
 science by the conviction that its preservation 
 would be useful to poets, much as Plato justified 
 transforming tales of mythology in the interest of 
 morals; '* because we do not know the truth about 
 ancient times, we make falsehood as much like 
 truth as we can, and so turn it to account." * Such 
 lying Plato thought " useful and not hateful," 
 comparing it with the lie to deceive enemies, or 
 that to prevent friends from doing harm in a fit of 
 madness or illusion. The methods of modern 
 scholars, we may note, are not very different. 
 Some strain their own credulity to sustain desire, 
 willingly repeating notions which they know to be 
 unfounded yet are unable to prove false, or are 
 loath to see die; while others perpetuate tradition 
 as tradition, without admitting full belief in it, 
 yet thus lead astray the undiscriminating, who 
 make no shades in credence. Of course, no one can 
 deny that legend attaches to real persons, just as 
 unwarranted miracles are attributed to real saints ; 
 but in candor it ought not to be more difficult to 
 distinguish between Homer and iEschylus, or Job 
 and David, than between Odin and Olaf Tryggva- 
 son, or St. Brendan and Bede. 
 
 The Eddie lays still remain independent in the 
 main of one another. No transcendent poet rose 
 
218 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 
 
 in the North able to weld them together into fixed 
 epic union. But had such a plan been conceived, it 
 would most likely have been Odin the god of wise- 
 saying who would have become its centre. Even 
 in the Hdvamdl, the Sayings of Harr, as it exists in 
 the manuscripts, we see the tendency to collect 
 material of unlike form about this name. The 
 Hdvamdl embraces what is left of several independ- 
 ent lays conveying ancient wisdom, tales of gods 
 and giants, and magic runes, as well as a body of 
 practical precepts to guide men in everyday life. 
 In one of those lays Odin is figured as telling in 
 person some of his own romantic exploits, but the 
 title of the collection seems to derive from the 
 fiction of representing him as the mouthpiece of 
 wise instruction, the hoary sage delivering his wise 
 saws and old instances (forn doemi) according to 
 the duties of his office. The chief mythological 
 poem of the Edda is a " prophecy " put into the 
 mouth of a Sibyl, who in beginning speaks: " Thou 
 Valfather [Odin] wouldst have me tell the ancient 
 histories of men as far as I can remember." Per- 
 haps " Edda," which in the only place where it is 
 used in the old lays * seems to mean " grand- 
 mother," may be a term equivalent to Sibyl. Harr, 
 alias Odin, was pictured as a blind wayfarer, who 
 went about from one place to another singing lays 
 and giving counsel. Had only Old Norse mythologi- 
 
BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 219 
 
 cal material been welded together long enough ago 
 by some great poet who presented it as the words 
 of Harr, inspired by the Sibyl, we might to-day 
 be wondering what were the actual facts about the 
 life of Blind Harr, as well as Blind Harry, Blind 
 Ossian, and Blind Homer. Indeed, we have a good 
 illustration of what was natural in the way that 
 Snorri in the thirteenth century makes the frame- 
 work of his recapitulation of Old Norse mythology, 
 an imaginary conversation between Gangleri, the 
 Wanderer, and Harr, the High One, in which the 
 latter gives information and relates old tales to his 
 questioner, even as Caeilte does to St. Patrick in 
 the Colloquy of the Elder sJ^ 
 
 To whom were attributed the beast-fables that 
 are even now current among us ^ To ^sop, 
 a dwarf because of an offense against the gods,t 
 or to Romulus, fabled founder of Rome, who was 
 carried to heaven by his father Mars in a fiery 
 chariot. Who wrote about the Trojan War ^ The 
 imagined contemporaries of that event, Dares 
 Phrygius for the one side, Dictys Cretensis for the 
 other. Who was Bishop Golias (Goliath) who had 
 such a wonderful Apocalypse and made such a can- 
 did Confession betraying the former state of the 
 clergy? 
 
 No one now will dispute that it was in olden days 
 a custom to use personages of fiction as burden- 
 
220 BLIND HARRY ANB BLIND HOMER 
 
 bearers of ancient narrative, just as it has always 
 been a custom to use fictitious personages to voice 
 individual thoughts, and that if these personages 
 attracted, they were regularly given more thoughts 
 to utter. Our study here is with imaginary authors 
 and the reason why they were chosen by the real 
 authors whose books went under their illusory 
 names. It is, of course, a very different sort of study 
 to try to arrive at the character and station of 
 these actual poets. We are primarily concerned 
 with the Eddie poems, the Ossianic poems, the 
 Homeric poems, just as we are with Beowulf, the 
 Chanson de Roland, the Cid, the Nihelungenlied, 
 and other such anonymous epics, as artistic crea- 
 tions. But we cannot judge them freely until we 
 cease to take seriously as matters of fact deliberate 
 fictions about their authorship. It may be there is 
 not a single old epic whose author's name we really 
 know. Each poem must be studied in the sole light 
 of its own radiance. And there is gain in that, de- 
 spite the insatiable longing of modern poets for 
 advertisement, and the indefatigable search of 
 modern critics for personalities. 
 
 It looks, then, as if Homer were first the name of 
 a mythical or fabricated personage, not unlike Os- 
 sian, or Odin, to whom, for some reason or other, 
 was early ascribed much epic material about the 
 ancients of the Greek race, which was finally trans- 
 
BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 221 
 
 formed into noble poems by a transcendent writer. 
 These poems, though they gradually superseded 
 the more primitive, disunited accounts of the old 
 heroes, made no claim to a change of substance, 
 and retained the traditional name. He was only re- 
 cording, as a Muse, or a Sibyl, or a spirit of the de- 
 parted, or simply as wise ancestors, advised him, 
 with infinite skill to be sure, but with the imper- 
 sonal object that epic poets have so often set them- 
 selves — to benefit posterity by retelling the deeds 
 of past heroes. It is perhaps no accident that the 
 authors of the (by comparison) recent epic poems, 
 Beowulf, and the rest, remain unknown, though 
 each of them, as we have it, is the work of an in- 
 dividual of exceptional power. These writers ex- 
 alted first the names of their heroes, not their own. 
 If it is asked why the mythical Homer was 
 pictured as blind, we can give no single definite 
 reply; for even in earliest antiquity his blindness 
 was not understood, or at least not explained in any 
 one way to satisfy all. The numerous attempts at 
 an explanation merely show the minds of men at 
 work making conjectures along the lines of divers 
 traditions due to mythopoeic fancy. In the begin- 
 ning, it is clear, the mythical Homer was thought 
 blind for some mythical reason; his blindness was 
 believed to be due to some situation in which the 
 deities were involved. Only later did scholars en- 
 
222 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 
 
 deavor to rationalize myths already applied to him, 
 or to invent explanations more in accord with 
 natural probability. But throughout antiquity the 
 belief in the inspiration of Homer, and therefore in 
 his connection with divine beings, ever maintained 
 its hold over the Greeks and guided their medita- 
 tions on the epithet that had come down to them 
 from time immemorial attached to him. 
 
 We have already gathered from our considera- 
 tion of Celtic instances what primitive men in a 
 Homeric state of civilization * felt might result 
 from oflPending the gods, the givers of the power of 
 song. These narratives, whether borrowed from 
 the Greeks, or of general Aryan origin, were in ac- 
 cord with classical thought. The Celts, as we have 
 seen, believed that otherworld beings had the 
 power to deprive mortals of eyesight when these 
 had aroused their displeasure. They recorded in- 
 stances of ancients who by luck or favor pene- 
 trated to faery, the noble seat of all the arts and 
 sciences, lived long in that elysium, and returned 
 to earth bards, but blind. They felt that their 
 deities were able to bless or blast, or both at the 
 same time, to endow a favorite with magical pow- 
 ers, and yet, offended after he departed from their 
 company, to hide the physical ways he might seek 
 to use to reach again their divine abode, or merely 
 from vindictiveness to plunge him into the misery 
 
BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 223 
 
 of outer darkness. Similar conceptions are behind 
 the statements in Homer regarding the supremely 
 gifted Demodocus. When Alcinous invited that 
 " sacred bard " to entertain Odysseus in the palace, 
 he remarked that " surely God has granted him 
 exceeding skill in song." And the poet went out of 
 his way to explain that the cause of the blindness 
 of Demodocus was the cause of his song: " The 
 Muse had greatly loved him and had given him 
 good and ill; she took away his eyesight, but gave 
 delightful song." 
 
 The Muses * in Greek correspond to the faery 
 queens of Celtic tradition. Originally regarded as 
 the nymphs of inspiring wells, near which they 
 were worshipped, they become, in the Homeric 
 poems, the goddesses of song and poetry, and live 
 in Olympus. The powers which we find most fre- 
 quently assigned to them are that of bringing be- 
 fore the mind of the mortal poet the events which 
 he has to relate; and that of conferring upon him 
 the gift of song, and of giving gracefulness to what 
 he utters. A further feature in the character of the 
 Muses is their prophetic power, which belongs to 
 them, partly because they were regarded as in- 
 spiring nymphs, and partly because of their con- 
 nection with the prophetic god of Delphi. 
 
 The Muses, like faery queens, inflicted penalties 
 on those who displeased them. We recall how the 
 
224 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 
 
 Sirens, who ventured upon a contest with them, 
 were deprived of the feathers of their wings; and 
 how the nine daughters of Pierus, who presumed 
 to rival them, were metamorphosed into birds. 
 But especially interesting to us is the case of the 
 bard Thamyris, who, likewise presuming to excel 
 them, was punished with blindness. In Demodocus 
 and Thamyris, then, we have two mythical Greek 
 bards, once favorites of the Muses, who were af- 
 flicted by these same divine ladies with blindness 
 for some offense. 
 
 There were, furthermore, many other Greek per- 
 sonages who were afflicted with blindness by a 
 deity, for example Lycurgus, blinded by Zeus be- 
 cause of impiety, therefore " hated by the im- 
 mortal gods "; Phineus, the sage counsellor of the 
 Argonauts, who had received his prophetic powers 
 from Apollo, blinded by the gods for having com- 
 municated to mortals the divine counsels of Zeus 
 about the future; and, most prominent of all, 
 Tiresias, from whom Odysseus sought counsel in 
 the underworld, and who had the power there 
 among the shades to put strict injunctions on the 
 hero when he left that place, the disobeying of 
 which brought a promised penalty, like neglect of 
 the directions given a mortal in faery when he 
 sought his old home. 
 
BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 225 
 
 As to Tiresias, the cause of his bhndness was 
 beHeved to have been the fact that he had revealed 
 to men things which, according to the will of the 
 gods, they ought not to know, or that he had seen 
 Athena while she was bathing, on which occasion 
 the goddess is said to have blinded him by sprink- 
 ling water into his face, or because he aroused the 
 indignation of Hera, when he decided against her 
 in a dispute with Zeus. Tiresias acts so prominent 
 a part in the mythical history of Greece that there 
 is scarcely any event with which he is not con- 
 nected in some way or other, and this introduction 
 of the seer in so many occurrences separated by 
 long intervals of time, was facilitated by the belief 
 in his long life. Faery was the home of prophecy as 
 well as of poesy, and the sufferings of blind seers as 
 well as of blind bards were supposed to spring from 
 the same supernatural cause.* 
 
 In the Bible we have literal belief in blindness as 
 able to be either produced or healed by the Deity 
 or his instruments. Elislia smote the Syrians with 
 blindness, even as angels of the Lord at the house 
 of Lot brought the same affliction on the men of 
 Sodom, " so that they wearied themselves to find 
 the door." Saul was stricken with blindness on the 
 way to Damascus, but after a supernatural vision 
 his sight was restored to him by Ananias and he was 
 filled with the Holy Spirit. Filled with the Holy 
 
226 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 
 
 Spirit, he himself imposed blindness on the false 
 prophet Bar-jesus, Elymas the sorcerer, " and im- 
 mediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness, 
 and he went about seeking some one to lead him 
 by the hand." * 
 
 Still more significant is the attitude of Christ 
 Himself to blindness, which the Jews plainly 
 thought might be a penalty of sin. " There was 
 brought unto Him one possessed with a devil, 
 blind and dumb, and He healed him, insomuch 
 that the blind and dumb both spake and saw." 
 " In that same hour He cured many of their in- 
 firmities and plagues and of evil spirits, and unto 
 many that were blind He gave sight." The method 
 Jesus used to heal the man of Bethsaida was to 
 spit in his eyes and put His hands upon him. In the 
 case of the blind beggar at the pool of Siloam, " He 
 spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, 
 and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with 
 the clay." To heal other blind men, however. He 
 merely " touched their eyes," while the cure of 
 Bartimaeus was made to depend solely on his 
 faith.t 
 
 That the Jews looked upon congenital blindness 
 as an affliction by the Deity is clear from the 
 question that the disciples asked about the man at 
 the pool: " Master, who did sin, this man, or his 
 parents, that he was born blind ? " And Jesus 's 
 
BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 227 
 
 answer — " Neither hath this man sinned, nor his 
 parents ; but that the works of God should be made 
 manifest in him " * — was a definite claim to His 
 divinity. Only a god could give or take away sight. 
 Notable are the words that Moses spake when 
 Jehovah appeared to him in the burning bush: 
 " O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither hereto- 
 fore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant; 
 but I am slow of speech and of a slow tongue. And 
 the Lord said unto him. Who hath made man's 
 mouth ? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the 
 seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the Lord? Now 
 therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth and 
 teach thee what thou shalt say." f The Hebrew 
 God, like a Celtic deity could deprive of sight and 
 give eloquence of speech. 
 
 Homer, says Plato, " never had the wit to dis- 
 cover why he was blind." It was just as well. 
 Homer was evidently blind for some divine reason. 
 But what ? Was it his own sin or the sin of his 
 parents ? Let every man guess according to paral- 
 lel. Plato showed what he was thinking about 
 when he brought the supreme bard into connection 
 with Stesichorus, whose losing of his eyesight, as 
 the philosopher explained, was the penalty which 
 was inflicted upon him for reviling the lovely 
 Helen. J Though special reasons are thus given in 
 individual cases for blindness of poets, they all 
 
228 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 
 
 seem but variants of the same sort of superstition, 
 and this is true of the earhest as of the latest times. 
 The mythical Homer was afflicted, as it were, for 
 the sins of his mythical fathers; even so his rhap- 
 sodic descendants, when need was felt, to the tenth 
 generation. But this affliction was beneficial to 
 their renown, since it implied supernatural associa- 
 tion. 
 
 Blindness is still, not only an open sesame to 
 sympathy, but a stimulus to awe. Wordsworth 
 touches the point nearly when, in the Prelude,^ 
 he explains his feelings on suddenly seeing a blind 
 beggar in a London street. 
 
 On the shape of that unmoving man, 
 
 His steadfast face and sightless eyes, I gazed, 
 
 As if admonished from another world. 
 
 Admonition! He was in " the felt presence of the 
 Deity." 
 
 There is no need to repeat here all the " mytho- 
 logical errors " connected with Homer's blindness,! 
 but one deserves attention. An anonymous writer, 
 in one of the Lives, says that. Homer requesting 
 the gods to grant him a sight of Achilles, that hero 
 rose, but in armor so bright that it struck Homer 
 blind with the blaze. J Such conceptions also find a 
 parallel in primitive Celtic story. Blindness, it was 
 said, resulted from looking at the Fal's wheel, § and 
 the same penalty attached to over-inquisitiveness 
 
BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 229 
 
 in prying out the gods' mysteries. In a Dinnsen- 
 chas we are told how the well of inspiration in faery 
 might not be approached save by certain beings 
 and in certain stated ways: " Boand wife of Nech- 
 tan son of Labraid went to the Secret Well which 
 was in the green of sid Nechtan. Whoever went to 
 it would not come from it without his two eyes 
 bursting, unless it was Nechtan himself and his 
 three cupbearers." * A similar idea is present in the 
 puzzling Old Norse story of Odin's pledging his 
 eye to Sokkmimir, the giant of the abyss, for a 
 draught of the deep well of wisdom. Under the 
 Ash of Yggdrasill, as Snorri informs us in the 
 Gylfaginning,^ is " Mimir's Well, wherein wisdom 
 and understanding are stored; and he is called 
 Mimir who keeps the well. He is full of ancient 
 lore, since he drinks of the well from the Gjallar- 
 Horn. Thither came Allfather and craved one drink 
 of the well — but he got it not until he had laid 
 his eye in pledge. So says Voluspa: 
 
 All know I, Odin where the eye thou hiddest, 
 
 In the wide-renowned well of Mimir; 
 
 Mimir drinks mead every morning 
 
 From Valfather's pledge. Wit ye yet, or what ? " 
 
 Odin escaped from the underworld one-eyed, 
 but " full of ancient lore," a famous pulr,X or bard. 
 In the form of a one-eyed, long-bearded old sage, 
 he tells King Olaf of days long gone by. 
 
230 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 
 
 Confused with such ideas of blindness as a pen- 
 alty on mortals, was no doubt that of blindness as 
 a disguise for immortals who chose to appear on 
 earth to effect their wills. Merlin, as we have seen, 
 and other supernatural folk in Celtic fable, as- 
 sumed the likeness of blind bards when they de- 
 sired. Odin was wont to go about under the name 
 Blindr, the Blind One, a god in disguise. He thus 
 was represented in both aspects, blind because of 
 his own divine power as a shape-shifter, and blind 
 because he sought divine power and had to pay 
 the price of his ambition. 
 
 Ephorus thought the name Homer simply meant 
 the Blind One, and it may be that the mythical 
 personage of that name who was made the great 
 mouthpiece of ancient Greek lore, was conceived 
 of as actually a god. But it is not necessary to go 
 so far. Granted the belief in deities as the source of 
 occult knowledge, if men tried to picture a bard of 
 superior authority, they could hardly fail to im- 
 agine his association with otherworld powers. If 
 any ancient bard (fabled or real) had uncommon 
 skill or wisdom, he might naturally in primitive 
 times be supposed to have derived these from the 
 gods, and he would almost inevitably draw like a 
 magnet, in some form or other, the conception of 
 blindness attaching to mortals with divine gifts, 
 just as national leaders of fame, whether it be the 
 
BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 231 
 
 mythical Odin and Arthur, or the historical James 
 IV of Scotland and Napoleon, have had attached 
 to them the conception of immortality, and 
 aroused the same hope of return to their native 
 land to free it from a foreign yoke. To us such 
 notions may seem mere skimble-skamble stuff, 
 but that is only because we do not know their 
 origin, or recognize that primitive ideas still hold 
 sway with primitive-minded men. It must not be 
 forgotten that the reason why Joan of Arc moved 
 the soldiers of France was because they believed 
 in her intercourse with and guidance by spirits. 
 
 Critics nowadays act like the euhemerizers of the 
 sixth and seventh centuries of our era (a happy 
 time for their sort) when they try to make out that 
 ancient bards were blind, or that ancient smiths 
 were lame,* because these professions were possi- 
 ble for them, and the state thus got service from 
 persons who were otherwise useless. No one denies 
 that in historical times blind men for good reason 
 have often chosen to sing, just as they have often 
 chosen to beg, or that cripples have often chosen 
 occupations where they could sit down, just as 
 they too have often chosen to beg. But the lame, 
 halt and blind among the gods cannot be treated 
 from such a utilitarian standpoint. Hephaestus, 
 teacher of the arts, was lame and halt, even as 
 Odin, god of poetry, was blind, for a mythological 
 
232 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 
 
 reason. In America, one may frequently see dwarf- 
 ish hunchbacks employed to run elevators. Very 
 good. Very natural. But that does not force us to 
 believe that the dwarfs and hunchbacks of old fic- 
 tion were actually human beings, only infirm. As 
 a matter of fact, the dwarfs and hunchbacks of 
 Celtic and Germanic story were all, for aught we 
 know, supernatural in origin. 
 
 Common sense should show us that as the soul is 
 as real as the body, so myth is as real as fact, that 
 each can be combined with the other, and that the 
 nature of the foundation in any particular instance 
 can not be determined except by unprejudiced in- 
 quiry. Plainly, the process did not always go one 
 way.* That deities were humanized is as certain 
 as that humans were deified. If we have far more 
 clear cases of the latter than the former, it is be- 
 cause records of humans are far more numerous 
 than imaginings of gods. But the continual process 
 of deifying men shows the eternal presence of a 
 love of poetic feigning in all ordinary mortals 
 which witnesses to the mood of the first creation 
 of gods and devils. Fact must be transfigured to 
 give it permanent appeal to the masses because of 
 their ever latent consciousness of supernatural be- 
 ings who can manifest themselves on earth. Gods 
 are still made in men's image, as well as men in the 
 image of gods.f 
 
BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 233 
 
 For a long time the blind bard has been as 
 fanciful a conception as the noble savage, or the 
 inspired idiot; but it was not so formerly. If most 
 blind bards in primitive story were credited with 
 connections with the supernatural world, it was 
 because, as we shall see later, that was believed to 
 be the chief seat of inspiration, and if they were 
 declared, for some offence against a deity, to have 
 lost their first sight, they might be believed to have 
 gained second sight, by virtue of which, all would 
 admit, they had the godlike power to guide men, 
 and might be used at any time as vehicles of any 
 sort of wisdom. 
 
 It is safe to assert that no learned man has ever 
 heard of an actual blind poet without thinking of 
 the mythical blind poets and prophets celebrated 
 in antiquity. Milton was not singular when he 
 consoled himself in his own affliction by recalling 
 
 Blind Thamyris and blind Maeonides, 
 And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old — 
 
 and longed for mysterious inner sight, like that 
 which. Homer says, the Muse gave Demodocus. 
 
 So much the rather thou celestial Light 
 
 Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers 
 
 Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence 
 
 Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell 
 
 Of things invisible to mortal sight.* 
 
234 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 
 
 It is not surprising that Milton was hailed in Eng- 
 land as " old Homer's youngest son," " great 
 Homer of our isle," " Britannia's Homer." * Later 
 writers accepted his comparison of his plight with 
 that of the ancient Greeks, and willingly played 
 upon his allegorical interpretation of the old myths 
 with which they were gladly familiar. Thus for 
 example, Andrew Marvell (1620-1678) : 
 
 Just Heaven thee, like Tiresias, to requite 
 Rewards with prophecy thy loss of sight. 
 
 John Hughes (1677-1720) : 
 
 The Muse with transport lov'd him; yet, to fill 
 His various lot, she blended good with ill; 
 Deprived him of his eyes, but did impart 
 The heavenly gift of song, and all the tuneful art. 
 
 Thomas Gray, in his Progress of Poesy, pictures 
 Milton as afflicted for his presumption, because, 
 hke Homer, who longed for a view of the great 
 Achilles, or here more definitely, because like 
 Ezekiel, he wished to see the glory of the appear- 
 ance of the Lord, 
 
 He that rode sublime 
 Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy, 
 The secrets of th' abyss to spy. 
 He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time: 
 The living throne, the sapphire blaze. 
 Where angels tremble while they gaze. 
 He saw, but blasted with excess of light 
 Clos'd his eyes in endless night. 
 
BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 235 
 
 This comes nearer the mythological truth than 
 the explanation of Stephen Phillips in his striking 
 poem To Milton — Blind: 
 
 He who said suddenly, " Let there be light! " 
 
 To thee the dark dehberately gave; 
 
 That those full eyes might undistracted be 
 
 By this beguiling show of sky and field, 
 
 This brilliance, that so lures us from the Truth. 
 
 He gave thee back original night. His own 
 
 Tremendous canvas, large and blank and free. 
 
 Where at each thought a star flashed out and sang. 
 
 O blinded with a special lightning, thou 
 
 Hadst once again the virgin Dark! 
 
 All of which is mere fruit of modern fancy, though 
 it adopt the old idea of "a special lightning." 
 More antique is the alternative explanation the 
 same poet suggests : 
 
 Or rather a special leave to thee was given 
 
 By the high power, and thou with bandaged eyes 
 
 Wast guided through the glimmering camp of God. 
 
 Thy hand was taken by angels who patrol 
 
 The evening, or are sentries to the dawn. 
 
 Or pace the wide air everlastingly. 
 
 Thou wast admitted to the presence, and deep 
 
 Argument heardest, and the large design 
 
 That brings this world out of the woe to bliss.* 
 
 Goethe represents Faust as punished by blind- 
 ness for his selfish desire to have a station on the 
 linden-trees whence to overlook his lands, and the 
 crime to which it led, but makes him gain at the 
 
236 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 
 
 same time. When the " grisly old Sisters " appear 
 to him, Care remarks: 
 
 Perfect in external senses, 
 Inwardly his darkness dense is. 
 
 After she breathes in his eyes and blinds him, 
 Faust exclaims: 
 
 The night seems deeper now to press around me, 
 But in my inmost spirit all is light.* 
 
 Philosophizing on blindness was inevitable. 
 Even in antiquity Homer's blindness was ex- 
 plained allegorically, according to Suidas, as 
 " blindness to desires that press upon one through 
 the eyes." f And it is well known how the mystics 
 believed that by shutting their eyes they might 
 see the more inwardly.J In 1694 Gildon suggested 
 that Milton needed for Paradise Lost that inner 
 illumination which came in consequence of his 
 blindness, § and such views prevailed during the 
 eighteenth century, as, indeed, perhaps to-day. 
 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, in a sonnet to his " light- 
 reft " friend Philip Bourke Marston, hints at that 
 unfortunate writer's having more piercing inner 
 sight than the " light-blest." There was much to 
 justify the idea. All blind persons have undoubt- 
 edly had compensations for their blindness, and 
 Milton's scenes sometimes show a sweep and 
 grandeur that may actually be the result of his 
 
BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 237 
 
 aloof, uncorrected, mental images. Bird-fanciers 
 have been known to prick the eyes of the chaflBnch 
 to make him warble better, and the blindness of 
 lyric poets like Marston no doubt makes them the 
 more prone to turn within themselves fruitfully to 
 explore their own souls. But such is not the way to 
 produce epic poets, who need large contact with 
 the world and man to penetrate deeply the ele- 
 ments of life. 
 
 To go farther with the inquiry into the real or 
 possible influence of blindness (whole or partial) 
 upon an author would be out of place here, and 
 might smack too much of old entertaining but 
 futile discussions like Blackwell's on Homer, 
 where poverty, the lack of learning and the need 
 of wandering, are claimed to have been contribu- 
 tory to his original genius, and in general advanta- 
 geous in the development of a great bard. Most 
 scholars believe that neither the Iliad nor the Wal- 
 lace could possibly have been written by one phys- 
 ically blind, but some critics of recent times have 
 held the opposite. Taste without knowledge con- 
 fuses wisdom among literary historians. 
 
 " Homer never existed, of course," says John 
 Masefield,* " but the old idea of the poet's being 
 blind is very significant." Undoubtedly! And in 
 more ways, as I have tried to show, than critics of 
 blind poets have hitherto supposed. I content my- 
 
238 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 
 
 self now with emphasizing what I believe to be 
 also significant, the fact, namely, that much of the 
 material for the philosophic ruminations of modern 
 men on blindness has been derived from the con- 
 sideration of ancient fabulous personages whose 
 blindness was mythical. But a myth is only a 
 poetic conception. Even as " the sight of lovers 
 feedeth those in love," poetry feedeth poets, phi- 
 losophy philosophers. Both poets and philosophers 
 are wont to sit and dream " in chambers haunted 
 by old memories." 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 The Progress of Conceptions of Poesy 
 
 Remember the days of old, consider 
 
 the years of many generations; 
 
 ask thy father, and he will show 
 
 thee: thy elders and they will tell 
 
 thee. 
 
 Book of Deuteronomy 
 
 1ITTLE by little," says Tylor,* " in what 
 -i seemed the most spontaneous fiction, a more 
 comprehensive study of the sources of poetry and 
 romance begins to disclose a cause for each fancy, 
 an education that has led up to each train of 
 thought, a store of inherited materials from out of 
 which each province of the poet's land has been 
 shaped, and built over and peopled." 
 
 The truth of this statement is most evident to the 
 student of comparative literature who has tried to 
 get at the peculiar personality and peculiar con- 
 tribution of authors by inquiry into their ethnic 
 and literary heritage as well as their personal as- 
 pirations. For such a student has at least discov- 
 ered that all great poets have their roots down 
 deep in the past, and that one can scarcely com- 
 
 239 
 
240 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 
 
 prehend why Homer, Dante, Shakespeare or Mil- 
 ton so strongly influenced posterity until one rec- 
 ognizes how much they themselves were fashioned 
 by previous influences. Myths occupy a large and 
 precious part of the inherited materials that mod- 
 ern poets have seen fit to cherish, even as in myth 
 both their physical and spiritual forbears, with 
 divers degrees of insight, took delight and found 
 instruction. And this because myths, in forma- 
 tion and transformation, have always been im- 
 portant vehicles of speculative and enlivening 
 imagination. 
 
 Early myths were the poetic inventions of primi- 
 tive men, intellectually curious but credulous, 
 eager to question the whys and wherefores of 
 things but satisfied to explain by story what they 
 could not make clear by science. When such men 
 speculated about mysterious phenomena and 
 found no solution according to any laws of their 
 experience, they set to work in childlike fashion 
 to imagine what might be, and framed narratives 
 of fanciful possibility as substitutes for statements 
 of true knowledge. These narratives, if interesting, 
 were handed down through the ages, by themselves 
 and for themselves, with slight understanding as 
 time went by of their first reason for being, ever 
 subject to changes due to fresh poetic or dull pro- 
 saic interpretation. Some myths are now hope- 
 
CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 241 
 
 lessly obscure, but others reveal clearly to the 
 student the subjects of wonder that led to their 
 creation, and the mental habits of those who gave 
 them shape. 
 
 One of the bewildering phenomena at which men 
 in early ages persistently wondered was the state 
 of inspiration, and the nature of this they tried to 
 divine. Seeing certain of their fellows specially 
 gifted as mages and musicians, poets and prophets, 
 they meditated on their condition. How came it, 
 they asked, that persons of human flesh and blood 
 could do things beyond the scope of the general ? 
 Why were some abnormally gifted, some peculiarly 
 endowed, some at times strangely aroused ? 
 " Whence hath this man this wisdom ? " Whence 
 in particular the " genius " of an exalted author, 
 the animation of enthralling speech ? What is the 
 source of poesy ? 
 
 Such questions have never ceased to absorb 
 philosophic inquirers, yet little advance has been 
 made in the answers offered. Scholars have taught 
 us much about the actual beginnings of verse com- 
 position, but when we seek knowledge of its es- 
 sence rather than its forms, of its moving power 
 rather than the medium employed, we are con- 
 fined to fancies, mere fancies, similar to those of 
 our forefathers in antiquity. Only, in primitive 
 times men started with different conceptions of the 
 
242 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 
 
 origin and plan of the universe, which determined 
 the explanation of the problems they tried to solve 
 and the method of presentation they chose. 
 
 Whether, as has been asserted, " the mental 
 condition of the lower races is the key to poesy " 
 itself, it is certainly the key to the initial concep- 
 tions of it as " heaven-bred." Primitive men held 
 an animative view of the universe. They believed 
 the world peopled with spirits, and themselves sur- 
 rounded by souls. They attributed all mysteries to 
 divine agency. Poesy, they felt sure, was in the first 
 instance due to deities. And these views they origi- 
 nally embodied, by natural habit, in the shapes of 
 myth. The early myths of poetic inspiration were 
 the work of poets trying to show forth in the 
 guise of story the true significance of things, the 
 ways of gods to men. 
 
 In A Midsummer-Night'' s Dream Shakespeare 
 states the case of the poet myth-maker with per- 
 ception unsurpassed: 
 
 The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, 
 
 Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; 
 
 And as imagination bodies forth 
 
 The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 
 
 Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing 
 
 A local habitation and a name. 
 
 Such tricks hath strong imagination, 
 
 That, if it would but apprehend some joy, 
 
 It comprehends some bringer of that joy.* 
 
CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 243 
 
 Every word in this passage should be pondered. 
 Whatever view Shakespeare himself held as to the 
 nature of poetic genius (a matter for separate 
 study), he here makes Theseus of Athens present 
 with wonderful skill the ancient conception of the 
 divinely-inspired bard. On the basis of the idea of 
 " fine frenzy " we have already touched, and to it 
 we shall presently return. Here, first, let us not fail 
 to grasp the significance of what Shakespeare 
 makes the result of that frenzy, the product of the 
 poet's pen when his imagination seeks to body 
 forth the forms of things unknown: he turns them 
 to shapes and gives to airy nothing, mere brain 
 fantasies, inconstant dream images, a local habita- 
 tion and a name. Myths offer us shapes and habi- 
 tations and names that are simply due to the effort 
 of poets to materialize ideas, the better to get them 
 grasped. If a poet apprehends some joy, with 
 strong imagination he comprehends some bringer 
 of that joy. 
 
 The Celts, as well as the Greeks, apprehended 
 the otherworld as the land par excellence of music 
 and minstrelsy, of sapience and wisdom, of long 
 memory and far sight. Were some men pecuHarly 
 able to give delight to others by superior skill in 
 the arts, empowered to instruct them in past lore 
 or guide their doubting steps, they imagined that 
 these men owed their exceptional success to the 
 
244 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 
 
 possession of divine properties, or attributes, and 
 made up tales of how they were gained. Only two 
 ways seemed natural — by gift or " lift," by luck 
 or theft. So two forms of story arose, the one ex- 
 plaining how mortals enjoyed the favor of the 
 gods, who came to visit them or took them to dwell 
 with them, and endowed them with their own vir- 
 tues, the other explaining how mortals, outwitting 
 the gods, ravished from them their magic pos- 
 sessions. 
 
 The latter, which we shall first consider, appears 
 to be the more original, for it usually concerns 
 creatures of a lower order than the great created 
 gods, yet themselves masters of illusion and 
 phantasy. Though once perhaps demi-gods or 
 daimones, in the end they were envisaged as heroes, 
 who after great trial and tribulation became the 
 benefactors of men, securing from grudging primal 
 powers the instruments of culture and the arts. 
 
 Thus mysterious in nature were Amergin and 
 Taliessin, two of the most celebrated Celtic bards 
 and prophets, varying forms, it is conjectured, of 
 one mythic original.* 
 
 In the poem, already examined, in which Talies- 
 sin describes his career, he explains: "I have 
 obtained the muse from the cauldron of Ceridwen," 
 and the tale of Taliesin, in which the poem is en- 
 shrined, begins by telling how that old hag under- 
 
CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 245 
 
 took, in the interests of an ill-favored son, to boil a 
 cauldron, " which from the beginning of its boiling 
 might not cease to boil for a year and a day, until 
 three blessed drops were obtained of the grace of 
 inspiration." So she set Gwion Bach to stir the 
 cauldron. " And one day, towards the end of the 
 year, as Ceridwen was culling plants and making 
 incantations, it chanced that three drops of the 
 charmed liquor flew out of the cauldron and fell 
 upon the finger of Gwion Bach. And by reason of 
 their great heat he put his finger into his mouth, 
 and the instant he put those marvel-working drops 
 into his mouth he foresaw everything that was to 
 come, and perceived that his chief care must be 
 to guard against the wiles of Ceridwen, for vast 
 was her skill. And in very great fear he fled towards 
 his own land." 
 
 The witch pursued Gwion, who assumed all man- 
 ner of shapes, even as she did after him, until at 
 last he turned into a grain of wheat, and she 
 as a high-crested black hen swallowed him, bore 
 him nine months, and then, when delivered, found 
 him so beautiful that she could not bear to kill 
 him. Therefore she wrapped him in a leathern bag 
 and cast him into the sea. He was fished out, a tiny 
 fellow, by a hapless youth called Elphin, and be- 
 came a most famous bard and prophet. He was 
 all-wise, knew the past and future, and spoke be- 
 
246 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 
 
 fore the king "with a sapient Druid's words." He 
 shows his supernatural wisdom in various ways, 
 much like Merlin before Uter Pendragon. " He fur- 
 ther told the king various prophecies of things that 
 should be in the world." * 
 
 As to Taliessin's visits to the otherworld, Rhys 
 writes: "He not only professes to have been in 
 Caer Sidi and the Glass Fortress, he not only 
 boasts having taken part in the harrying of Hades; 
 but it is a familiar country to him, and he has 
 witnessed how its inhabitants, whom neither plague 
 nor death can reach, quaff a drink sweeter than 
 wine from a copious fountain with which that sub- 
 marine isle is blest. He knows every dwarf beneath 
 the ocean, and has observed the rank assigned to 
 each. This is not all : so truly is he a bard, that he 
 is recognized as such even in the mythic mother- 
 country of all bardism and knowledge; and that 
 recognition takes the form of a bardic or profes- 
 sorial chair, reserved for him in Caer Sidi, and for 
 his successors in his profession for ever." f 
 
 Taliessin avers that before him another still 
 greater than he entered the otherworld (variously 
 called Caer Sidi or Annwyn) and as a result be- 
 came a primary bard. 
 
 Stout was the prison of Gweir, in Caer Sidi. 
 Through the spite of Pwyll and Pryderi; 
 No one before him went into it. 
 
CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 247 
 
 The heavy blue chain firmly held the youth, 
 
 And before the spoils of Annwyn woefully he sang, 
 
 And thenceforth till doom he shall remain a bard.* 
 
 This Gweir, ravisher of the otherworld cauldron 
 of inspiration, Rhys identifies with the great 
 Gwydion, " the best story-teller in the world," of 
 whom we read in the mabinogi of Math, a personage 
 who, that learned scholar showed,t bears numerous 
 resemblances to the Old Norse Odin (Woden). 
 
 Odin, it will be remembered, was " the father 
 of magic" (galdrs fg'&ur, aldinn gautr), able by val- 
 galdr to conjure up the Sibyl from the depths. 
 One reason stated for his being " the wisest of 
 men " was because the dwarf Mimir gave him all 
 good counsel; Odin had pawned his eye at the well 
 beneath the tree Yggdrasill to secure the potion 
 of wisdom. He and the seeress Saga are said to have 
 drunk joyously out of golden cups at her abode of 
 Sunk-bench, over which the cold waves ever 
 murmur. { 
 
 But Odin was reputed a poet, a god of poetry, 
 and the explanation of his supernatural power in 
 that direction is given by Snorri in the section of 
 the prose Edda called Skaldskaparmdl, where vari- 
 ous kennings for poesy are explained. The matter 
 is obviously distorted, but the essential idea that 
 poetic inspiration derives from a drink stolen from 
 otherworld powers comes out clearly. 
 
248 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 
 
 Snorri represents the sea-god yEgir, " deeply 
 versed in black magic," as inquiring of Bragi, " the 
 first maker of poetry," the beginnings of his art, 
 whereupon Bragi answers: * 
 
 " These were the beginnings thereof: the gods 
 had a dispute with the folk which are called Vanir, 
 and they appointed a peace-meeting between them 
 and established peace in this way: they each went 
 to a vat and spat their spittle therein. Then at 
 parting the gods took that peace-token and would 
 not let it perish, but shaped thereof a man. This 
 man is called Kvasir, and he was so wise that none 
 could question him concerning anything but that 
 he knew the solution. He went up and down the 
 earth to give instruction to men; and when he 
 came upon invitation to the abode of certain 
 dwarfs, Fjallar and Galarr, they called him into 
 privy converse with them, and killed him, letting 
 his blood run into two vats and a kettle. The kettle 
 is named Odrerir, and the vats Son and Bodn; 
 they blended honey with the blood, and the out- 
 come was that mead by the virtue of which he who 
 drinks becomes a skald [poet] or scholar." 
 
 Bragi goes on, with much circumstantial detail, 
 to explain how the mead afterwards came into the 
 possession of a giant Suttungr, who concealed it in 
 a place called Hnitbjorg, leaving his daughter 
 Gunnlod to watch over it. 
 
CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 249 
 
 " Because of this we call poesy Kvasir's Blood, 
 or Dwarfs' Drink, or Fill, or any kind of liquid of 
 Odrerir, or of Bodn, or of Son, ... or Suttungr's 
 Mead, or Liquor of Hnitbjorg." 
 
 " Then ^Egir said: ' These seem to me dark say- 
 ings, to call poesy by these names. But how did ye 
 iEsir come at Suttungr's Mead ? ' Bragi answered: 
 'That tale runs thus.' " And he proceeds to relate 
 how Odin, under the name Bolverkr, by virtue of 
 his power of changing his shape, reached Gunn- 
 lod's dwelling and craftily obtained leave from her 
 to drink three draughts of the mead. " In the first 
 draught he drank every drop out of Odrerir; and 
 in the second he emptied Bodn; and in the third. 
 Son; and then he had all the mead. Then he turned 
 himself into the shape of an eagle and flew as furi- 
 ously as he could; but when Suttungr saw the 
 eagle's flight, he too assumed the fashion of an 
 eagle and flew after him.* When the iEsir saw Odin 
 flying, straightway they set out their vats in the 
 court; and when Odin came into Asgard, he spat 
 up the mead into the vats. Nevertheless he came 
 so near to being caught by Suttungr that he sent 
 some mead backwards, and no heed was taken of 
 this: whosoever would might have that, and we 
 call that the poetaster's part.f But Odin gave the 
 mead of Suttungr to the ^Esir and to those men who 
 possess the ability to compose. Therefore we call 
 
250 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 
 
 poesy Odin's Booty and Find, and his Drink and 
 Gift, and the Drink of the iEsir." 
 
 This story savors strongly of Celtic fancy, and 
 indeed may be directly derived from some lost 
 fables of the West. The differentiation between the 
 kettle and the two vats looks like a way of ex- 
 plaining three kennings instead of one, not only 
 the liquid of Odrerir (which means simply Inspira- 
 tion), but also of Son and Bodn. To the Norse they 
 were truly " dark sayings, to call poesy by these 
 names"; but the Irish had stories connecting 
 Boand and Seon with poetry (which fact I venture 
 to suggest was the cause of the kennings), and like 
 myths embodying their view that the otherworld 
 was the source of all wisdom. As related above, 
 Boand, wife of Nechtan and mother of Oengus, 
 son of the Dagda, visited the secret well of faery, 
 where grew the hazels of inspiration, and suffered 
 a severe penalty for her ambition; * and in Irish 
 the patron of artists was Seon the Philosopher, 
 who is said to have known the nature of the plan- 
 ets. In an old Welsh poem " the artists of Se Seon 
 the Stately " are represented as seekers of ale.f 
 
 In a Dinnsenchas J we have another story of a 
 similar quest: " Sinend, daughter of Lodan Luch- 
 arglan son of Ler, out of the Land of Promise, went 
 to Connla's Well which is under sea to behold it. 
 That is a well at which are the hazels of wisdom and 
 
CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 251 
 
 inspirations, that is the hazels of the science of 
 poetry, and in the same hour their fruit, and their 
 blossom and their foHage break forth, and then fall 
 upon the well in the same shower, which raises 
 upon the water a royal surge of purple. . . . Now 
 Sinend went to seek the inspiration, for she wanted 
 nothing save only wisdom . . . but the well left 
 its place . . . and overwhelmed her . . . and 
 when she had come to the land on this side (of the 
 Shannon) she tasted death." " In this remarkable 
 legend," Nutt remarks,* " we have, if I mistake 
 not, the most archaic Irish version, and one per- 
 haps as archaic as found in the records of any 
 Aryan people, of how the god world becomes man's 
 world, or, to express it in the terms of the Hebrew 
 myth, how evil and knowledge and death came 
 into the world." 
 
 Cuchulinn, moreover, was reputed to have made 
 an expedition to Scath (Shade), where he won the 
 king's cauldron,! and there are other cases where 
 magic vessels are sought for in the nether region. 
 The so-called cauldron of the Head of Hades had 
 a ridge of pearls round its brim. It was kept boiling 
 by the breath of nine maidens, and from it voices 
 issued, t 
 
 Rhys brings the Oriental god Indra into connec- 
 tion with Gwydion and Odin as bringers to mortals 
 of poetic stimulus. " With regard to wisdom and 
 
252 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 
 
 poetry he is the most sagacious of the wise, and the 
 most skilled in song; he is called an old friend of 
 the poets, and is not unfrequently associated with 
 an ancient race of singers known by the name of 
 Angiras; he has assumed the inspiration of proph- 
 ets, and he can take all forms through his magic 
 power." * In the Rig- Veda we read of Indra in 
 eagle-form: "being well- winged, he carried to 
 men the food tasted by the gods." f Indra makes 
 rishis, wise men or poets, of those who have im- 
 bibed soma, a drink parallel in Sanskrit to nectar 
 and ambrosia in Greek myth. It is said to untie 
 the poet's tongue. 
 
 Celtic stories also exist where mortal visitors to 
 the otherworld gain, not by force or fraud, but by 
 fortune or favor, some precious possession which 
 aflFects their nature, making it partake of the di- 
 vine. One of the most interesting of these is the 
 imram of Teigue, son of Cian,J who penetrated to 
 Elysium, where he and his companions needed no 
 nourishment and where a twelvemonth passed 
 like a day. There a damsel, as wise as lovely, ac- 
 quainted Teigue with the manner of his death, and 
 his future, and then gave him a precious cup of 
 emerald hue in which his life was bound up. This 
 cup had wonderful attributes, one, reminding us 
 of a Biblical miracle, that water poured into it 
 would immediately become wine. 
 
CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 253 
 
 It was here in a dun with a silver rampart that 
 Teigue found Connla, and in his hand he held a 
 fragrant apple having the hue of gold ; a third part 
 of it he would eat, and still, for all he consumed, 
 never a whit would it be diminished. Beside him 
 was a lady of wondrous charm who had bestowed 
 on him, she declared, " true affection's love," and 
 therefore wrought to have him come to her in that 
 land. And the apple " it was that supported the 
 pair of them and, when once they had partaken of 
 it, nor age nor dimness could affect them." She 
 showed Teigue the marvellous apple tree in the 
 dixn on which grew this virtuous fruit, and was told 
 that a single apple had lured Connla to her. We 
 can but think of Bragi, the Old Norse god of poetry, 
 and how he had a wife Idun, who possessed the 
 golden apples of immortality. 
 
 Cormac, high-king of Ireland, grandson of Conn, 
 also visited the Land of Promise, guided by a grey 
 old messenger, who brought him a silver branch 
 with three golden apples on it. " Delight and 
 amusement enough it was to listen to the music 
 made by that branch, for men sore wounded, or 
 women in childbed, or folk in sickness, would fall 
 asleep at the melody when that branch was 
 shaken " — a fair symbol of the otherworld gift of 
 music. When Cormac reaches alone the great plain 
 of the land of immortality, " then he sees in the 
 
254 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 
 
 garth a shining fountain with five streams flowing 
 out of it, and the hosts in turn a-drinking its water. 
 Nine hazels of Buan grow over the well. The purple 
 hazels drop their nuts into the fountain, and the 
 five salmon which are in the fountain sever them, 
 and send their husks floating down the streams. 
 Now the sound of the falling of those streams is 
 more melodious than any music that [men] sing." 
 Cormac learns that the messenger who took him 
 to the other world (as also previously his wife and 
 children), and who sang him to sleep, was the 
 great god of the Tuatha De Danann, Manannan 
 Mac Lir, who, before he transported Cormac back 
 to Tara, gave him not only the Silver Branch of 
 song, but also a magic cup of truth. " Take the 
 cup," he says to Cormac, " that thou mayest have 
 it for discerning between truth and falsehood. And 
 thou shalt have the Branch for music and delight. 
 And on the day that thou shalt die they all will 
 be taken from thee. I am Manannan, son of Ler, 
 king of the Land of Promise; and to see the Land 
 of Promise was the reason I brought [thee] hither. 
 . . . The fountain which thou sawest, with the 
 five streams out of it, is the Fountain of Knowl- 
 edge, and the streams are the five senses through 
 which knowledge is obtained (?). And no one will 
 have knowledge who drinketh not a draught out 
 of the fountain itself and out of the streams. The 
 
CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 255 
 
 folk of many arts are those who drmk of them 
 both." * 
 
 Such a tale as that of Manannan's Well, the 
 Fountain of Knowledge, is undoubtedly connected 
 with the general pagan cult of sacred waters, and 
 reminds us of the situation in Greece, 
 
 Where each old poetic mountain 
 Inspiration breath 'd around, 
 Ev'ry shade and hallow'd fountain 
 Mm-mur'd deep a solemn sound. 
 
 Gray, it may be said, broad-visioned as he was, 
 and better informed about Celtic and Scandinavian 
 myth than most English writers, nevertheless 
 turned his eyes most lovingly to classical antiquity 
 when, emulating Pindar, he began his ode on The 
 Progress of Poesy: 
 
 Awake, Aeolian lyre! awake, 
 
 And give to rapture all thy trembling strings. 
 
 From Helicon's harmonious springs 
 
 A thousand rills their mazy progress take. 
 
 In general, so little has been known of British tradi- 
 tions that but few rills have progressed into Eng- 
 land's poet-land from the harmonious springs of 
 faery, though these have been shown to be power- 
 ful, for the same divine reason as the gleaming 
 fancies of the Greeks, to evoke true rapture in the 
 
 true bard. 
 
 Apollo, Pallas, Jove, or Mercury 
 Inspire me! 
 
^56 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 
 
 Modern English poets in infinite number, even 
 Anglo-Celtic poets, have instinctively appealed for 
 inspiration, like the noble Marcus, to Roman gods. 
 But not so very long ago British bards turned to 
 the underworld of their own imagining as the 
 source of poetic inspiration, and the dark deity of 
 that domain — be he called Bran, Urien, Pwyll, 
 March, Math, or Arawn — was adored as a patron 
 by Celtic minstrels and musicians. Certain gods in 
 particular were called upon by bards for the favor 
 of fortunate song. Ogyrven, owner of the cauldron, 
 was deemed by them to have been the originator 
 of their art. Ceridwen they long invoked in their 
 artistic undertakings. Ogma Cermait (' the Honey- 
 mouthed '), credited with the invention of the 
 famous script ogam, was counted a god of elo- 
 quence. Cairpre, his son, was reputed the first, and 
 a magical, satirist. In Ireland Brigit, daughter 
 of the Dagda, was honored as a goddess of poetry 
 before her name became otherwise celebrated, as 
 borne by a saint. Gwydion was exalted as the one 
 who introduced into Wales the knowledge of let- 
 ters. Like their classical counterparts, all these 
 beings were at first feigned, but ultimately came, 
 it would seem, to have so much reality to the pagan- 
 minded that native Christian ecclesiastics strove 
 to sink them without trace in an ocean of rebuke. 
 Paganism still infected Celtic bards throughout 
 
CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 257 
 
 the Middle Ages. In the fourteenth century the 
 poet-priest Sion Kent attacked some as " Men of 
 Hu," whose muse was the genius of lying, while on 
 the other hand the Book of Taliessin resounds 
 with scorn of the Christian school,* 
 
 King James V of Scotland, in his tract on Dcemo- 
 nologie,] dealing with " the fourth kind of spirits 
 called the Phairie," points out how people even 
 in his day claimed to have been transported 
 through a hill to the otherworld, where they saw 
 a faery queen and received from her a stone of 
 virtuous power. After enumerating some of " the 
 many vain trattles founded upon that illusion," 
 he sagely concludes: "I think it liker Virgil's 
 Campi Elysii nor anything that ought to be 
 believed by Christians." Happily, being now 
 untroubled by belief or unbelief in pagan concep- 
 tions, we are glad to recognize that faery resem- 
 bled the Elysian Fields, and we accompany old 
 Celtic heroes thither with the same zest with which 
 we follow iEneas and his companions, guided by 
 the Cumaean Sibyl, to the " paradise of pleas- 
 ances " that Virgil has made renowned. 
 
 The Celtic tales of faery are, in truth, tales of an 
 Elysium, for faery they present as " the land of 
 the living heart," a land of healing and comfort, a 
 land of noble sweet-sounding music, " that swells 
 with choruses of hundreds — they look for neither 
 
258 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 
 
 decay nor death." There the blest inhabitants 
 abridge the lazy time with delights of entertain- 
 ment undreamt of on earth, while noble men of 
 lore, untrammeled by fault of memory, gladly un- 
 lock their word-hoards, and tell in perfect wise of 
 
 Fierce war and faithful love, 
 
 And Truth severe by fairy fiction drest. 
 
 Favored mortals taken thither feel the enchant- 
 ment of supernal music, and the spell of wondrous 
 story, all in being shown mysteries beyond human 
 understanding. 
 
 Still, there is always a reverse side to the picture 
 of such men, which we must have in mind if we 
 would understand the mythical conception of " fine 
 frenzy." If, after having actually visited faery, the 
 elect of the deities were required to return to our 
 world, they were always seen to retain a mark of 
 their otherworld existence. Having literally learned 
 by supernatural experience the rapture of supreme 
 love, the ecstasy of far sight, the transport of su- 
 perior knowledge, they were plainly set apart 
 from the rest of mankind. Sad with unsatisfied 
 longing, overwhelmed with grief because shut out 
 from the land of heart's desire, they could not but 
 seem solitary figures, in their own as in others' eyes. 
 Their earthly companions may have pitied them, 
 not fully comprehending the cause of their despair, 
 but they inevitably esteemed them as links with 
 
CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 259 
 
 the divine. By powers from above or below, it was 
 believed, their memories had been stored with rich 
 knowledge of the past, their faculties equipped 
 with rich possessions of art and science for use in 
 the present, their eyes opened to rich visions of the 
 far future. In benefit of these memories, in service 
 of these faculties, in the strength of second sight, 
 such mortals so spake that they were accepted as 
 guides by the people among whom they dwelt, 
 even when, in eloquence or raving, they proclaimed 
 what ordinary men did not grasp. " Tongue," 
 Thomas the Rhymer explained, " is chief of min- 
 strelsy." In faery the privileged gained *' the gift 
 of tongues " on which St. Paul dwelt, with all the 
 responsibility their inspiration implied, all the sad- 
 ness, even madness, their election entailed. 
 
 If perchance the visitants from the otherworld 
 were only transients, called up unwillingly from 
 the undiscovered country to give evidence of old 
 faith, or reborn * with more than intimations of 
 immortality, they seemed still more unique among 
 men, unique in appearance as well as in endow- 
 ment, " robed in the sable garb of woe " because 
 disquieted in their abode, or rendered grave by the 
 sense of sacred mysteries, yet gloried in as prophets 
 and priests of the Most High! 
 
 Plato asserts, on the authority of " certain wise 
 men and women who spoke of things divine," that 
 
260 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 
 
 " in the ninth year Persephone sends the souls of 
 those from whom she has received the penalty of 
 ancient crime back again into the light of this 
 world, and these are they who become noble kings 
 and mighty men and surpassing in poetical skill, 
 and are called saintly heroes in after ages." * 
 
 Boccaccio, in his Life of Dante, after describing 
 the poet's personal appearance and his melan- 
 choly, thoughtful expression, goes on: "Hence it 
 chanced one day in Verona (where the fame of his 
 works had spread abroad everywhere, and es- 
 pecially that part of his Comedy which he entitles 
 Hell; and when he himself was known by sight to 
 many, both men and women), that as he passed 
 by a gateway where sat a group of women, one 
 of them said to the others, softly, yet so that she 
 was heard well enough by him and his company: 
 * Do you see the man who goes to Hell, and comes 
 again, at his pleasure; and brings tidings up here 
 of them that be below ? ' To the which one of the 
 others answered in all good faith: ' In truth it must 
 needs be as thou sayest. See'st thou not how his 
 beard is crisped and his skin darkened by the heat 
 and smoke that are there below ? ' And hearing 
 these words spoken behind him and perceiving that 
 they sprang from the perfect belief of the women, he 
 was pleased, and as though content that they should 
 be of such opinion, he passed on, smiling a little." 
 
CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 261 
 
 The most interesting feature of this passage is 
 Dante's perception that the Veronese women spoke 
 in all good faith and that their idea about his fre- 
 quenting of Hell, and his power to bring up tidings 
 thence to mortals, sprang from their perfect be- 
 lief that such things could be. Whether from 
 stories of previous happenings of the sort, or from 
 primeval conceptions latent among them, they be- 
 lieved that poets and seers might frequent the 
 underworld and get inspiration there, and they 
 expected this to show itself in outer abnormality. 
 
 Some tales of otherworld journeys that resulted 
 in inspiration undoubtedly originated in the com- 
 mon pagan practice of consulting the oracles of the 
 dead, or in initiatory rites, and these were particu- 
 larly developed to embody ethical instruction. 
 Such narratives as those of Plutarch concerning 
 Aridaeus-Thespesius and Timarchus, the mediae- 
 val visions of the hereafter, The Purgatory of St. 
 Patrick and Owain Miles, were all used for moral 
 or religious purpose. They are tales, not of meta- 
 morphosis, like those we here first considered, but 
 of metempsychosis, tales of inner change. The pro- 
 tagonists, mortal from first to last, became men of 
 distinction through personal katharsis, or purga- 
 tion. In some cases only the disembodied soul made 
 the journey, but the result was the same: when the 
 soul returned to the body, the man's nature was 
 
262 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 
 
 altered and he had new powers as a guide, which 
 his fellows acknowledged. As Maximus of Tyre 
 said of Epimenides, who was reported to have fal- 
 len into a deep sleep while guarding his flock by 
 the cave of the Dictaean Zeus, a magic sleep last- 
 ing fifty-seven years, during which he gained from 
 the gods his extraordinary knowledge of religious 
 matters: he had " a dream for his teacher." * 
 
 The effect of such experiences was supposed to 
 be manifest, not only in the knowledge and capac- 
 ity, but in the manner and mien of the men who 
 had undergone them. In particular it was said of 
 neophytes who descended into the cave of Tro- 
 phonius, saw the awe-inspiring sights there, and 
 heard marvellous revelations, which were after- 
 wards interpreted, that they never smiled again, 
 and a proverb arose that persons of dejected as- 
 pect had " consulted the oracle of Trophonius." f 
 
 Mystery likewise attended the experiences of 
 " men in Christ " who had visions of Paradise. J 
 Such visions were not only awe-inspiring to the 
 seers, but when noised about led to their being 
 treated with awe. They felt themselves and were 
 felt to be " the chosen vessels of God." 
 
 It was not necessary, however, for mortals to 
 journey in body or soul to the land of the deities 
 to be inspired, for beings from the spirit-world, 
 gods and angels, ancestors and daemons, it was 
 
CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 263 
 
 declared, oft appeared to men as a mark of grace. 
 The Bible is replete with such apparitions. Gideon 
 was threshing wheat by the winepress when an 
 angel appeared unto him, saying " The Lord is 
 with thee, thou mighty man of valor," and bade 
 him save Israel. He had " found grace " in God's 
 sight, and was shown a sign. The spirit of the Lord 
 came also upon Jephthah, the Gileadite, and more 
 than once " moved " Samson mightily. When 
 " the Word of the Lord came unto Elijah," he 
 was empowered even to bring a child's soul back 
 to his body.* 
 
 Sometimes the appearance of an angel of the 
 Lord to the elect brought on him a physical af- 
 fliction, as when Zacharias was struck dumb, 
 and Saul blind, thus to suffer until such time as 
 Heaven granted them release. But more often they 
 were merely overcome by emotion, which never- 
 theless indicated to all observers that they were 
 in the power of the spirit.f Their "possession" was 
 not in character different from that which animated 
 evil persons, for devils too entered into men and 
 could not be cast out save by superior authority. 
 Not only Simeon, following the revelation of the 
 Holy Spirit, but " a man which had a spirit of an 
 unclean devil," witnessed to Jesus's being the 
 Holy One of God. Not only angels from on high, 
 but " devils also came out of many crying out, and 
 
264 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 
 
 saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God." No one 
 who saw Jesus's miracles questioned His inspira- 
 tion. He wrought, as He claimed, " in the power of 
 the Spirit"; yet Jews maintained that the spirit 
 within Him was a devil. According to the New 
 Testament, the life of the Christian was to be an 
 inspired life; but he must be ever on his guard 
 against evil possession. " Beloved," said John, 
 " believe not every spirit, but try the spirits 
 whether they are of God: because many false 
 prophets are gone out into the world." * 
 
 Long ago in mediaeval Britain, scholars an- 
 ticipated the modern comparative method of 
 studying religion as well as literature, and had 
 their materials been more extensive they would 
 have advanced far. Very suggestively Giraldus 
 Cambrensis f speculated on the subject of sooth- 
 saying, and brought the Awennithion (Awenyd- 
 dion) or " people inspired," the prophets of Wales, 
 into connection with Greek as well as Hebrew 
 prophets. In Merlin, of course, Giraldus was par- 
 ticularly interested, though he could hardly doubt 
 that he spoke by a pythonic or diabolic spirit. 
 " We read," he says, " the prophecies of Merlin, 
 but hear nothing of his sanctity or his miracles." 
 Merlin and Ambrosius, who " are said to have 
 foretold the destruction of their nation as well as 
 the coming of the Saxons, and afterwards that of 
 
CONCEPTIONS OF POESY ^5 
 
 the Normans," he compared with Calchas and Cas- 
 sandra, who foretold the destruction of Troy. His 
 highly significant remark, " These prophets are 
 only found among the Britons descended from the 
 Trojans," though it presupposes belief in the fable 
 of Brut exploited by Geoffrey of Monmouth, 
 nevertheless indicates an acute perception of cog- 
 nate ideas. 
 
 Boethius was careful to distinguish between 
 prescience and " absurd " vaticinations like those 
 of Tiresias.* Dante put Amphiaraus and other 
 diviners of antiquity, along with Michael Scot, in 
 hell.t Certain of the Church Fathers proscribed 
 pagan works because they might be vessels, as 
 Augustine indicated, containing " the wine of 
 error," or, as Jerome put it, " the food of demons "| 
 — phrases reminiscent of materialistic myths. 
 Bacon was impressed by these phrases but thought 
 them severe and undiscriminating.§ 
 
 The fourteenth-century English mystic Walter 
 Hilton warned his countrymen that the devil could 
 enter into a man and by false illuminations over- 
 travail his imagination. " And then, for feeble- 
 ness of the brain, him thinketh that he heareth 
 wonderful sounds and songs; and that is nothing 
 else but a fantasy, caused of troubling of the brain; 
 as a man that is in a frenzy, him thinketh that he 
 heareth and seeth that none other man doth; and 
 
266 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 
 
 all is but vanity and fantasies of the head, or else it 
 is by working of the wicked enemy that feigneth 
 such sounds in his hearing." * Shakespeare makes 
 Mercutio speak in similar phrase of dreams 
 
 Which are the children of an idle brain 
 Begot of nothing but vain fantasy.f 
 
 " What spirit, what devil suggests this imagina- 
 tion ? " asks Page in Merry Wives. t 
 
 Tylor points out that we owe our terms demo- 
 niac, exorcist, epilepsy, nympholepsy (the state of 
 being seized or possessed by a nymph) to the Greek 
 for good reason. " The causation of mental de- 
 rangement and delirious utterance by spiritual 
 possession was an accepted tenet of Greek phi- 
 losophy. To be insane was simply to have an evil 
 spirit, as when Socrates said of those who denied 
 demonic or spiritual knowledge, that they them- 
 selves were demoniac, ... So the Romans called 
 madmen ' larvati,' ' larvarum pleni,' full of ghosts. 
 Patients possessed by demons stared and foamed, 
 and the spirits spoke from within them by their 
 voices. The craft of the exorcist was well known. 
 As for oracular possession, its theory and practice 
 remained in fullest vigour through the classic 
 world, scarce altered from the times of lowest 
 barbarism. Could a South Sea Islander have gone 
 to Delphi to watch the convulsive struggles of the 
 
CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 267 
 
 Pythia, and listen to her raving, shrieking utter- 
 ances, he would have needed no explanation what- 
 ever of a rite so absolutely in conformity with his 
 own savage philosophy." 
 
 " The general doctrine of disease-spirits and 
 oracle-spirits appears to have its earliest, broadest, 
 and most consistent position within the limits of 
 savagery." Among savage tribes " madmen are 
 to be treated with great respect, as entered by a 
 god, and idiots owe the kindness with which they 
 are appeased and coaxed to the belief in their su- 
 perhuman inspiration. Here, and elsewhere in the 
 lower culture, the old real belief has survived which 
 has passed into a jest of civilized men in the famous 
 phrase of the ' inspired idiot.' " * 
 
 Our romantic notions of inspired idiots, like those 
 of blind bards, it is important to recognize, are 
 ultimately based on primitive beliefs, a fact which 
 is no doubt primarily responsible for their enduring 
 life. But that life has clearly been prolonged by 
 great writers, who have ever lovingly renewed con- 
 sideration of mythical beings made mad or blind 
 by divine agency. We have already seen how Plato 
 treated the blindness of Homer. He was still more 
 interested in the question of fine frenzy, or, to use 
 his own words, " divine release from the ordinary 
 ways of men," and in the Phaedrus he indicates 
 the gods who were supposed to preside over such 
 
268 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 
 
 madness in its different manifestations; " pro- 
 phetic " madness was the inspiration of Apollo, 
 " initiatory " that of Dionysus, " poetic " that of 
 the Muses, and " erotic " that of Aphrodite and 
 Eros. 
 
 The Celts told of inspired madmen of each of 
 these types, though, no more than actually among 
 the Greeks, were they kept apart. The Irish fdith, 
 a prophet or poet, is cognate to the Latin vates, 
 and apparently akin to the Old Norse otSr, mind, 
 soul, song, the English wod, mad, and the German 
 Wuth, rage. The Celts believed that a man who un- 
 derwent hardship on Cader Idris or Snowdon 
 would be inspired as a bard; but he might become 
 a madman, that is to say, the inspiration might 
 prove different from that of the bard. The idiot of 
 the family plays the part of a prophet in the Irish 
 story concerning the formation of Lough Neagh.* 
 Comgan, son of the King of the Decies in Munster, 
 we read, was made mad by a druid's flinging a 
 magic wisp over him and pronouncing a spell. 
 " There he wasted away in body, his mind decayed, 
 his hair fell off; and ever afterwards he wandered 
 about the palace, a bald drivelling idiot. But he had 
 lucid intervals, and then he became an inspired 
 poet, and uttered prophecies; so that he is known 
 in the legendary literature as Mac-da-cerda, the 
 
CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 269 
 
 ' youth of the two arts,' that is to say, poetry and 
 fooHshness." * 
 
 Such stories may depend ultimately on actual 
 manifestations of real or apparent frenzy connected 
 with Druidic initiation rites and magic spells. f 
 The Druids were esteemed as holy prophets, 
 sacred interpreters of the gods' decrees, and de- 
 livered their messages in, or as if in, a trance. But 
 the stories themselves perpetuated the idea of a 
 connection between poetry and foolishness (lun- 
 acy) which was credited long after any such phys- 
 ical basis for it was conceivable, this idea being 
 supported by the natural sense of mystery aroused 
 to this day by the sight of any one abnormal. 
 
 The general belief of antiquity was expressed in 
 Cicero's words " Nemo vir magnus sine aliquo 
 adflatu divino umquam fuit." Aristotle inquired 
 why " all who have excelled in philosophy, states- 
 manship, poetry, or the arts are of a melancholy 
 temperament"; and Seneca misquoted him: "Nul- 
 lum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae 
 fuit." Dry den echoed the idea: 
 
 Great wits are sure to madness near allied 
 And thin partitions do their bounds divide. J 
 
 We are here interested particularly in the inspira- 
 tion of " great wits," but we must not overlook 
 that of lovers, whose form of madness was formerly 
 held to be but another sign of divine or daemonic 
 
270 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 
 
 possession; and not, indeed, unnaturally, for the 
 marks are much the same, and it is only when in 
 love, as we say, with a subject, as with a person, 
 that men, as we say, act like fools, scorning 
 (earthly) delights and living laborious days, to 
 attain the purely intangible joys of new knowl- 
 edge or experience. 
 
 Among the daemons that inspire men, Plato put 
 Eros,* and Shakespeare preludes Theseus' words 
 already quoted by the following lines: 
 
 I never may believe 
 These antique fables, nor these Fairy toys. 
 Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, 
 Such shaping phantasies, that apprehend 
 More than cool reason ever comprehends. 
 The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, 
 Are of imagination all compact. 
 One sees more devils than vast hell can hold: 
 That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic. 
 Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt. 
 
 There has always seemed something magical, 
 something beyond human law, in the emotions of 
 a lover, and this conception has always been for- 
 tified by old story. In Celtic as in Greek myth, 
 otherworld persons, regularly presented as amor- 
 ous, had peculiar power to excite love-madness. 
 Passionate love was thought to be superinduced 
 by mysterious agencies, as by a potion in the story 
 of Tristram and Ysolt, but particularly through 
 
CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 271 
 
 music. The harping of the bard Glasgerion made 
 ladies wax mad with desire. The harp of Angus 
 mac Oc, the GaeHc Eros, produced such sweet 
 music that no one could hear and not follow it. 
 And it was the enchanting music of the fairies 
 Liban and Fand, in the form of swans, which made 
 the men of Erin fall into a deep sleep, while they 
 overwhelmed the great Cuchulinn with love- 
 frenzy, from which Conchobar's druid alone could 
 cure him by giving him a drink of forgetfulness.* 
 Cuchulinn's wife Emer had to seek these means 
 to expel her husband's fairy-mistress, of whom 
 she was jealous. Even so Guinevere in a fit of 
 jealousy on account of Elayne, also originally a 
 fairy, banished Lancelot, whereupon he went out of 
 his mind and was not healed until Elayne nursed 
 him in the Joyous Isle, where he was found after 
 many years by Sir Hector and Sir Perceval, and 
 persuaded to return to Arthur's court.f Such 
 heroes had " seething brains." They longed to re- 
 enter the Plain of Pleasure, where their loves 
 dwelt in bliss. 
 
 Numerous instances, indeed, occur in Arthurian 
 romance of a mortal frantic because separated 
 from the otherworld lady with whom he had once 
 enjoyed life, either on earth like Lanval, or in 
 faery like Yvain. It was a dame d' amour who 
 bleared the eye of Libeaus Desconus,J the brave 
 
m CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 
 
 son of Gawain, with a succession of " shaping 
 phantasies," finally transported him from her air- 
 castle, the Golden Isle, and left him alone to lan- 
 guish in despair, until he was discovered by old 
 comrades and brought back to the association of 
 the Table Round. Such dames d'amour always in- 
 finitely transcend mortal ladies in beauty, and 
 heroes under their spell grow suddenly so mad with 
 love for them that ordinary women seem innocent 
 of charm. Shakespeare pictures Cleopatra, " Ser- 
 pent of old Nile," with the characteristics of a 
 stately faery queen, and makes Antony, all as 
 frantic as a madman, see " Helen's beauty in a 
 brow of Egypt." On the other hand, he could im- 
 agine a faery queen of a different sort, the tiny 
 Mab galloping through lovers' brains, so that they 
 dreamt of love. 
 
 It is significant that Shakespeare should join 
 antique fables with fairy toys (trifles) dealing with 
 love-frenzy, for there was, as he recognized, fun- 
 damental likeness between them. Irish fairy toys 
 like the Wooing of Etain were felt to be so similar 
 to the antique fable of Orpheus and Eurydice that 
 the otherworld conceptions they embody were 
 fused with it by the author of the Breton lay of 
 which we have an English version called Sir 
 Orfeo* It is strangely true that " Orpheus' lute 
 was strung with poets' sinews." If " the poet did 
 
CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 273 
 
 feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones," etc., it was 
 because he was a great mythmaker, apprehending, 
 what reason could not comprehend, conditions in 
 the unseen world, the home of minstrelsy. 
 
 Theseus began his famous speech with the words 
 " more strange than true." The truth of the be- 
 liefs in inspired madness does not here concern us. 
 This is not a treatise on pathology but on poesy, 
 not on heredity with respect to corporeal disease 
 but with respect to spiritual imagination. Great 
 poets, it is too often overlooked, are the heirs of 
 one another in all the ages, and hand down in a 
 sort of apostolic succession the faith of the elect. 
 Hippolyta closed Theseus' discussion with words 
 which may well be applied to poets' thoughts on 
 inspiration: 
 
 All their minds transfigur'd so together. 
 More witnesseth than fancy's images, 
 And grows to something of great constancy; 
 But, howsoever, strange and admirable. 
 
 " The truest poetry is most feigning," * and tempts 
 poets ever to new feigning along the lines of old 
 suggestion. " The Muse," says Plato, " first gives 
 to men inspiration herself; and from these inspired 
 persons a chain of other persons is suspended, who 
 take the inspiration from them. For all good poets, 
 epic as well as lyric, compose their beautiful poems 
 not as works of art, but because they are inspired 
 
274 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 
 
 and possessed. And as the Corybantian revellers 
 when they dance are not in their right mind, so the 
 lyric poets are not in their right mind when they 
 are composing their beautiful strains; but when 
 falling under the power of music and metre they 
 are inspired and possessed; like Bacchic maidens 
 who draw milk and honey from the rivers when 
 they are under the influence of Dionysus, but 
 not when they are in their right mind. And the 
 soul of the lyric poet does the same, as they them- 
 selves tell us; for they tell us that they gather their 
 strains from honied fountains out of the gardens 
 and dells of the Muses; thither, like the bees, they 
 wing their way. And this is true. For the poet is a 
 light and winged and holy thing, and there is no 
 invention in him until he has been inspired and 
 out of his senses, and the mind is no longer in him : 
 when he has not attained to this state, he is power- 
 less and is unable to utter his oracles. . . . God 
 takes away the minds of poets, and uses them as 
 his ministers, as he also uses diviners and holy 
 prophets, in order that we who hear them may 
 know that they speak not of themselves who utter 
 these priceless words in a state of unconsciousness, 
 but that God is the speaker, and that through 
 them he is conversing with us. . . . The poets are 
 only the interpreters of the gods by whom they 
 are severally possessed."* 
 
CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 275 
 
 From the times when earliest recorded, myths 
 have been treated as allegories. Plato saw the 
 danger in the practice, but nevertheless indulged 
 in it himself. Only he did not, as many stupid 
 people have done since, transform them into some- 
 thing different from what they were. He upheld 
 them as poetry, not as science, as feigning not as 
 fact, thus reinvoking the imaginative daemon to 
 whom they owed their first creation. There is 
 nothing good to be said for the euhemerization or 
 rationalization of myth, very little for its use to 
 teach pedestrian morals; but the allegorization of 
 myth, as Plato, Dante and other poetic thinkers 
 have shown, may be profitable, as the myth in 
 the beginning was profitable, in arousing men to a 
 new sense of the mystery of the universe, in awak- 
 ing oftener that dream-consciousness which is the 
 best basis of transcendental emotion. Antique 
 myth may even surpass to our advantage its 
 primal importance if adorned by a great poetic, 
 far-seeing mind. 
 
 In the belief of antiquity, every man had a 
 genius, a tutelary demon, who was born with him, 
 and there is sanction for other types of attendant 
 genii in the mythology of Eastern nations. Gradu- 
 ally the word genius came to mean a quality that 
 characterizes men of exceptional power, a capacity 
 that cannot be acquired by education, an endow- 
 
276 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 
 
 ment inexplicable on any ground of natural law. 
 And a genius is now a person who stands apart 
 from his fellows by some sort of divine right. For a 
 considerable time, however, genius has been used 
 by critics to denote a difference in grade among 
 writers and taken to define a special degree of orig- 
 inality. Particularly from the eighteenth century 
 on, it has been customary to contrast poets of 
 genius with poets of talent, or parts, or learning, 
 the former having " original unindebted energy " 
 which might manifest itself supremely even in men 
 who could neither read nor write. " A genius,''^ 
 said Edward Young, " differs from a good under- 
 standing as a magician from a good architect; that 
 raises his structure by means invisible; this by the 
 skilful use of common tools." " Learning we thank, 
 genius we revere; That gives us pleasure. This 
 gives us rapture; That informs. This inspires; and 
 is itself inspired; for genius is from heaven, learn- 
 ing from man." "An inventive genius .... like 
 the widow's cruse, is divinely replenished from 
 within, and affords us a miraculous delight." * 
 
 Though scientific efforts are being made nowa- 
 days to link up genius with ordinary insanity,! 
 what we fundamentally mean by distinctive and 
 distinguishing genius, closely connected as it is 
 with beliefs in inspiration, is as much a mystery 
 to us as to the mythmakers of old. And even to- 
 
CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 277 
 
 day — this point needs emphasis — the language 
 of critics regarding the same basic phenomena is 
 largely determined by the mythic presentations 
 of antiquity. We still constantly repeat in our 
 discussion of authors words and phrases that 
 properly connote primitive beliefs. Our books on 
 poesy are shot through with terms implying notions 
 set forth in myth. 
 
 We talk glibly to-day about the gifts of men of 
 distinction. But a gift implies a giver; ancient 
 myths told about benevolent deities who gave to 
 them they favored. Our teachers and creative art- 
 ists feel a call to their undertakings. Ancient myths 
 told of embodied spirits or mysterious voices call- 
 ing to mortals and bidding them speak, or write, 
 or otherwise labor, with promise of success. Poets 
 at least still cling to belief (feigned or true) in 
 oracles, the old faith (as ever) moulding the expres- 
 sion of their thought.* We are prone to say that the 
 works of sublime poets are a revelation, thinking of 
 the visions of ancient worthies and the Apocalypse 
 of St. John. Our great, we say, have peculiar in- 
 sight, suggesting that their eyes have been opened 
 by unusual experience. They have special endow- 
 ment, or exalted enthusiasm, words which imply 
 the indwelling of a god. They have inspiration, 
 which shows that a deity has breathed into them 
 the breath of poetic life. 
 
278 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 
 
 So it is with the words that are regularly used to 
 express heights of emotion and transcendental 
 feeling — ecstasy, rapture, transport — qualities of 
 poets whom we call celestial, heavenly, divine, 
 poets who " ride upon seraph-wings," have voices 
 " as of the cherub-choir," " speak the language of 
 the gods." 
 
 If by predilection poets are pagan in fancy, they 
 still invoke the inspiration of gods and muses, or 
 perhaps the Mighty Mother, who. Gray imagined, 
 did unveil her awful face to " the dauntless child," 
 our greatest bard, and gave him gifts — golden 
 keys, to ope the gates of joy and horror.* We 
 lightly use phrases of sometime deep import when 
 we talk of the " fount of wisdom," the " well of 
 understanding," "the sacred source of sympathetic 
 tears "; but we do not balk at the connotation of 
 such phrases when it occurs to us, for we have 
 long accustomed ourselves to their sound, and, in 
 truth, the ways to obtain " the vision and the 
 faculty divine " have varied little throughout the 
 ages, no matter in what dispensation of the faith. 
 The past and present in this matter notably join. 
 Platonism and mysticism have linked hands for 
 better for worse. f 
 
 The pious author of The Christian Year de- 
 scribes as a primary bard him who writes " for the 
 most part from the impulse of his own passion," 
 
CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 279 
 
 stating that he who as a rule writes otherwise is 
 secondary, "howsoever superior in talent, weight- 
 ier in theme, or more splendid in diction he may 
 be." And to make his views clearer, he goes back 
 willingly (as what Christian poet does not ?) "to 
 the very infancy of the divine art " to see " what 
 we may learn both from its intrinsic meaning and 
 from the traditions of antiquity as to its origin." 
 
 After alluding to Horace's statement * that 
 Democritus excluded from Helicon all poets in 
 their senses, Plato's proposals for similar enact- 
 ments, and Shakespeare's classing together of the 
 lunatic, the lover, and the poet, Keble sets forth 
 his view that only one who can skilfully and force- 
 fully use perfect imitation, and exquisite harmony 
 of subject and expression, as a means to give healing 
 and relief, is to be called a poet.f 
 
 Keble, thus speaking, almost seems to be a son 
 of Taliessin, for the bards who composed poems in 
 the name of their mythical ancestor held similar 
 views, though with far more inclination to divinity 
 as shaping the ends of poetic impulse. " I deride 
 neither song nor ministrelsy," said the author of 
 one of these poems, " for they are given by God to 
 lighten thought." In other songs thus put into the 
 mouth of Taliessin appears prominently the view 
 of the primary bard as one who had been mysteri- 
 ously taught hidden art and wisdom. Administer- 
 
280 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 
 
 ing a rebuke to the wisest of the court poets of 
 Maelgwn who ventured to strive with him, he 
 exclaims : 
 
 Be silent, then, ye unlucky rhyming bards. 
 
 For you cannot judge between truth and falsehood. 
 
 If you be primary bards formed by heaven. 
 
 Tell your king what his fate will be. 
 
 It is I who am a diviner and a leading bard. 
 
 And he proceeds to prophesy what shall befall the 
 king. 
 
 Taliessin alone is the diviner, he alone is able to 
 tell the truth, because he has visited the under- 
 world, the very home of poetic inspiration, and is 
 " completely imbued with genius not to be con- 
 trolled." * 
 
 I have been fostered in the land of the Deity, 
 
 I have been teacher to all intelligences, 
 
 I am able to instruct the whole imiverse, 
 
 I shall be until the day of doom on the face of the earth; 
 
 And it is not known whether my body is flesh or fish. 
 
 Taliessin might be called the personification of 
 Great Poesy, for it remains like him " a wonder 
 whose origin is not known," and it ought to be 
 clear by now that, whether its body be flesh or 
 fish, due to inspiration or imitation, its soul de- 
 rives, according to old faith, from the land of the 
 Deity, where the first fathers of British verse were 
 fostered. 
 
CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 281 
 
 When the Bard was asked whether he was man 
 
 or spirit, " he sang this tale, and said: 
 
 First I have been formed a comely person. 
 In the court of Ceridwen I have done penance; 
 Though Uttle I was seen, placidly received, 
 I was great on the floor of the place to where I was led ; 
 I have been a prized defence, the sweet muse the cause. 
 And by law without speech I have been liberated 
 By a smiling black old hag, when irritated 
 Dreadful her claim when pursued." 
 
 We are far from knowing the full import of this 
 myth of the culture quest, but we may without 
 harm spiritualize it into a symbol of the quests of 
 our own poets who after anxious striving have 
 gained great reward. If the bards of old suffered in 
 attaining a poetic and prophetic soul, they never- 
 theless exulted in its possession. It is the same to- 
 day. The afflicted Milton knew but one answer to 
 his question: 
 
 Who would lose, 
 Though full of pain, this intellectual being, 
 Those thoughts that wander through eternity. 
 To perish rather, swallow'd up and lost 
 In the wide womb of uncreated night .'* 
 
 Milton, nevertheless, like many another poet 
 before and since, magnified the function of his 
 kind. The bard, he proclaims, " shall be like a priest 
 shining in sacred vestment, washed with lustral 
 waters, who goes up to make augury before the 
 
282 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 
 
 jealous gods. . . . Yea, for the bard is sacred to 
 the gods: he is their priest. Mysteriously from his 
 lips and breast he breathes Jove." * " Poets," said 
 Shelley, with like transport, " are the hierophants 
 of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of 
 the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the 
 present." 
 
 Though both these great writers may have had 
 to struggle against a tendency to martyrize them- 
 selves, they were without question " inspired," in 
 the true sense. But what shall we say of the nu- 
 merous puny bards who have willingly abandoned 
 themselves to the infatuation of self-centrement 
 and sneeringly blamed the world for its (usually 
 justified) indifference to them, because forsooth 
 they are poets, therefore in the nature of things 
 inspired beyond artists in other domains, and alone 
 supremely capable of seeing visions and dreaming 
 dreams ? 
 
 Sheer devilish deceit, it would seem, afflicts the 
 souls of modern poets who, presumptously imagin- 
 ing themselves geniuses and indulging in vain 
 fantasies of their own importance, work them- 
 selves up into indiscreet fury over the world's neg- 
 lect. The inspiration of such egotists differs as 
 widely from that of the genuinely endowed as the 
 melancholy of Jaques from that of Dante.t The 
 truly holy prophets and poets through whom God 
 
CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 283 
 
 has chosen to speak since the world began, have 
 not been so much occupied with their own misery 
 as with that of the nations they sought to aid, 
 have not been conceitedly petulant about being 
 misunderstood for what this meant to them, but 
 nobly solicitous because of their failure to convey 
 their message potently, as instruments of the com- 
 mon profit, for what it meant to others. 
 
 Perhaps we have a symptom of the modern 
 " dulcet disease " of romanticism in Shelley's 
 words : 
 
 Most wretched men 
 Are cradled into poetry by wrong; 
 They learn in suffering what they teach in song.* 
 
 But there was more than that in the ancient concep- 
 tions of " the disease that precedes the power to 
 divine." Magnificent myths are based upon the idea 
 of heroic, self -immolating human struggle for heav- 
 enly possessions with which to benefit mankind. 
 
 Among the myths destined to live forever is that 
 of Prometheus' theft and transmission of the fire of 
 the Immortals, if only because it is " full of prompt- 
 ings and suggestions " to modern as to ancient 
 poets themselves aglow with " the divine fire." 
 
 All is but a symbol painted 
 
 Of the Poet, Prophet, Seer; 
 Only those are crowned and sainted 
 Who with grief have been acquainted. 
 
 Making nations nobler, freer. 
 
284 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 
 
 In an ancient Irish colloquy regarding the 
 
 source of poetic inspiration,* the Young Poet, 
 
 " wrapped in the robe of splendor," who comes 
 
 " from the meeting-place of wisdom, from the 
 
 place where goodness dwells serene, from the red 
 
 sunrise of the dawn, where grow the nine hazels of 
 
 poetic art," tells in symbol to the Old Poet, 
 
 " Master of Wisdom," who moves " along the 
 
 streams of inspiration " " into the lofty heights of 
 
 honor, into the community of knowledge, into the 
 
 fair country inhabited of noble sages, into the 
 
 haven of prosperities " — the true pedigree of 
 
 Poesy : 
 
 Poetry son of Investigation, 
 Investigation son of Meditation, 
 Meditation son of Lore, 
 Lore son of Research, 
 Research son of Inquiry, 
 Inquiry son of wide Knowledge, 
 Knowledge son of Good Sense, 
 Good Sense son of Understanding, 
 Understanding son of Wisdom, 
 Wisdom son of the three Gods of Poetry, 
 
 Who now can declare it better ? Ultimately, 
 Poesy descends from the gods. 
 
 Has there been progress in our conceptions of 
 poesy ? Plainly, we have still, even in this age of 
 science, but at the dawn, let us hope, of an age of 
 larger apprehension, an ineradicable sense of real 
 
CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 285 
 
 divinity in genius, that divinity which, as lambli- 
 chus long ago observed, " seizes for the time the 
 soul and guides it as he will." 
 
 Great Poesy, we conclude, is the ever-living 
 teacher to all intelligences, because by miracle 
 heaven-bred. 
 
NOTES 
 
NOTES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Page h. *Edinburgh and London, 1887, 1, 173 ff. 
 
 Fage 6. * Autobiography. To Dr. Moore, 2d August, 1787; 
 Works, ed. Douglas, IV, 7. 
 
 Page 6. f" Thirty-eight editions during a period of about 380 
 years sufficiently attest the uncommon popularity of the 
 poem in Scotland " (J. T. T. Brown, The Wallace and the 
 Bruce Restudied, Bonner Beitrdge zur Anglistik, 1900, p. 2). 
 For a complete list of the editions, with other bibliography, 
 see William Geddie, A Bibliography of Middle Scots Poets, 
 S. T. S., 1912, pp. 133 ff. 
 
 Page 8. *G. L. Craik, Compendious History of English Litera- 
 ture, London, 1861, I, 387. 
 
 Page 9. * Scottish Revieic, July, 1893, XXII, 200 f. 
 
 Page 10. *0p. ciL, pp. 77 ff. 
 
 Page 10. fYet John Marquess of Bute, in 1876, suggested that 
 " some clerk " may have had to do with the arrangement of 
 the matter of the poem. In his Early Days of Sir William 
 Wallace (p. 13), he writes of the author: " All his informa- 
 tion had to get to him by means of other persons, and his 
 digest of it had to reach the reading public by the same 
 means. I do not know if any instance exists of a man born 
 blind mastering a dead language; but if ever it did, it can 
 hardly have done so in the fifteenth century, so that the 
 poet was almost certainly dependent on a translator also. 
 No doubt, the poem was also composed in scraps, and so 
 written down. We know that he recited it publicly, and he 
 was no doubt in the habit of choosing for this purpose those 
 portions which he thought best adapted to each particular 
 
 289 
 
290 NOTES 
 
 occasion or audience. Hence, the work is to he viewed rather 
 as a series of stories abovt Sir William Wallace, told in verse 
 and strung together with a rough attempt at chronological ar- 
 rangement by some clerk. I am inclined to hope that, next 
 to some absolute mis-statements, its worst fault may be in 
 the chronological arrangement." 
 
 In his long article on " Henry the Minstrel " in the Dic- 
 tionary of National Biography, Dr. ^neas Mackay remarks: 
 " The poet speaks in his own person at its [the work's] close, 
 and may have dictated it to the transcriber. His vivid 
 descriptions have been thought by some incompatible with 
 total blindness, but Major's statement, the best evidence 
 on the point, would be confirmed by his using another 
 hand to write his poem." 
 
 Page 10. |It has been shown that the manuscript written by 
 Ramsay was not the author's original copy. See Aschauer, 
 Zur " Wallace "-Frage, in Beitrdge zur Neueren Philologie, 
 Festschrift fUr Jakob Schipper, Vienna and Leipzig, 1902, 
 pp. 132-145; G. Ncilson, Athenaeum, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 
 647; Neilson, Essays and Studies, I, 86, note; Athenaeum, 
 Feb. 9, 1901, pp. 170-171; T. F. Henderson, Englische 
 Studien, XXX, 281 ff. Mr. Brown himself now apparently 
 sets less store by his theory. In a letter to the Athenaeum 
 (Nov. 24, 1900, p. 68.'J) he writes: "The whole chapter, in- 
 deed, is a digression from the main question, viz., the rela- 
 tion of the Wallace and the Bruce to each other and to 
 kindred literature." 
 
 Page 10. §For example, R. B. McKcrrow {Modern Language 
 Quarterly, V, 73-76); W. Hand Browne {Modern Language 
 Notes, XVI, 50-54). 
 
 Page 11. *Third revised edition, Edinburgh, 1910, pp. GQ ff. 
 
 Page 12. *"0n Blind Harry's Wallace," Essays and Studies by 
 Members of the English Association, I, Oxford, 1910, pp. 85, 
 87. 
 
 Page IS. fDeposited in the Harvard College Library. With 
 this dissertation before them. Professors W. A. Neilson and 
 
NOTES 291 
 
 K. G . T. Webster, the editors of ChieJ British Poets of the 
 nth and 15th Centuries (Boston, 1916, p. 433), conclude: 
 " It is on the whole safer to consider the authorsliip doubt- 
 ful." 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Page H. *It may be that there was a rubric in the original 
 manuscript (Ramsay's is only a copy) indicating the name 
 of the author, or there may have been a passage at the end 
 which is now lost. 
 
 The Wallace was printed, it appears, as early as ca. 1508. 
 David Laing (Preface to his edition of Golagros and Gaivane) 
 describes some fragments of a copy of this edition; but they 
 have been lost. 
 
 Page 14. ^Uistoria Majoris Britanniae (De Gestis Scotorum), 
 Paris, 1521; Edinburgh, 1740; trans. A. Constable (Pubs. 
 Scottish Hist. Soc, Vol. X, Edinburgh, 1892), Bk. IV, 
 ch. XV, p. 205. 
 
 Page 14- XThe History and Chronicles of Scotland, Edinburgh, 
 1821. 
 
 Page U. §Ed. Turnbull, Record Series, III, 161-162. 
 
 Page 15. *He was born in 1469-70 at Gleghornie, near North 
 Berwick. He died in 1549-50. 
 
 Page 16. *Introduction to Constable's translation, pp. Ixiv, 
 Ixxxiv. 
 
 Page 17. *For Major's discussion of Robin Hood, see Bk. IV, 
 ch. ii. 
 
 Page 17. fCf. Neilson, p. 107. 
 
 Page 18. *The Latin here reads: ** Integrum librum Guillelmi 
 Vallacei Henricus a nativitate luminibus captus meae in- 
 fantiae tempore cudit, et quae vulgo dicebantur carmine 
 vulgari in quo peritus erat conscripsit (ego autem taUbus 
 scriptis solum in parte fidem impertior) qui historiarum 
 recitatione coram principibus victum et vestitum quo dig- 
 nus erat nactus est " (Lib. IIII, Fo. LXXIII). 
 
292 NOTES 
 
 Page 19. *It should be noticed that critics have read into 
 Major's words more than there is any basis for. Consciously 
 or unconsciously, all have encouraged the similitude to 
 Homer that he started. 
 
 Page 20. *See Constable's translation, Index. 
 
 Page 20. fTo avoid any appearance of warping it to fit the 
 case, I give it in the words of Gayley {Classic Myths, Boston, 
 1911, pp. 451-452). 
 
 Page 20. J" Like Hannibal or Ulysses he understood to draw 
 up an army in order of battle, while like another Tela- 
 monian Ajax he could carry on the fight in open field " (IV, 
 14, p. 196). " The poets have fabled that Achilles was 
 brought up on the muscles of oxen, and not on partridges 
 or pheasants. And WilUam Wallace, as our chronicles have 
 it, used to call for that part of oxen which they call the nine- 
 plies, and not for partridges or pheasants " (In Quartum 
 Sententiarum, cited Constable, p. 195, note). 
 
 Page 21. *II, 6. 
 
 Page 21. fVI, 14, p. 366. 
 
 Page 22. *IV, 11; pp. 184-185. 
 
 Page 22. fl, 9. 
 
 Page 22. ^According to Boece, this event took place B.C. 330. 
 Canemor is probably for Teamor, the Themor of Fordun, 
 now Temair, Tara. When Fordun gives the pedigree of 
 King David (tll53), he traces it back, via Iber Scot and 
 Gaythelos, to Gomer, Japhet and Noah (ed. Skene, 1872, 
 II, 244 £F.). See Wallace, I, 121 fif. 
 
 Page 22. §See Skene's Highlanders of Scotland, ed. Macbain, 
 1902, pp. 178-188. 
 
 Page 23. *The editor notes: " All attempts to identify Conus 
 have failed," and states his belief that it is a scribal error. 
 On Conn, see below, ch. v. 
 
NOTES 293 
 
 Page S3. fCf. Small's edition of Dunbar, I, ccxliii. In the 
 Treasurer's Accounts of the years 1491-1506 are various 
 items showing the interest of royalty in the Erse clareshaws 
 and harpers. About 1490, Angus, son of John, last Lord of 
 the Isles, was slain by his own harper. 
 
 Page 23. |Ed. Amours, Scottish Alliterative Poems, S.T.S., 
 1897, pp. 74, 312 f. The passage ends: 
 
 O Deremyne, O Donnall, O Dochardy droch; 
 
 Thir ar his Irland kingis of the Irischerye: 
 
 O Knewlyn, O Conochor, O Gregre Makgrane; 
 
 The Schenachy, the Clarschach, 
 
 The Ben schene, the Ballach, 
 
 The Crekery, the Corach, 
 
 Scho kennis thaim ilkane. 
 
 Blind Harry knew better than we who these persons 
 were, and " kenned each one " — the sennachie, the clare- 
 shaw, the banshee, and the rest. For Campbell's interpre- 
 tation of the passage, see Brown, p. 32. 
 
 Blind Harry pictures an English soldier as accosting 
 Wallace with an ironical GaeUc salutation in which some of 
 the same phrases occur (Bk. VI, 1. 140). Cf. Brown, pp. 31- 
 32. Many of Wallace's followers were from the Highlands. 
 
 Page 23. %Poems, ed. Cranstoun, p. 220. A poem attributed 
 to Montgomery (p. 280) explains 
 
 How the first Helandman of God was maid 
 Of ane horss turd, in Argylle, as is said. 
 
 Page 24. *L1. 345ff. Dunbar derides Kennedy, of Ayrshire, 
 as a mere countryman, whose lips could blabber only the 
 " Ershry." He makes the Dwarf of the Interlude say: 
 
 Yrland for evir I haif reffusit, 
 All wyismen will hald me excusit. 
 For nevir in land quhair Eriche was vsit. 
 To dwell had I dellyte. (LI. 109flF.) 
 
 Page 24. fEd. Small, p. 121, 11. 113flf. 
 
 Page 25. *Monarchie, Bk. 1, 11. 327-329. 
 
294 NOTES 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Page 26. *Ed. J. Schipper, TJie Poems of William Dunbar, 
 Vienna, 1891, pp. 190 flf.; ed. John Small, Scottish Text 
 Society, 1884-93, Edinburgh and London, II, 314 ff; ed. 
 David Laing, Select Remains of the Ancient Popular and 
 Romance Poetry of Scotland, ed. Small, 1885, pp. 296 S. 
 
 Page 26. fThis is Laing's and Schipper's text, following the 
 Asloan MS., here obviously the best. Small, in his edition 
 (n, 314) reads somewhat diflFerently: 
 Bot 3it I trow that I vary, 
 I am hot ane Blynd Hary, 
 That lang hes bene with the fary 
 Farlyis to fynd. 
 
 And the first two lines he thus curiously mistranslates (III, 
 378) : " But yet I beUeve truly that I am but another 
 Blind Harry," thus losing the real point of the situation. 
 
 Page 27. *Professor G. Gregory Smith, who has no doubt that 
 the poem is by Dunbar, writes: " The more gorgeous Gar- 
 gantua, who required but ' nine hundred ells of Chasteleraud 
 linen, and two hundred for gussets' for his shirt, and ' eight 
 hundred and thirteen ells of white satin ' for his doublet, 
 must have admired his Ossianic neighbour had he heard of 
 liim. And it is doubtful whether the ever-excellent Rabelais 
 had the poetic fancy wliich added the conceit of the tiara 
 of stars. There is plenty of that topsy-turvy mystical hu- 
 mour wliich some in compliment call Celtic, but the piece 
 is never too literary for the plain man who clamoured for 
 sheer fun and reality " {The Transition Period, 1900, p. 
 294). 
 
 Is the humor of Dunbar only " in compliment called Cel- 
 tic " ? There is as much that is " topsy-turvy " as there is 
 " mystical " in the Celtic imagination, as much of the 
 grotesque as of the finely-shaded, as much of the boisterous 
 and coarse as of the subdued and subduing. The debt of 
 Scottish poetry to the temper and traditions of the Gaels 
 has never been suflSciently emphasized. 
 
NOTES 295 
 
 Page 28. *Introduction in his edition, p. 190; cf. his William 
 Dunbar, Berlin, 1884, pp. 207-215. 
 
 Page 28. f" As," he says, " we may conclude from the epi- 
 thets mandrag, mymmerkin (v, 29), ignorant elf (v. 36), 
 duerch (v. 491) and others given him by Kennedy in ' The 
 Flyting.' " But this is hardly conclusive. 
 
 Page 28. |Introduction to Small's edition, I, Ixxxii. 
 
 Page 29. *Cf. his William Dunbar, p. 207; edition, Pt. II, 
 p. 192; Small, III, 378. 
 
 Page 30. * Wallace and Bruce Restvdied, p. 9. 
 
 Page SO. f" Faery " was used in various senses in Middle- 
 English. It is a locality (as in the Interlude) in Sir Guy: 
 
 Here beside an elfish knight 
 Hath taken my lord in fight. 
 And hath him led with him away 
 Into the Faerie, Sir, par ma fay. 
 
 Chaucer used it as a locality in the Squire's Tale, where he 
 speaks of Gawain's coming back " out of faerie." Cf. " the 
 contree of fairye " in Sir Thopas. The phrase " of faerie," 
 on the other hand, seems to mean " of fairy origin," " due 
 to fairy contrivance," in the line where, speaking of the 
 horse of brass, the poet remarked: " It was of faerie, as the 
 peple semed "; cf. William of Palerne, ed. Skeat. 1. 230; 
 Piers Plowman, ed. Skeat, II, 3 f. In the following lines 
 from Emare, it is equivalent to " illusion." 
 
 The Emperor sayd on hygh 
 
 Sertes thys ys a fayry 
 
 Or ellys a vanyte (103 fif.)- 
 
 See Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, Bohn Library, 
 1850, pp. 8 ff. The A text of Piers Ploivman in the passage 
 quoted (1. 6) reads " a f eyrie "; the B text, " of fairy." 
 
 Page 82. *Perhaps we ought always to call him the Droich, 
 for the form of the name is Gaelic, and in itself suggests its 
 Celtic origin. 
 
296 NOTES 
 
 Page 33. *See D'Arbois de Jubainville, Cycle Mythologique, 
 pp. 244-245; also Transactions of the Ossianic Society for 
 1857, V, 234; Charles Squire, Die Mythology of the British 
 Islands, London, Glasgow and Dublin, 1905, pp. 123 ff.; 
 Book of Leinster, 12 b. 
 
 Page 3^. *" Battle of the Trees," Poem VIII in the Booh of 
 Taliessin (Skene, Four Ancient Books of Wales, I, 276). 
 The passage next quoted is from a poem in the prose tale 
 of Taliesin (Nutt, Mabinogion, p. 307). This tale, though 
 based on material of the most primitive sort, is a sixteenth- 
 century production, and even the poems it contains have 
 been greatly modified by the intrusion of Biblical and 
 mediaeval lore; see Nutt, Voyage of Bran, II, 84 flf. See 
 pp. 244-245, below. 
 
 Page 3^. fCompare the Dwarf's words " I am cum heir " 
 to Scotland, which was part of " the remnant of Troia." 
 When he leaves, he promises to come again soon. There is 
 no indication that he is near the end of his days. 
 
 Page 35. *In an anonymous insertion in Reginald Scot's Dis- 
 coverie of Witchcrafte, London, 1665, Bk. II, ch. 4; ed. B. 
 Nicholson, London, 1886, p. 511. 
 
 Page 35. ]Ihid., pp. 485 ff. The same writer speaks (p. 473) 
 of " astral spirits as fairies, nymphs, and ghosts of men." 
 
 Page 36. *Bk. VII, ch. 15; ed. Nicholson, p. 122. 
 
 Page 37. *C Text, XVI, 163 ff.; cf. Skeat's edition, II, 197 f.; 
 
 of. Chaucer, Nun's Priest's Tale, 1. 116; "The bug which 
 
 you would fright me with" {Winter's Tale, III, ii, 93); 
 
 "A bugbear take him!" {Troilus and Cressida, IV, 2); 
 
 Marston, Antonio's Revenge, III, i, 134-135 : 
 He will not sleepe, but calls to followe you, 
 Crying that bug-beares and spirits haunted him. 
 
 In Leechdoms (ed. Cokayne, III, 38-41) is a recipe against 
 the attack by a dwarf, i.e. convulsions. 
 
 Page 37. '\Epithalamion, 11. 341 ff. Note Ben Jonson's 
 " Pug " in The Devil is an Ass. Cf. Burton, Anatomy of 
 Melancholy, Part I, sect. 2, mem. 1, subsect. 2, 
 
NOTES 297 
 
 Page 38. *Chaucer terms the Pardoner a " belamy," and per- 
 haps the word in his case means more than has ordinarily 
 been thought. Cf. " Seie, quaj) the admiral, belamy. 
 Ho makede Jje so hardy " (Floris and Blancheflor, 1. 633); 
 " Belamy, let be thy din " (Satan to Christ, Towneley 
 Mysteries, p. 251). Chaucer's Manciple was " a boystous 
 man." The word appears to be of Celtic origin (Welsh 
 bwystus, wild, ferocious), and is commonly used in Scots. 
 Beldame has had a similar history to belamy. Whittier 
 writes in his New England Legend (quoted Century Dic- 
 tionary) : 
 
 Our witches are no longer old 
 And wrinkled beldames, Satan- sold. 
 
 Page 38. fV, 1102 f. 
 
 Page 39. *See below, p. 71. 
 
 Page 39. fSee Roscher's Ausfiihrliches Lexicon, I, 3019 ff. ; 
 Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 130 f ., 273, 600 n. 
 
 Page 39. t Justing and Debait up at the Drum Betuix William 
 Adamsone and Johine Sym (ed. Cranstoun, Scottish Text 
 Society, p. 9). Hercules, it may be noted, like Wallace 
 (according to Blind Harry's account), is said to have worn 
 the garments of a woman and spun wool. Moreover, in 
 patriotic indignation he cut off the noses and ears of the 
 envoys of King Erginus of Orchomenos, on their way to 
 demand tribute of the Thebans. 
 
 Page 39. §Ed. J. Payne Collier, for the Percy Society, 1841; 
 ed. Frank Sidgwick, The Sources and Analogues of * A Mid- 
 summer- Night's Dream,' 1908, pp. 81 ff.; see particularly 
 87-88, 97, 101, 109 ff. Hector Boece has a passage on Robin 
 and other familiar spirits. 
 
 Page 40. *Robin's habitual cry, " ho, ho, ho," which Shake- 
 speare gives to his shape-shifting Puck, reminds us of the 
 cry of the Dwarf in opening the Interlude: 
 Hiry, hary, hubbilschow! 
 See quha is cum now. 
 
 The " hary " here seems to be the old French exclamation 
 " harou." 
 
298 NOTES 
 
 Page J^O. fEd. Laing, Select Remains, pp. 267 ff , There was a 
 ruler of the aes sidhe named Boadach who dwelt in the Plain 
 of Delight which Connla visited for love of a beautiful 
 damsel; see Nutt, Voyage, I, 145, 175. Jobath, son of Beo- 
 thach, penetrated the underworld, like Gwydion and Cuchu- 
 linn; see Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, p. 262. There are curious 
 likenesses between the story of Berdok's trip to ravish the 
 " golk " (cuckoo) of faery and Odin's visit to Gunnlod in 
 Snorri's Edda (trans. A. G. Brodeur, N. Y., 1916, pp. 94 ff.) 
 
 Page 4/. *Imperfectly preserved in the Percy Folio MS., ed. 
 Hales and Furnivall, I, 88 ff. 
 
 Page 41- fThe Isle of Man was long identified with the other- 
 world. See Rhys, Arthurian Legend, p. 355. " According to 
 some accounts, the Isle of Man as a mythic country was 
 that called the Isle of the Men of Falga or Failge, over whom 
 reigned Mider, king of the fairies, when Cuchulainn carried 
 away his daughter Blathnat, together with his Cauldron and 
 his Three Cows that filled it with their milk. This name of 
 Failge was otherwise explained to mean the Western Isles 
 of Scotland. It may also have been identified with the 
 mythic City of Falias, from which the Tuatha De Danann 
 were said to have brought to Ireland one of their treasures, 
 the Lia Fdil (Keating, Dublin, 1880, pp. 112-119). " Cf. 
 Waldron, Description of the Isle of Man, London, 1731. 
 Collins wrote (Ode to Liberty) : 
 
 Mona once hid from those that search the main. 
 
 Where thousand elfin shapes abide. 
 
 Page ^1. JWe learn of the Ghost of Guy from a Latin tract, 
 the Spiritus Guidonis, apparently of the year 1323, which 
 is extant in an English prose translation in the Vernon Manu- 
 script of the fourteenth century, as well as in a later metri- 
 cal version. Both the latter were printed by Horstmann in 
 his Yorkshire Writers, London, 1896, II, 292 ff. Cf. Dyce's 
 edition of Skelton (II, 185) for other references to him. 
 
 Page 43. *Eyre-Todd {Scottish Poetry of the Sixteenth Cen- 
 tury, p. 29) notes unwisely: " Perhaps the Sir Guy of ro- 
 mance." 
 
NOTES ^99 
 
 Page 43. fEd. Laing, Select Remains, pp. 208 ff. — The 
 giants Gotmagot and Corineus appear in a London pageant 
 at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1559; see E. K. 
 Chambers, Mediaeval Stage, Oxford, 1903, II, 172. 
 
 Page U- *Rev., XX, 7-8. 
 
 Page 4^4. fBk. I, oh. 16; cf. Alex. Scott's remark about Her- 
 cules, above p. 39. On Gog Magog, see Wyntoun, I, vii, 
 341 flF., I, X, 583 fif. 
 
 Page 44- JAt the end of the story of Cuchulinn's Sick Bed, in 
 the Book of the Dun Goto, we read: " The demoniac power 
 was great before the faith, and such was its greatness that 
 the demons used to fight bodily against mortals, and they 
 used to show them delights and secrets of how they would 
 be in immortality." See Nutt, Voyage of Bran, I, 157, 
 Tylor points out that " Augustine, in an instructive pas- 
 sage, states the popular notions of the visits of incubi, 
 vouched for, he tells us, by testimony of such quantity and 
 quality that it may seem impudence to deny it: yet he is 
 careful not to commit himself to a positive belief in such 
 spirits. Later theologians were less cautious, and grave argu- 
 mentation on nocturnal intercourse with incubi and succubi 
 was carried on till, at the height of mediaeval civilization, 
 it is found accepted in full belief by ecclesiastics and lawyers. 
 Nor is it to be counted as an ugly but harmless super- 
 stition, when for example it is set forth in the Bull of Pope 
 Innocent VIII. in 1484, as an accepted accusation against 
 ' many persons of both sexes, forgetful of their own salva- 
 tion, and falling away from the Catholic faith ' " {Primi- 
 tive Culture, 4th ed., II, 190-191; cf. Augustine, De Civitate 
 Dei, XV, 23). 
 
 Page ^-4- §Bishop Carswell, in his preface to his Gaelic version 
 of the Prayer-book for the reformed Church of Scotland, 
 which was printed in Edinburgh in 1567, lamenting the 
 absence of printed Gaelic books, remarks: " Great is the 
 blindness and darkness of sin and ignorance and under- 
 standing among composers and writers and supporters of 
 
300 NOTES 
 
 the Gaelic, in that they prefer and practice the framing of 
 vain, hurtful, lying earthly stories, about the Tuath de 
 Danand, about the sons of Miled, and about the heroes and 
 Finn Mac Cumhaill with his giants, and about many others 
 whom I shall not number or tell of here in detail, in order 
 to maintain and advance these, with a view to obtaining 
 for themselves passing worldly gain, rather than to write 
 and to compose and to support the faithful words and 
 the perfect way of truth. For the world loves the lie much 
 more than the truth " (Stern, Die Ossianischen Heldenlieder, 
 trans. J. L. Robertson, Transactions of the Gaelic Society 
 of Inverness, XXII, 1897-98, p. 293). 
 
 Page ^5. *Ed. Andrew Lang, London, 1893, p. 26. Kirk was 
 a student of theology at St. Andrews, took his M.A. at 
 Edinburgh, and afterwards became a minister at Aberfoyle. 
 In 1684 he published a Psalter in Gaelic. He was reputed 
 not to have died, but to have been made a captive in a shi, 
 or fairy hill. Lang thought (Introduction, p. xxiii) the sub- 
 terranean inhabitants of Kirk's book " a lingering memory 
 of the Chthonian beings, ' the Ancestors.' " " Fairyland," 
 he explained, " was a kind of Hades, or home of the dead." 
 
 Page Jt.5. fPatrick Joyce {Social History of Ireland, I, 273 f.) 
 calls attention to the fact that Jocelin of Furness, who 
 wrote a life of St. Patrick in the twelfth century tells us 
 that before the Saint came " Ireland was deemed the special 
 home of demons. . . . The magician, evil-doers, and 
 soothsayers abounded beyond what history records of any 
 other country on the face of the earth." And he himself 
 adds: " What with Dedannan gods, with war-gods and 
 goddesses, apparitions, demons, sprites of the valley, ordi- 
 nary ghosts, spectres, and goblins, fairies of various kinds — 
 sheevras, leprechauns, banshees, and so forth — there ap- 
 pears to have been quite as numerous a population belong- 
 ing to the spiritual world as of human beings. In those old 
 pagan days, Ireland was an eerie place to live in; and it was 
 high time for St. Patrick to come." What was true in this 
 respect of Ireland, was true also of Celtic Scotland. 
 
NOTES 301 
 
 Page 4.5. XThe Fairy Mythology of Shakespeare, London, 1900, 
 pp. 10, 25, 32. For the use of Robin Goodfellow as the 
 pseudonym of the publisher of Tarlton's Jests out of Pur- 
 gatory, a work sometimes attributed to Nash, see below, 
 p. 110. 
 
 Page 47. *Ed. and trans. Kuno Meyer. 
 
 Page 48. *Dunbar, ed. Small, II, 5; Wallace, VII, 350. 
 
 Page 48. fMerchant's Tale, 11. 794 ff ., 983. Sir Orfeo shows well 
 how classical tales were made over to resemble those of the 
 Celts. See Kittredge, American Journal of Philology, VII, 
 176 ff. 
 
 Though Sir Orfeo is represented as a king of England 
 with his Capitol at Winchester, we read (11. 29 ff.) : 
 His fader was comen of king Pluto, 
 And his moder of [quene] Juno, 
 That sum time were as godes y-hold. 
 For aventours that thai dede and told. 
 
 In a Scottish interlude, called The Layhig of Lord Fergus's 
 Gaist (Laing, Select Remains, pp. 306 ff.) " Orpheus king 
 and Elpha quene " are said to be the offspring of a little 
 ghost; cf. Scott's Minstrelsy, 1803, I, clx ff. 
 
 Page 48. t" Institit homuncio capro maximo secundum fabu- 
 1am insidens, vir qualis describi posset Pan, ardenti facie, 
 capite maximo, barba rubente prolixa, pectus contingen- 
 teque, nebride preclarum stellata, cui venter hispidus, et 
 crura pedes in caprinos degenerabant {De Nugis Curialium, 
 Dist. I, ch. xi, ed. M. R. James, p. 13). This faery dwarf 
 himself says: " Ego rex multorum regum et principum, 
 innumerabilis et infiniti populi." 
 
 Page 48. §" Insuper dubitatur: an possunt futura predicere; 
 et movetur dubitatio. Sunt aliqui apud nostrates Britannos 
 qui more prophetico predicunt utpote de morte et homicidio 
 aliquorum " {Exposition of Matthew, ed. 1518, fol. xlviii; 
 cited by Constable, In trod., p. xxx, note 2). 
 
 Page 49. *See on the whole matter of the Kouretes and the 
 cult of Dionysus, Jane E. Harrison, Themis, Cambridge, 
 
302 NOTES 
 
 1912. Brand tells us that in his time (1701) fairies were 
 frequently seen in the Orkneys " in armoiu-," dancing and 
 making merry. This is significant, especially when we re- 
 member that Luridan was the chief of Orkney brownies. 
 
 Page 49. fin Themis, p. 343. 
 
 Page 49. JJ. G. Frazer, Golden Bough, 3d. ed.. Part VII, 
 Vol. I, pp. 226 fiF.; Encyc. Brit, under Hallowe'en. 
 
 Page 49. %Poems, ed. Cranstoun, S.T.S., p. 69. The lines were 
 quoted by King James in his Reulis and Cautelis, with some 
 variations. See the editor's note, p. 312: " a vivid picture of 
 the hellish host in one of their midnight revels." Cf. Chau- 
 cer's Wife of Bath's Tale: 
 
 In tholde dayes of the king Arthour, 
 
 Of which that Britons speken greet honour, 
 
 Al was this land fnlfild of fayerye. 
 
 The elf-queen, with hir joly companye, 
 
 Daunced ful ofte in many a grene mede. 
 
 Cf . further Thomson, in The Castle of Indolence, I, 30 : 
 
 As when a shepherd of the Hebrid Isles, 
 
 Placed far amid the melancholy main, 
 
 (Whether it be lone fancy him beguiles. 
 
 Or that aerial beings sometimes deign 
 
 To stand embodied, to oiu* senses plain). 
 
 Sees on the naked hill, or valley low. 
 
 The whilst in Ocean Phoebus dips his wain, 
 
 A vast assembly moving to and fro; 
 
 Then, all at once, in air, dissolves the wondrous show. 
 
 Page 50. *The editors of the S.T.S. edition of Dunbar (Intro- 
 duction, pp. ccxxxiiif.; cf. Ixxxii f.) connect the Interlude 
 with the festivities in honor of the Princess Margaret who 
 was married to King James August 8, 1503, and suggest a 
 secret meaning to the poem. But there is Uttle likelihood in 
 this. All that we can be sure of is that it was written for, or 
 adapted for, some festival in Edinburgh, which is much 
 praised not only as " the lamp and a per se of this region, 
 in all degree of welfare and of honesty, renown and rich 
 
NOTES 303 
 
 array," but also as the place " where is merriest cheer, 
 plesance, disport, and play." (Compare Burns's praise of 
 Auld Ayr in Tarn.) The ' ' amiable audience ' ' whom ' ' the god 
 of most magnificence is asked to conserve," was made up of 
 
 Prowest, baillies, ofBceris, 
 And honerable induellaris, 
 Marchandis and familiaris 
 
 Of all this fair towne, 
 
 who thus were invited to join in a Robin Hood, and there- 
 fore perhaps a May-day, celebration: 
 
 3e noble merchandis ever ilkane 
 Address 30W furth with bow and flane 
 
 In lusty grene lufraye. 
 And follow furth on Robyn Hude. 
 
 Chambers thought the piece " clearly a ' banns' for a May- 
 game " {Mediaeval Stage, II, 455). 
 
 Stubbes, in his Anatomy of Abuses (1585), wrote: 
 " Against Male, every parishe, towne, and village, as- 
 semble themselves together, bothe men, women, and 
 cliildren, olde and yonge, even all indifferently, and either 
 going all together or devidjTig themselves into companies, 
 they goe, some to the woodes and groves, some to the hills 
 and mountaines, some to one place, some to another, where 
 they spend all the night in pastimes; in the morninge they 
 return, bringinge with them birclie, bowes and branches of 
 trees, to deck their assemblies withalle " (ed. Furnivall, 
 p. 149; quoted Skeat, Works of Chaucer, V, 65). 
 
 Page 51. *See Gilbert Murray on the Prologue in Greek 
 drama in Miss Harrison's Themis, pp. 359 ff., especially 
 361. 
 
 Page 51. fTrans. A. S. Way, 1912, HI, 1. 
 
 Page 53. ^Studies of the Gods in Greece, London, 1891, p. 
 145. Of the Bacchanals, Dyer says: " It may be called the 
 Passion-play of Attica, and it has been compared to the 
 medieval morality " (pp. 136-137). Milton was fond of it. 
 
304 NOTES 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Page 56. *See J. A. H. Murray, Thomas of Erceldoune, 
 E.E.T.S., 1875, pp. 52 flf. 
 
 Page 56. fin another version in the Whole Prophesie of Scot- 
 land, the " little man " who reveals the ferlys is Thomas 
 Rhymer himself. See Murray, Ibid., pp. 48 ff. — Printed in 
 1603 and later. 
 
 Page 57. *Itinerary through Wales, Bk. I, Ch. V. 
 
 Page 58. *Cf. Murray, pp. xxxvii f.; Taylor, p. 73. Even so 
 Tuan Mac Cairill, surviving his kin, wandered over the 
 hills, living in caves, until old age betook him, " hairy, 
 clawed, withered, grey, naked, wretched, miserable." Fin- 
 ally, after " varying " into diflferent shapes, he was bap- 
 tized by St. Patrick, not, we presume, without satisfying 
 all the Saint's questions. See Voyage of Bran, II, 76 ff., 
 285 ff. 
 
 Page 58. fSee Ward, Romania, XXII (1893), 504 ff.; F. Lot, 
 Annales de Bretagne, XV (1899), 336 ff. Lailoken was iden- 
 tified with Merlin in the Middle Ages in Scotland, e.g., by 
 Fordun, in the Scotichronicon. 
 
 Page 59. *Nutt, Voyage of Bran, II, 227, Kirk {Secret Com- 
 monwealth, ed. A. Lang, p. 16) speaks of " the Tabhaisver 
 or Seer " that can conjure up familiar spirits. Does this 
 indicate the origin of the name ? 
 
 Page 59. fSee Murray, pp. xvi f. 
 
 Page 59. |Really an Anglo-Norman poet, and a great one. See 
 Schofield, Eng. Lit. from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer, 
 pp. 203 ff. 
 
 Page 60. *He has gone through various transformations, fi- 
 nally becoming " a mother-naked man." 
 
 Page 60. fin the following passage descriptive of the treat- 
 ment of Libeaus Desconus by the Lady of the Golden Isle, 
 a mistress of " sorcery," who regaled the hero with " melody 
 
NOTES 305 
 
 of all minstrelsy," the blearing of the eye was a sign of her 
 fairy power, meaning more than merely to delude, or cajole, 
 as is usually thought: 
 
 With fantasme and fairie 
 
 ])us sche blered his i^e. 
 
 (Libeaus Desconus, ed. Kaluza, 11. 1522-1523). 
 
 Supernatural beings had control over the eyesight of 
 mortals. They could transiently " blear " their eyes, or 
 make them permanently blind. 
 
 Page 60. XFlatetjjarhok, Christiania, 1860, 1, 339-362; cf. Ryd- 
 berg, Teutonic Mythology, pp. 210-211; Nutt, Voyage, I, 
 298; Saxo Grammaticus, trans. Elton and Powell, p. Ixviii. 
 In the same Saga we read of a blind old man in the island of 
 Moster " who was reported to have great foresight and 
 prophetic power." He prophesies the loss in one voyage 
 of the Norsemen of four things " the most noble of their 
 kind that ever came into the land " (trans. Sephton, pp. 
 399 f.; cf. Vigfusson, Sturlunga Saga, p. Ixxxiii). 
 
 Page 60. ^Secret Commonwealth, ed. Lang, p. 13. Kirk tells 
 among " instances of undoubted verity " the case of a wo- 
 man who " lived in the country next to that of my last 
 residence," who returned to her husband after having been 
 in faery. " Among other reports she gave her husband, this 
 was one : that she perceived little what they did in the spa- 
 cious house she lodged in, until she anointed one of her eyes 
 with a certain unction that was by her; which they perceiv- 
 ing to have acquainted her with their actions, they fain'd [?] 
 her blind of that eye with a puff of their breath. She found 
 the place full of light, without any fountain or lamp from 
 whence it did spring " (p. 34). For other cases of mortals 
 struck blind by fairies, see Keightley, pp. 298, 303, 312, 354; 
 Child, Ballads, I, 339; II, 505; III, 505; Rh5^s, Celtic Folk- 
 lore, I, 99; etc. To these last cases I have been referred by 
 Professor Kittredge. 
 
 Page 61. *Secret Commonwealth, ed. Lang, p, 23. 
 
 Page 61. fSee Keightley, pp. 387 f. 
 
306 NOTES 
 
 Page 62. *J. F. Campbell, Popular Tales of the West High- 
 lands, new edition. Paisley and London, 1893, IV, 34 f.; cf. 
 II, 113. In Scottish tradition the abode of Thomas Rhymer 
 is identified with that of the Feinne; see J. G. Campbell, 
 Swperstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, 1900, 
 p. 270, note 1. 
 
 Page 63. *Bruce, III, 68 ff. " The Lowland poet here remarks," 
 says Campbell, " that he might ' mar manerlik ' have 
 ' liknit ' him to Gaudifer de Larys, and narrates an exploit 
 performed by that hero of romance, which he knew, and 
 thought a better illustration of Bruce's valour. . . . The 
 passage refers to the strife which, according to tradition, 
 was constantly going on between Goll Macmorna and 
 Fionn; and the Lord of Lome (Mac Cowl) spoke according 
 to his lights, to men who understood what he meant. Irish 
 history claims a real existence for Fionn and Goll, and 
 modern Lowland stories have added supernatural incidents 
 to the real history of the Bruce and Wallace " (Popular 
 Tales, IV, 47-48). 
 
 Page 63. fEd. SmaU, I, 65. 
 
 Page 6^. *Colville, in his Whigs' Supplication (1681), brings 
 Wallace into connection with Fyn MacCowl. 
 
 One man, quoth he, ofttimes hath stood. 
 
 And put to flight a multitude. 
 
 Like Samson, Wallace, and Sir Bewis, 
 
 And Fyn MacCowl beside the Lewis (Hebrides). 
 Hector Boece remarks {Scot. Hist., 1. 7, fols. 128-129, Fol. 
 Par. 1574 — quoted Comm. High. Soc, p. 22, note) : 
 " Coniiciunt quidam in haec tempora Fynnanum filium 
 Coeli (Fyn makCoul, vulgari vocabulo) virum, uti ferunt 
 immani statura (septenum enim cubitorum hominem fuisse 
 narrant) Scotici sanguinis, venatoria arte insignem, omni- 
 busque insolita corporis mole f ormidolosum : circularibus 
 fabulis, et iis quae de Arthuro Britonum rege, passim apud 
 nostrates leguntur, simillimum, magis quam eruditorum 
 testimonio decantatum. Huius itaque viri mirabilibus, quod 
 ab historica fide baud parum abhorrere omnibus sunt visa, 
 
NOTES 307 
 
 consulto supersedentes, Eugenij regis gesta deinceps 
 prosequemur." 
 
 Page 64. fCf • Alfred Nutt, Ossian and the Ossianic Literature, 
 London, 1819, pp. 39 f.: "I see no reason for doubting that 
 the visit of Oisin to the Land of Youth, and his return to 
 earth, were early component parts of the Fenian cycle. Li 
 one of the chief monuments of that cycle, the Agallamh na 
 Senorach, or Colloquy with the Ancients, preserved in four- 
 teenth century MSS., and probably a composition of the 
 thirteenth century, the living on of Oisin and Caoilte into 
 Patrician times is definitely indicated. . . . And a super- 
 natiu-ally prolonged life is presupposed by the extensive 
 body of Ossianic poetry, which brings the hero in contact 
 with St. Patrick, and which must be at least as old as the 
 fourteenth century, as it is found in an obviously worndown 
 condition in the Book of the Dean of Lismore " (Voyage of 
 Bran, I, 151-152). 
 
 For oral versions of the story, see Transactions of the 
 Ossianic Society for the year 1856, Dublin, 1859, p. 233; 
 Henry Charles Coote, "The Neo-Latin Fay" in The Folk- 
 Lore Record, London, 1879, II, 15 ff. Also Patrick Kennedy, 
 Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts, London, 1866, pp. 
 240 S. ; J. Curtin, Myths and Folk-Lore of Ireland, Boston, 
 1890, pp. 327 S. Joyce, Old Celtic Romances, 1879, pp. 
 385 ff. 
 
 Page 65. *Ossian returns as he came on a magic horse, through 
 the air. The steed that Tarn Lin rode was " lighter than the 
 wind." Even so, Dunbar's Dwarf, alias Blind Harry, could 
 " go by the sky light as the lynd." 
 
 Page 66. *Silva Gadelica, trans. Standish Hayes O'Grady, 
 II, 290-291 ; cf. Meyer and Nutt, Voyage of Bran, I, 180 ff.; 
 D'Arbois, Cycle Mythologique, p. 365. 
 
 Page 66. Woyage of Bran, I, 135 ff. 
 
 Page 67. *Ed. Gaston Paris, Romania, VLH (1879), 50 ff. See 
 Schofield, Lay of Guingamor {Harvard Studies and Notes, 
 V, 221 ff.). 
 
308 NOTES 
 
 Page 67. fit was believed that to eat the food of faery folk 
 put one in their power. It was because Persephone ate 
 fruit in the garden of Hades that she was condemned to 
 become his wife. By drinking ale in faery Loegaire was 
 made one of the people there. When Connla ate a faery 
 apple he longed irresistibly for his Elysium. See also 
 pp. 66, 253. Gaston Paris remarks: " Dans Baudouin de 
 Sebourc les fruits merveilleux du paradis terrestre rapellent 
 plus directment la legende primitive; mais ils ont perdu leur 
 vraie signification; ceux que produit I'un des arbres rajeunis- 
 sent, ceux que donne I'autre viellissent en un moment " 
 {Romania, VIII, 51.). 
 
 Page 68. *Guingamor, however, was not left thus disconsolate 
 on earth. The fay sent two maidens to put him back on 
 his horse and take him to a boat, which carried him across 
 the river to her abode, yet not without blaming him for his 
 offense. 
 
 Likewise Lanval and Graelent each suffered for disobey- 
 ing his fairy mistress's commands. (See Schofield, The Lays 
 of Graelent and Lanval, Puhl. Mod. Lang. Aes'n of America, 
 XV, 130 ff.). Yvain's madness had originally something to 
 do with his separation from the fay Lunete. 
 
 Page 68. fEd. T. Wright, p. 16 f.; ed. M. R. James, 1914, 
 pp. 13 ff., Dist. 1, ch. xi. 
 
 Page 68. JEven so the fabulous Old Norse Yngling King 
 Swegdir, in search of Odin, was pictured as accepting the 
 invitation of a dwarf to enter a stone, at the door of which 
 the latter stood. As Snorri tells us in the Heimskringla 
 (trans. Morris and Magnusson, I, 25-26) : " Swegdir ran 
 into the stone and it shut behind him straightway and 
 Swegdir never came back." 
 
 Page 69. *F. Lot thinks it was (Romania, XXXII, 441 note; 
 cf. A. C. L. Brown, Iwain, pp. 110, 119). The " Fairy-Rade" 
 was familiar in the Highlands; see Keightley , pp. 354 f., 384. 
 
 Page 69. fSee Adam de la Halle's Jeu de la Feuillee, written 
 in 1262 (ed. Langlois, Paris, 1911). Cf. Driesen, Ursprung 
 des Harlekin, Berlin, 1904; Child, Ballads, I, 321. 
 
NOTES 309 
 
 It was surely as a leader of the Wild Chase that Sir 
 Orfeo saw 
 
 The king o Fairi with his rout. 
 
 Com to hunt him al about. 
 
 With dun cri and bloweing. 
 
 And houndes also with him berking. 
 
 Ac no best thai no nome. 
 
 No never he nist whider thai bicome. 
 
 Page 69. tEd. Hales and Furnivall, Percy Folio MS., I, 341 ff . 
 
 Page 69. §Her name Loosepain, given her, according to the 
 romancer, because " a better leech was none certaine," may 
 be a corruption of Luchorpain, another (perhaps the more 
 original) form of Luchorcan. The name " Chatelain de 
 Coucy " was translated in a late English romance " Knight 
 of Courtesy! " 
 
 Page 69. \\ See Schofield, Eng. Lit. from the Norman Conquest 
 to Chaucer, pp. 232 f . 
 
 Page 70. *See Romania, VIII, 51; Keightley, pp. 46 ff. 
 
 Page 70. fSee Malory, Morte DaHhur, Bk. XXI; cf. for the 
 case of Connla, son of Conn, below, p. 253. 
 
 Page 70. XFall of Princes, Bk. VIII. ch. 25. 
 
 Page 70. ^Origins of English History, ch. X. 
 
 Page 71. *Child, Ballads, I, 329 ff. On Oberon, see Keightley, 
 pp. 38 ff. 
 
 Page 72. *Here the " little man " is given clothing, which is 
 described in curious detail; but in the ballad he was evi- 
 dently naked. 
 
 His legs were skant a shathmont lang 
 
 Yet umber was his thie; 
 Between his brows there was ae span. 
 And between his shoulders three. 
 
 Page 72. fSee the Chronicle of Pierre de Langtoft, ed. Thomas 
 Wright, Rolls Series, London, 1866, II, 452, where the 
 prophecies are given. Cf. Ward, Catalogue of Romances, I, 
 300; Rupert Taylor, Political Prophecy, New York, 1911, 
 pp. 65 ff. 
 
310 NOTES 
 
 Page 12. JThe Dwarf says: 
 
 I haif bene formest evir in feild. 
 And now sa lang I haif borne scheild 
 That 1 am crynit in for eild 
 This littill, as 3e may sie. 
 
 Page 73. *Roman de Merlin, ed. Sommer, London, 1894, 
 pp. 438 ff. Merlin repeatedly changed his shape (see Ibid., 
 pp. 42, 67 ff., 79, 130, 191, 302, 432). In one case he ap- 
 pears in the form of a wild man {omme salvage), interprets 
 dreams, delivers prophecies, and fools the court of Rome 
 (see the long account of the episode, Ibid., pp. 302-311). 
 In the Roman (p. 491) Gawain also appears transformed as 
 a dwarf, and is only released from his shrivelled condition 
 by following Merlin's advice. Arthur dubs an ugly dwarf, 
 who was the son of the King of Brangoire (pp. 452 ff., 
 485 ff.). 
 
 Page 7^. *Silva Gadelica, II, 269 ff. — " The Death of Fer- 
 gus." In Jubhdan's lay of his treasures, he thus describes 
 his timpan: "My timpan, O my timpan, endowed with 
 string-sweetness, from the red-sea's borders! Within its 
 wires resides minstrelsy to delight all women of the uni- 
 verse. Whosoe'er should in the matter of tuning up my 
 timpan be suddenly put to the test, if never hitherto he had 
 been a man of art yet would the instrument of itself per- 
 form the minstrel's functions. Ah how melodious is its 
 martial strain, and its low cadence ah how sweet! All of it- 
 self too how it plays, without a finger on a single string of 
 all its strings." 
 
 Page lit. \Trans. of the Ossianic Society, IV (1856), pp. 5, 215. 
 
 Page 75. *In the Colloquy of the Elders (Silva Gadelica, II, 
 115 ff.). 
 
 Page 75. fTogether with Cnu Deireoil and Blathnait his wife, 
 Caeilte enumerates the following minstrels of Finn, about 
 whom little is known: " Daighre mac Morna, Der ua 
 Daighre, Senach ua Daighre, Suanach son of Senach, and 
 Suanach that was Finn mac Cumall's reciter of old tales 
 
NOTES 311 
 
 and the sweetest that in Ireland or Scotland ever handled 
 timpan " (Silva Gadelica, II, 229 f.; of. p. 240). That they 
 were all faery folk is clear from the following account of 
 that master musician of Ireland, the Kern of the Narrow 
 Stripes, in which two of the above list reappear {Silva 
 Gadelica, II, 313) : 
 
 " He with that taking an instrument made symphony so 
 gently sweet, and in such wise wakened the dulcet pulses 
 of the harp, that in the whole world all women labouring 
 of child, all wounded warriors, mangled soldiers, and gal- 
 lant men gashed about — with all in general that suffered 
 sore sickness and distemper — might with the witching 
 charm of this his modulation have been lapped in stupor of 
 slumber and of soundest sleep. ' By Heaven's grace again,' 
 exclaimed O'Donnell, ' since first I heard the fame of 
 them that within the hills and under the earth beneath us 
 make the fairy music — such as are Finn mac Forgy, and 
 Shennach O'Dorgy, and Suanach mac Shennach, and the 
 scol6g of Kilcullen and the bacach of Benburren : that at one 
 and the same time make some to sleep, and some to weep, 
 and others again to laugh — music sweeter than thy strains 
 I never have heard; thou art in sooth a most melodious 
 rogue! ' * One day I 'm sweet, another I 'm bitter,' replied 
 the Kern." 
 
 Caeilte also sang a lay exalting the music of a minstrel of 
 the Tuatha, Fer-tuinne, son of Trogan, and of him we read : 
 " Though saws were being plied where there were women 
 in sharpest pains of childbirth, and brave men that were 
 wounded early in the day, nevertheless would such sleep 
 to the fitful melody that he makes. Yet to the dwelling in 
 which for the time being he actually is he is not minstrel 
 more effectively than to that whole country's inhabitants in 
 general [for all they as well may hear liim] " {Silva Gadelica, 
 U, 111; cf. p. 246). 
 
 For soporific music in the ballads, see further Child, I, 
 55; II, 137, 139 ff., 511 f.; IV, 18 f.; V, 220, 293 — also 
 Hyde-Dottin, SgSaluidhe Gaedhealach, pp. 188-189. Daghda 
 the Druid, performs in the hall of his enemies the three 
 
312 NOTES 
 
 feats which give distinction to a harper; makes the women 
 cry tears, the women and youth burst into laughter, and 
 the entire host fall asleep. O'Curry, Manners and Customs of 
 the Ancient Irish, III, 214; cf. D'Arbois de Jubainville, 
 Cours de la Litt. Celtique, II, 190 f . See also Revue Celtique, 
 XII, 81, 109; XV, 438. 
 
 Page 76. *Silva Gadelica, U, 187 f., 190 f., 213. 
 
 Page 76. fSee Percy Folio MS., I, 246 S., Child, Ballads, II, 
 136 ff., 511 f. In The Palace of Honour (ed. Small, I, 21, 
 vv. 15-16) Douglas writes Glaskeriane. Glasgerion has 
 been identified with Y Bardd Glas Keraint, Keraint the 
 Blue Bard. " Kirion the Pale was indeed an efiFective harper, 
 if the accounts given of him may be credited. Not more so 
 was his compatriot Cadwallo, 'that hushed the stormy 
 main,' or Modred, whose magic song made huge Plenlimmon 
 bow his cloud-topp'd head " {P.P. MS., I, 246). Note the 
 " silly blind harper " of Lochmaben, who fooled the English 
 king (Child, IV, 16). 
 
 Page 77. *The Sunset of Old Tales: " Orpheus and Oism." — 
 The Irish tale, " The Three Daughters of Kmg O'Hara," 
 reverses the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice. (See Curtin, 
 Myths and Folklore of Ireland, Boston, 1890.) Bugge thought 
 the Scandinavian ballad Harpens Kraft was derived from 
 Sir Orfeo (Child, V, 211). 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Pa^e 79. *" Irish tradition," says Mr. Quiggin, " preserves 
 the names of a number of antiquarian poets of prehistoric 
 or early medieval times, such as Amergin, one of the 
 Milesian band of invaders, Moran Roigne, son of Ugaine 
 Mor, Adna and his successor Feirceirtne, Torna (c. 400), 
 tutor to Niall Noigiallach, Dalian Forgaill, Senchan Tor- 
 peist, and Cennfaelad (d. 678), but the poems attributed to 
 these writers are of much later date." {Encycl. Brit., s.v. 
 Celt: Irish Literature). 
 
NOTES 313 
 
 Of Aneurin's noted epic Gododin, a would-be account of 
 the British defeat by the Saxons at Cattraeth (603), Mr. 
 Gruflfydd writes : " It seems probable that the original nucleus 
 of the poem was handed down orally, and recited or sung by 
 the bards and minstrels at the courts of different noblemen. 
 It thus became the common stock-in-trade of the Welsh 
 rhapsodist, and in time the bards, using it as a kind of 
 framework, added to it pieces of their own composition 
 formed on the original model, especially when the heroes 
 named happened to be the traditional forefathers of their 
 patrons, and occasionally introduced the names of new 
 heroes and new places as it suited their purpose; and all 
 this seems to have been done in early times. Older fragments 
 dealing too with the legendary heroes of the Welsh were 
 afterwards incorporated with the poem, and some of these 
 fragments undoubtedly preserve the orthographical and 
 grammatical forms of the 9th century. So that, on the 
 whole, it seems as fruitless to look for a definite record of 
 historical events in this poem as it would be to do so in the 
 Homeric poems, but like them, though it cannot any longer 
 be regarded as a correct and definite account of a particular 
 battle or war, it still stands to this day the epic of the war- 
 riors of its own nation " (Encycl. Brit., s.v. Celt: Welsh 
 Literature). 
 
 As to Llywarch Hen, see Nutt, Waifs and Strays of Celtic 
 Tradition, IV, xxxiv f. 
 Page 79. t" It is convenient to follow the long-established 
 custom of speaking of certain Welsh poems as Taliessin's, 
 and of a manuscript of the thirteenth century in which they 
 are contained as the Book of Taliessin. These poems repre- 
 sent a school of Welsh bardism, but we know in reality 
 nothing about their authorship; and the personality of 
 Taliessin is as mytliic as that of Gwydion and Merlin, both 
 of whom have also been treated as the authors of Welsh 
 verse." — Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 543-544; cf. Lady 
 Guest's Mabinogion, III, 321-326, 356-361; Stephens, Lit. 
 of the Cymry, pp. 167 ff., 270 ff. Taliessin becomes a 
 denizen of the wilderness in the Vita Merlini, v. 1457 ff. 
 
314 NOTES 
 
 " Both Taliessin and Myrddin," to quote again from Mr. 
 Gruffydd, " the one as the mythological chief of all British 
 bards and the other as a great magician, seem preeminently 
 suited to attract a great deal of later Welsh poetry under 
 their aegis. ... It was but natural that all the pseudo- 
 prophetic poems, written of course after the events which 
 they foretold, should be attributed to the chief among seers, 
 Myrddin, or, as his name is written in English, Merlin; so 
 that all the poems accredited to him, with the exception 
 perhaps of the Avallenau, were not written before the 12th 
 century." Encycl. Brit., s.v. Celt; Welsh Literature. On 
 the date of the poems attributed to Merlin, see F. Lot, 
 Annales de Bretagne, XV, 505 flf. Merlin, even in mediaeval 
 romance, was pictured as a notorious shape-shifter. In a 
 striking episode in the Roman de Merlin, he appears at 
 covu*t as a dwarf. 
 
 Page 80. *Dubthach, chief fill of Ireland in the time of Pat- 
 rick, is represented as the saint's constant companion. 
 
 Page 80. fHis story, from the Book of the Dun Cow (therefore 
 of the beginning of the eleventh century at the latest), was 
 edited by K. Meyer, Voyage of Bran, II, 285 ff.; cf. Nutt, 
 Ibid., II, 76 S. It was used as a sort of preface to the Lebor 
 Gabala; cf. D'Arbois, Cycle Mythologique, pp. 47 S. 
 
 Page 81. *This book is, strictly speaking, the work of Michael 
 O'Clery, one of the compilers of the Annals of the Four 
 Masters, but it is founded upon older documents. See O' 
 Curry, Lectures, p. 168; Skene, Celtic Scotland, I, 172; Nutt, 
 Voyage, II, 80; D'Arbois, II, ch. 4. 
 
 Page 81. fSee O'Curry, MS. Materials, App., cxxviii; Rhys, 
 Hibbert Lectures, pp. 205, 210; Squire, Mythology, pp. 201 f. 
 Cormac, son of Art, son of Conn, was a poet. See the story 
 of the Gilla Decair {Silva Gadelica, 11, 292). 
 
 Page 82. *I, 189. On Conn's chronicle, see above p. 23. 
 
 Page 83. *See Eleanor Hull, The Cuchullin Saga, London, 
 1898, pp. 109 ff.; cf. Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, p. 259. Odin 
 tells similarly of his own exploits in Hdvamdl. 
 
NOTES 315 
 
 Page 8^. *Hull, pp. 293 f. 
 
 Page 85. *They also, of course, were the only ones who could 
 tell of the otherworld. 
 
 Page 85. ■\Trans. Ossianic Society, IV, 271, 273. For Ossian 
 as a blind old man, see J. F. Campbell, Popular Tales of the 
 West Highlands, Paisley and London, 1890, II, 113 ff.; of. 
 Patrick Kennedy, Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts, Lon- 
 don, 1866, pp. 240 ff. 
 
 Page 86. * Report of the Committee of the Highland Society, 
 1805, p. 16. 
 
 Page 86. fOf the Gaelic poems in the Book of the Dean of 
 Lismore, nine are directly attributed to Ossian, two to 
 Fergus, one to Caeilte, and one to Conall Cearnach, while 
 some are ascribed to otherwise unknown bards. 
 
 Page 87. *Silva Gadelica, II, 101 ff., 107 ff. 
 
 Page 87. fGiraldus Cambrensis (Topography of Ireland, Dist. 
 Ill, ch. 2) makes " Roanus," i.e., Caeilte mac Ronan, sur- 
 vive and tell the tale of Partholan to St. Patrick. 
 
 Page 88. *Nutt notes the likeness between Forgoll's name 
 and that of Dalian Forgaill, Columba's disciple and panegy- 
 rist {Voyage of Bran, II, 82 note). 
 
 Page 88. fOn satire in Celtic stories, see F. N. Robinson, 
 Satirists and Enchanters in Early Irish Literature (published 
 in Studies in the History of Religions, presented to Crawford 
 Howell Toy, N.Y., 1912; the Morgan story is discussed 
 on p. 119). 
 
 To liis instances should perhaps be added the case of Sir 
 Dinadan in Malory, Bk. X, E, K. Chambers says {Mediae- 
 val Stage, I, 45) : " Nor were [minstrels] less in request for 
 satire than for eulogy. The English speaking minstrels, in 
 particular, were responsible for many songs of derision of 
 unpopular causes and personalities; and we need not doubt 
 that ' the lay that Sir Dinadan made by King Mark, which 
 
316 NOTES 
 
 was the worst lay that ever harper sang with harp or with 
 any other instrument,' must have had its precise counter- 
 part in actual life." But was not Dinadan's lay of the old 
 Celtic type, an echo of a mythical tale, not an image of 
 actual life in England ? 
 
 Page 89. *Silva Gadelica, II, 378 S. 
 
 Page 89. fin a long topographical poem in the Dindsenchas 
 he is made to recount the exploits of GoU mac Morna, and 
 describe how the latter put a host to sleep by playing the 
 harp, Cf. O'Curry, Lectures, p. 302; Nutt-Maclnnes, p. 406. 
 
 Page 90. *Silva Gadelica, II, 167. On Fionn's birth and rear- 
 ing, see Nutt, Folklore Record, IV, 1-36. 
 
 Page 90. ^Silva Gadelica, II, 99-101; cf. p. 166. 
 
 Page 90. tSilva Gadelica, II, 166. 
 
 Page 90. §Notes to D. Maclnnes, Folk and Hero Tales, Lon- 
 don, 1890, p. 407. 
 
 Page 91. *Introduction to J. G. Campbell's Tlie Fians 
 London, 1891, pp. xxxiv f. Nutt insisted on the difference 
 between the prose and ballad forms of the Ossianic legend, 
 the one Christian, the other pagan in spirit. See Voyage of 
 Bran., I, 218, note. 
 
 Page 92. *With Odin Rhys equated Gwydion of Welsh fable, 
 who also was reputed to have gained the gift of poesy by 
 penetrating to the otherworld (see below, p. 247). Gwy- 
 dion, according to the Mabinogi of Math, was " the best 
 story-teller in the world," and we are informed how more 
 than once he assumed the form of a wandering bard to gain 
 access to courts. " Gwydion," says Rh5's, " was the clever- 
 est person ever heard of by Taliessin, who reckoned himself 
 no poor judge in such a matter; and, as described by Lucian 
 under the name of Ogmios, he was the god of eloquence and 
 the wisdom thereto appertaining " {Hibbert Lectures, p. 285). 
 
 Page 93. *Odyssey, VIII, 62, 487; XIII, 27. 
 
NOTES 317 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Page 97. *Gow mac Morn was one-eyed, like Odin. In the 
 Boyish Exploits of Finn Mac Cumhaill (preserved in a man- 
 uscript of the Psalter of Cashel, dated 1453), where Finn's 
 enfances are represented in a manner not unlike those of 
 Wallace, we are told how, in the battle of Cnucha for the 
 Fian leadership in Erin, Aedh son of Morna fought with 
 Luichet and lost one eye, " so that from this the name of 
 GoU [Gow, Luscus] adhered to him from that time forth." 
 (See Transactions of the Ossianic Society for the Year 1856, 
 pp. 281 flF.) But the explanation of one-eyed folk (Odin 
 among them) goes deei>er than that. 
 
 The epithet " LoSrok " of the Danish warrior Ragnar, 
 which means " shaggy-breeched," was interpreted as 
 " lotlily brook " (odiosus rivus, ruisel hainus); cf. Geoffrey 
 of Wells, Garland of St. Edmund, ed. Lord Francis Hervey, 
 London, 1907, p. 156; Denis Pyramus, Life of St. Edmund, 
 11. 1887 f . 
 
 Page 97. fEd. MXauchlan and Skene, 1862. A new tran- 
 scription of the Dean's MS. has since been made by Alex. 
 Cameron, and published by Alex. Macbain and John Ken- 
 nedy, Reliquiae Celticae, I, Inverness, 1892. 
 
 The name of Malory's hero, Gareth, seems to be derived 
 from the Welsh form of the name, where the -dh is pro- 
 nounced -th. GoU (Gow) mac Morn was frequently called 
 GoU na Beumanan, i.e., Goll of Blows. May not this epithet 
 Beuman be the origin of the epithet which is ascribed to 
 Gareth, Beaumains, the French romancer interpreting the 
 Celtic epithet as " Fair Hands," though blows, not fair 
 hands, are his chief characteristic ? (See J. G. Campbell, 
 The Fians, p. 49.) He is called " Goll of the terrible deeds " 
 in Silva Gadelica, II, 174. Cf. " Garry, than whom no 
 bloodier foe"; "Garry (Garryth) of the powerful arm" 
 (Book of the Dean of Lismore, p. 9, Gaelic on p. 6 — from a 
 poem by Ossian). Garry was the name of more than one of 
 the Fenians. 
 
 Page 98. *Silva Gadelica, II, 132-136. 
 
318 NOTES 
 
 Page 98. fDaire (Doire) is also written Dyryth. 
 
 Page 99. * " Find and the Phantoms," ed. and trans. "Whitley 
 Stokes, Revue Celtique, VII, 289 ff. Mr. John Fleming of- 
 fered corrections of the translation, in the Academy, Aug. 
 24, 1889. Cf. Dr. Ansta's version in the Dublin University 
 Magazine, XXXIX, 325 ff., which is entitled " The Rath 
 of Badamar; also the notice by O'Curry, in his Lectures 
 on the MS. Materials of Irish History, p. 305. Cf. also J. F. 
 Campbell, Revue Celtique, I, 193 ff. 
 
 Page 99. ^Wallace, Bk. IV, 11. 181 ff. It is to be noted that 
 Gask Hall is in Perth, and that Wallace's companions are 
 Irish. Cf. Wandering Willie's Tale in Redgauntlet. 
 
 Page 99. JGrmm^TTid?, st. 48. 
 
 Page 100. *Snorri's Edda {Gylfaginning, § xx), trans. Bro- 
 deur, pp. 33 ff. 
 
 Page 100. fSee Brand's Popular Antiquities, ed. Hazlitt, 
 London, 1870, III, 295 f. William Geddie {A Bibliography of 
 Middle Scots Poets, S.T.S., 1912, p. 151) quotes as a refer- 
 ence to our poet (!) the following — from " Pennecuik, 
 The Merry Wives of Musleburgh, at their meeting to- 
 gether, to welcome Meg Dickson after her loup from the 
 ladder, p. 17: ' It 's war nor playing a Blin Harrie.' " 
 
 Compare the following from Lyndsay (Three Estates, ed. 
 Laing, II, 244, quoted Jameson, s.v. 'Belly-blind ') : 
 
 War I ane king . . . 
 
 I sould richt sone mak reformatioun; 
 
 Failyeand thairof your grace sould richt sone finde 
 
 That Preists sail leid yow lyke any bellie blinde. 
 
 Page 100. JSee Child, Ballade, I, 67. " The Billie Blin pre- 
 sents himself in at least four Scottish ballads : ' Gil Brenton,' 
 C ; ' Willie's Lady ' ; one version of ' Young Beichan ' ; 
 two of ' The Knight and Shepherd's Daughter ' ; and also 
 in the English ballad of ' King Arthur and the Kingj.of 
 Cornwall,' here under the slightly disfigured name of Bur- 
 low Beanio." 
 
NOTES 319 
 
 Page 101. *Bk. I. 11. 227 ff. This fictitious feature of Wallace's 
 career was long kept in memory and reappears in the late 
 Scottish ballads of Gude Wallace, a circumstance which led 
 Professor Child to remark: " The portions of Blind Harry's 
 poem out of which these ballads were made were perhaps 
 themselves composed from older ballads, and the restitution 
 of the lyrical form may have given us something not alto- 
 gether unlike what was sung in the fifteenth, or even the 
 fourteenth, century." Regarding which, we may say that if 
 this disguising of a hero in woman's clothes was embodied 
 in an early ballad, and it most likely was, we need not con- 
 clude that that ballad concerned Wallace. Though there 
 certainly were popular tales about Wallace's exploits, as 
 Wyntoun attests. Blind Harry's book is so obviously a con- 
 coction of all sorts of unauthentic material that he may 
 have been the first to attach this device to the famous war- 
 rior. As Professor Child points out {Ballads, III, 266, 191), 
 the disguise as a woman occurs in other outlaw stories, 
 e.g., Eustace le Moine (ed. Michel, p. 43) and Robin Hood 
 and the Bishop. 
 
 Page 102. *" DistaflF," an Old Norse word. It is not necessary 
 to believe that the humor of the passage is the poet's own. 
 
 Page lOS. fBk. IV, 11. 763 ff. 
 
 Page 102. XGrimnismdl, st. 47, and in the passage from Snorri 
 cited above, p. 100 note.* Child says (I, 67) : " Originally 
 and properly, perhaps, only the bad member of this mythical 
 pair is blind; but it would not be at all strange that later 
 tradition, which confuses and degrades so much in the old 
 mythology, should transfer blindness to the good-natured 
 one, and give rise to the anomalous Billie Blind." 
 
 Page 102. § Child, Ballads, I, 279; cf. the dvergar of Old Norse 
 mythology. 
 
 Page 103. *The Dutchman Gisbertus Voetius, in his Z)e 
 Miraculis, speaks " De ilUs quos nostrates appellant 
 heeldwit et blinde belien, a quibus nocturna visa videri atque 
 ex iis arcana revelari putant " (quoted Child). 
 
320 NOTES 
 
 Page 103. fSee Brand, Popular Antiquities (1870), III, 54. 
 The book appeared in 1777. Bugge, who connects the old 
 Norse Loki with Lucifer, notes: " The second of Loki's 
 brothers is named Helblindi. In like manner the devil, in 
 the Middle Ages, is often called blind, and the Anglo- 
 Saxons used many names for the devil that begin with 
 helle-" (Bugge-Schofield, Home of the Eddie Poems, p. Iv). 
 Helblindi, one may add, was a name that Odin says he 
 bore {Grimnismdl, st. 46). The plant usually called " the 
 devil's snuflfbox " is also called " blindman's ball," or 
 " blindman's bellows." 
 
 Bishop Corbet, in an Elegy on Bishop Ravis (quoted 
 Centiu'y Dictionary), wrote of 
 
 Ould Harry- ruflBans, bankerupts, southsayers. 
 And youth whose cousenage is as old as theirs. 
 
 Harry-ruffians, with their feUow soothsayers, were probably 
 related to Blind Harry and Billie Blin. (Was the " ruflSan " 
 originally Ruffinus, the devil ?) On cosenage, see Reginald 
 Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft. — To the same class be- 
 longed the popular figures Harry Gad and Jack Harry. 
 Twice (in Ware the Hauke and Magnificence) Skelton re- 
 fers to Jacke Harys, or Jacke Hare. Lydgate wrote a poem 
 entitled Jack Hare, whom he pictures as " a froward knave," 
 " a sluggard," " his sleeves right thredbare," " with louring 
 face nodding and slumbering." — John (or Jock) Blunt is 
 the designation of a clownish fellow mentioned by Dunbar 
 in The Tua Marrit Wemen and the Wedo, 11. 142 f., and by 
 Polwart in the Flyting, ii. 784, 789: " vyld, widdered, mis- 
 ordered, confedered with fiends " (N.B.) — " Blak Belly " 
 and " Bawsy Brown " are mentioned as devilish sprites in 
 The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1. 30. There were 
 various forms of their names, like Belly Brassy (Laing, 
 Select Remains, p. 218), etc. Cf. Scott's Minstrelsy, 1803, 
 II, 32 n. Together with " Ballybrass and Belly," as 
 names of those at a noisy assembly, the author of The Tale 
 of Colkelbie Sow (Laing, pp. 248 f .) introduces " the Hary- 
 hurlere husty." — Dunbar also mentions Jonet the Widow 
 
NOTES 3U 
 
 (riding on a broom, with a wonderful company of witches) 
 along with Simon Magus, Mahoun, and Merlin, in The 
 Birth of Antichrist, 11. 34-35 (Schipper, p. 218). 
 Page 103. JTliere were various otherworld figures of suspi- 
 cious omen who were conceived by the popular imagination 
 as both naked and hairy. See, for example, what Keightley 
 tells (pp. 402 ff.) of the Ph^Tinoderee (" Hairy One ") of 
 Manx tradition, who was indignant when clothes were left 
 him as a reward for services. Compare the ballad of The 
 Brownie of Blednoch by William Nicholson, the Galloway 
 poet. Ben Jonson, in his Sad Shepherd, introduces a hairy 
 sprite called Puck-hairy. It may be that some thought 
 Blind Harry was originally Blind Hairy. See Jamieson's 
 Dictionary, s.v. Blind Harie. 
 
 Page 103. §See Dr. Cranstoun's note on this passage, pp. 
 324 f. 
 
 Page 104. *Cliild, Ballads, I, 361. Cf. Chambers, Popular 
 Rhymes of Scotland, 1870, pp. 89 ff.; Tlie Complaynt of 
 Scotland, ed. Murray, p. 63; Motherwell, The Ettin o' 
 Sillarwood. 
 
 Page 10^. fLaing, Select Remains, pp. 271 ff. Cf. Scott's Min- 
 strelsy, 1803, II, 198. The story is a curious transformation 
 of an old bit of faery lore, with a blending of classical story. 
 The Carling, because she refused the advances of one Bla- 
 sour, was forced to defend herself as best she could against 
 the king of faery, who came with a host of elves to besiege 
 her. Finally, she turned herself into a sow and went " grimt- 
 lyng over the Greek Sea," married Mahoun and became 
 Queen of Jews! (One might conjecture that Mahoun in the 
 beginning was Maelgwyn and his city Caer Seon, Segon- 
 tium, wliich, in the story where Maelgwyn makes a crowd of 
 poets and musicians swim to it from the Son of Don's land, 
 Mona, was interpreted as Zion; see Rh5's, Hibbert Lectures, 
 pp. 271-273). " All this langour," the poet explains, in the 
 same mood as the author of King Berdok, " for luve be- 
 foirtymis fell "! He would probably have alleged no better 
 authority for his story than that offered by the writer of 
 
322 NOTES 
 
 the similarly roistering tale of Colkelbie Sow (ed. Laing, 
 Select Remains, pp. 234 ff.). set in Ayrshire, which then en- 
 joyed extravagant popularity — his great-granddame, the 
 beldame, old Gurgunnald. 
 
 Scho knew the lyfe of mony faderis aid. 
 Notable gestis of peax and weiris in storye. 
 The Colkelbie boar, it may be said, had a varied experience, 
 for he is said to have fought valiantly with Wade and 
 Meleager, and was hunted by Diana, the King of Sidon, and 
 Eglamor of Artois. 
 
 Page 105. *VII, 61 ff. He may have derived the episode from 
 tradition. See Bower, Scotichronicon, II, 170 (Neilson, 
 p. 101). 
 
 Page 106. *Dr. Moir passes this scene by almost in silence. 
 He does not discuss its authenticity, but attributes it to 
 Blair. Concerning " this Master John " in the text, he says 
 (p. 416) : " This use of this would seem to indicate that 
 Harry had Blair's work before him"! But on Blair, see 
 Chapter IX. 
 
 Page 106. fSee Rupert Taylor, The Political Prophecy in 
 England, New York, 1911, pp. 58 ff. 
 
 Page 107. * Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, Letter V. 
 (On Thomas the Rhymer, see Letter IV.) The passage re- 
 minds one of Plato's words in the Republic (II, 364, trans. 
 Jowett,) : " Mendicant prophets go to rich men's doors and 
 persuade them that they have a power committed to them 
 by the gods of making an atonement for a man's own or 
 his ancestor's sins by sacrifices or charms, with rejoicings 
 or feasts; and they promise to harm an enemy, whether 
 just or imjust at a small cost; with magic arts and incanta- 
 tions, binding heaven, as they say, to execute their will. 
 And the poets are the authorities to whom they appeal." 
 They cite Hesiod and Homer, " and they produce a host 
 of books written by Musaeus and Orpheus, who were 
 children of the Moon and the Muses — that is what they 
 say — according to which they perform their ritual." 
 
NOTES 323 
 
 Page 111. *0n Tuesday, April 27, 1490, the only entries are: 
 *' to the cobill man of Cambuskynnell quhen the King past 
 owre" (5 sh.); " at the Kingis commande, to Blinde Hary " 
 (18 sh.); " to Qwariour, ane of the gunnaris, at the Kingis 
 commande " (18 sh.); " to Mussche, currour, to pass with 
 a letter of the Kingis for the Lorde Glammis " (5 sh.) — 
 I, 133. 
 
 On New Year's Day, 1490 [-1], the only entries are: " to 
 the trumpatis, v vnicornis " (£4.10); " to Quhyg and Jok 
 trumpat " (18 sh.) ; " to Jolm of Wardlaw and Wil3eam 
 myne eme " (36 sh.); " to the portaris " (36 sh.); " to Jame 
 Lam of the Kingis pantre " (36 sh.) ; " to the isschares of 
 the haw dure " (18 sh.); " to Blind Hary " (18 sh.); — " to 
 Berclaw " (18 sh.); " to Domynico " (9 sh.) — p. 174. 
 
 On April 5, 1491, the following entries: " to Johne of 
 Wardlaw and Wil^eam myne eme" (36 sh.); "to the 
 trumpatis, " iiij vnicornis" (£ 3.12); "to Blind Hary" 
 (18 sh.); " to Bennat " (18 sh.); " til a harper " (18 sh.); 
 " to Sallirman, to by him claythis " (9 sh.) — p. 176. 
 (Bennat was a fiddler; see p. 326). 
 
 On September 14, 1491, sole entry: " to Blind Hary, at the 
 Kingis command " (5 sh.) — p. 181. 
 
 On January 2, 1491 [-2], the following entries: " to Schir 
 Thomas Galbretht, Jok Goldsmyth and Crafurd, for the 
 singyn of a ballat to the King in the mornyng, iij vnicornis " 
 (£2.14); " to Blind Hary " (9 sh.); " to Martyn M'Bretne. 
 clareschaw " (10 sh.); "til ane oder Ersche clareschaw " 
 (5 sh.) ; " to Scot the currour, to pass with letteres to arest 
 the schippis at the west sey " (10 sh.) — p. 184. 
 Page 112. *Ballads, HI, 55 f.. Ill, 21 f. In the year 1417, ac- 
 cording to Stowe, " one, by his counterfeit name called Fryer 
 Tucke, with many other malefactors, committed many rob- 
 beries in the counties of Surrey and Sussex, whereupon the 
 king sent out his writs for their apprehension " (Ballade, 
 III, 41). 
 Page 112. jSir David Lyndsay (in his Testament and Com- 
 flaynt of the Papyngo) mentions Quintayn Schaw by his 
 first name only : 
 
824 NOTES 
 
 Quintyn, Merser, Rowle, Henderson, Hay and Holland 
 Thocht thay be deid, thair libellis bene levand. 
 
 Page 112. XAccounts, I, 99, 270, 339. 
 
 Page 113. *Rendered ' quondam progenitori nostro et nobis in 
 scrifluris literarum nostrarwm Sandissimo patri nostro Pape 
 et diversis regihus, principibus et magnatibus ultra regnum 
 nostrum missis, et expensas per eundem in pergamino, papiro, 
 cera rubea et alba, ac alios sumptus in dictis Uteris et scrip- 
 turis ultramarinis factis, emptis et sustentis el pro toto tem- 
 pore vite sue faciendis et sustentandis ' (No. 269; cited Dick- 
 son, Accounts, I, p. c note). 
 
 Page 113. jOn Stobo, see Laing, II, 361, 427-429; Small's 
 Dunbar, pp. cclxvii f. Stobo is mentioned by Kennedy, 
 Flyting, st. 12; " gar Stobo for thy life protest "; cf. Schip- 
 per, p. 156; Mackay's note (I, cclxvii f.). The last pay- 
 ment of his pension is entered in 1504-05, when he is spoken 
 of as deceased before July 13, 1505 {Exchequer Rolls, no. 
 330). 
 
 Page IH. *0n the whole matter, see Introduction to Eger and 
 Grine, in the Percy Folio MS., ed. Hales and Furnivall, I, 
 343, 352. It is interesting to note that " Grime," the name 
 of the otherworld warrior in the oldest version of the story, 
 appears as " Graham " in a later version, perhaps in mem- 
 ory of the famous friendship of Wallace and Graham (Ibid., 
 I, 345). On such nicknames as that borne by Archibald 
 Bell-the-Cat, see Veitch, History and Poetry of the Scottish 
 Border, new ed., 1893, I, 260. A picturesque figure of the 
 sixteenth century, William Burnet, was known as " the 
 Hoolet (Howlat, owl) of Barns," because he was supposed 
 to see as well in the night as in the daylight. His friend Wil- 
 liam Veitch was known as " the Deil of Dawyck," getting 
 his sobriquet because it was believed that no one ever rose 
 up from under his sword-strokes (Ibid., II, 44 f.). 
 
 Page II4. ■\HiM. Eccles., Bologna. 1627, p. 496. See Mont- 
 gomery's Poems, ed. S.T.S., Introd., p. xiv. 
 
 Page 114. JThere has been some discussion as to whether 
 Jack Raker, cited as a " maker " by Skelton, Nicholas 
 
NOTES 325 
 
 Udall, and others, was a real person. Pretty certainly Dyce 
 was right in thinking (in opposition to Collier) that " he 
 was an imaginary person, whose name has become prover- 
 bial." (See Skelton's Works, ed. Dyce, I, 123; II, 186.) 
 
 Martin Parker wrote a ballad entitled The Poet's Blind 
 Mans Bough [Bujf], or Have among you my Blind Harpers, 
 London, 1641. The sub-title was proverbial, and used in 
 many Elizabethan ballads, as my friend Dr. Hyder E. 
 Rollins has shown me by much evidence. Harpers were even 
 then proverbially blind. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Page 120. *Bk. VII, ch. 1-2; trans. Giles, Old English Chron- 
 icles. 
 
 Page 120. fVII, 9, 17. 
 
 Page 121. *XI, 1443 ff.; cf. VIII, 645 ff. 
 
 Page 121. fit is hard to see how Dr. Mackay could have 
 written in the Dictionary of National Biography: " The poet 
 apologizes for departing on one point from Blair, and the 
 reader is sensible throughout that the poet is translating 
 rather than producing original matter." — " The poet 
 speaks in his own person at the close, and may have dic- 
 tated it to the transcriber." — His blindness " makes his 
 poem a wonderful feat of memory " ! 
 
 Page 122. *XI, 1431-32. Henry Morley {English Writers, 
 VT, 250) commenting on a " homely touch " in one of the 
 poet's stories (pretty certainly borrowed!), calls it "char- 
 acteristic of Blind Harry's way of telling his adventures as 
 a rural man to rustic audiences." 
 
 Page 123. *0p. cit., pp. 45 f. 
 
 Page 123. ^Franklin's Tale, Prologue, 11. 44 ff. Dr. Giles 
 says {Cambridge History, II, 108) : " The very defects of 
 Harry's poem commended it to the vulgar. It professes to 
 be the work of a bur el man, one without special equipment 
 as a scholar, though it is clear that Harry could at least 
 read Latin." 
 
326 NOTES 
 
 Page 123. JPrinted in the Bannatyne Miscellany, II, 161 ff., 
 also recently along with The Kingis Qvair, ed. Alex. Law- 
 son, London, 1910, pp. 104 ff. (St. Andrews University 
 Publication No. VIII). The poem is preserved in a Selden 
 MS., with the Troilus and some minor pieces of Chaucer, 
 as well as The Kingis Quair. The MS. seems to have be- 
 longed to some branch of the family of the Sinclairs, Earls 
 of Caithness. 
 
 Miss Gray, in her edition of Lancelot of the Lailc (S.T.S., 
 1912, p. xviii), agrees with Prof. Skeat {Scottish Historical 
 Review, Oct. 1910) that these two poems are by the same 
 author. On p. xx she repeats her suggestion, first advanced 
 in the Scottish Historical Review, April, 1911, that the author 
 was Vidas Achinlek, a Scotsman resident in France, Steward 
 in the household of Louis XII, not James Auchinleck, 
 Chantor of Dornoch; " but," she adds, " both claims are 
 purely speculative." 
 
 The author of the Lancelot, likewises poses as modest; 
 
 Quhen that thai here my febil negligens, 
 That empit is, and bare of eloquens, 
 Of discressioline, and ek of Retoryk; 
 The metire and the cuning both elyk 
 So fere discording frome perfeccioune; 
 Quhilk I submyt to the correcioune 
 Of yaim the quhich that is discret and wyss. 
 And enterit is of loue in the seruice. (179 £f.) 
 
 His work was to " endite " with " lusty terms "; he appeals 
 to Virgil, master of " eloquence " and " rhetoric " (329). 
 
 Page 12J^. *L1. 185 ff.; cf. 310 ff.: " Supposs of wit I empty be 
 and bare." The author of a sixteenth-century poem on 
 Flodden Field, all in prating of Parnassus and appealing to 
 the Muses, talks of his " simple, rude and rugged rhyme " 
 (ed. Weber, 1808, 1. 18). 
 
 Page 12Jt. fLl. 245 ff. The Troilus stanza is also used in the 
 Quare, 317-463. Blind Harry has thirteen stanzas of eight 
 lines each (VI, 1-104) of the type used in the Monk's tale: 
 
NOTES 327 
 
 also a nine-line stanza (II, 171-179) with the scheme aab 
 aab abb, nearly like that in the Compleynt of Mars. 
 
 Page 125. *II, 216 ff. 
 
 Page 125. jXI, 1109 flF. 
 
 Page 127. *IV, 336 fif. 
 
 Page 127. fSkeat, Mod. Lang. Quarterly, Nov. 1897; Brown, 
 oj). cit., pp. 42-46. The list of Chaucerian borrowings might 
 be considerably increased. 
 
 Page 127. JVII, 175 ff. Cf. Knighfs TaZe, A 2450-69; Troilus, 
 II, 99, 105. 
 
 Page 127. § IV, 735-736; cf. Troilus, I, 15 ff. For "Venus 
 werkes," cf. the Wife of Bath's Prologue, 11. 707-708. 
 
 Page 128. *V, 579 ff.; VI, 17 ff. 
 
 Page 128. fLl. 1951 ff.; cf. Destruction of Troy, 11. 13263 ff. 
 
 Page 129. *V, 217 ff. Dr. Moir writes (p. 400) apropos of the 
 passage: " This apparently indicates that Harry was not 
 a member of some religious house. So in XI, 1461, he calls 
 himself a burel man. Yet he shows himself by no means an 
 uneducated man; and he may have been connected with 
 some monastery without being in holy orders. Indeed at 
 the time he lived he could hardly have possessed the educa- 
 tion he did unless he had been brought up in some religious 
 house." This hardly needs comment; but we may note that 
 Irving long ago suggested {Lives of the Scottish Poets, 1804, 
 I, 340 ff.) that the Wallace-poet may have been a friar. 
 " The canon law," he explained, " did not exclude a blind 
 man from holy orders," and " the supposition that Henry 
 was at once a minstrel and a friar implies nothing absurd." 
 
 Page 129. flV, 186. 
 
 Page 129. JV, 111 ff. 
 
 Page 129. § LI. 489 ff. 
 
 Page 130. *L1. 329 ff. 
 
328 NOTES 
 
 Page 130. fVIII, 961 fiF. 
 
 Page 130. XlL, 351-359. 
 
 Page 131. *See below, pp. 170 ff. 
 
 Page 131. fThe Wallace seems, indeed, to have begun with a 
 Latin invocation: 
 
 Ihesu saluator, tu sis michi auxiliator 
 
 Ad finem dignum perdue librum atque benignum. 
 
 These Unes are usually omitted altogether or regarded 
 merely as the work of the scribe. But Brown points out 
 (p. 35) that they are an integral part of the poem, and com- 
 pares them with the opening of the Geste of Troy: 
 
 Now, God, of ])i grace graunt me \>i helpe 
 And wysshe me with wyt ]>is werke for to end! 
 
 The following lines in both poems, referring to the deeds of 
 noble ancestors which men were apt to " overslide," are 
 closely parallel. 
 
 Page 133. *Cf. Kittredge, Chaucer's Lollius {Harvard Studies 
 in Classical Philology, XXVIII, 55 flf.). 
 
 Page 13i. *VII, 890 ff. 
 
 Page 13A. fVII, 221. 
 
 Page 13^. f Compare what is said of Auchinleck (V, 469 ff., 
 VI, 337). One wonders whether the fact that the Charteris 
 family (one of whom was to print the Wallace) claimed an- 
 cestry from a Knight Longaville, had anything to do with 
 the introduction of a personage of that name into the poem 
 (XI, 1146 ff.). Neilson (p. 95) thinks the figure was bor- 
 rowed from Barbour. " Thus, by a species of transmigration 
 of souls, Bruce's ICnight of France, with his praises of 
 Bruce's worthiness, passes into an earlier existence as the 
 comrade of Wallace and extoUer of his prowess " (Bruce, 
 IX, 400; Wallace, IX, 232). Neilson (p. 95) gives other in- 
 stances — Ramsay, Seton, Douglas, Comyn, Boyd — of 
 men transferred from followers of Bruce to followers of 
 Wallace, and we do not hear of any one protesting on that 
 
NOTES 329 
 
 account. Even Bishop Sinclair is transferred to Wallace 
 and made one of his chief counsellors, though Barbour says 
 Bruce called Sinclair " his own bishop." Blind Harry rep- 
 resents Wallace as appointing Sinclair to the bishopric, 
 though in fact he was only elected in 1309. — The family 
 of Fitz Hugh could not have been gratified by what Blind 
 Harry wrote of Fehew. The poet evidently hated Fitz 
 Hugh because he was a leader of the English army that in- 
 vaded Scotland in his own time, and gave him a despicable 
 ancestor. — We may note that the Howlat is really a Doug- 
 las poem, because of the relation of Holland to the family. 
 
 Page 135. *Brown, op. cit., pp. 69 S. 
 
 Page 137. *VI, 341 flf. Mr. Neilson (p. 107) points out the 
 likeness of this account of the abuse of heralds with the 
 episode in Quentin Durward (ch. 33), wliich was connected 
 with the actual circumstance that a false herald was sent 
 to Edward IV by Louis XI in 1475. See Hall's Chronicle, 
 pp. 311 ff. On heralds, see Sir Gilbert Hay's Buke of the 
 Law of Army s. Part IV, ch. 142 (ed. J. H. Stevenson, I, 281). 
 
 Page 138. *VIII, 1685 flf. 
 
 Page 139. *VIII, 1494 ff. 
 
 Page HO. *VII, 397 ff. The status of the Knights of Rhodes 
 was a matter of debate at the time, but obviously not among 
 " ruryk folk." 
 
 Page 1^0. \Buke of the Howlat (ed. Amours, Scottish Allitera- 
 tive Poems) 11. 577 ff. 
 
 Page HO. JSpenser later, by way of reminiscence, wrote con- 
 cerning Florimel's wedding: 
 
 To tell the glorie of the feast that day. 
 
 The goodly service, the devicefull sights, 
 
 The bridegromes state, the brides most rich aray. 
 
 The pride of ladies, and the worth of knights. 
 
 The royall banquets, and the rare delights. 
 
 Were worke fit for an herauld, not for me. 
 
 {Faery Queeii, V, iii, 3.) 
 
330 NOTES 
 
 Chaucer has a good deal to say about heralds in the 
 Knight's Tale, and shortens the description of the feast of 
 Theseus with the remark: 
 
 Of al this make I now no mencioun, 
 
 But al th' effect, that thinketh me the beste. 
 
 Page 1^1. *Queene Elizabethes Achademy, E.E.T.S., E.S., 
 No. VIII, 1869, pp. 93 ff.; 11. 196 ff., 245 ff. The editor 
 thinks the poem is only a copy. 
 
 Page U2. *Printed, Edinburgh, 1821. 
 
 Page llf2. fLyndsay, singularly like Blind Harry, wrote also 
 with mock modesty. At the opening of his Dreme, we read; 
 With ornate termis thocht I can nocht express 
 This sempyll mater, lot laik of eloquence. 
 
 Again, in the prologue to his Papyngo: 
 
 Quharefor, because myne mater bene so rude 
 Of sentence, and of rethorike denude 
 
 To rurall folke myne dyting bene directit. 
 
 And in the envoy: 
 
 Beseikand yow excuse myne ignorance 
 And rude indyte, quhilk is nocht tyll avance. 
 And to the quair, I geve commandiment, 
 Mak no repair quhair poetis bene present. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott introduces the " Herald-bard," Lyon 
 King at Arms, into Marmion (Canto IV) and makes him 
 tell a tale. 
 
 Page IJfS. JPp. 16 S., 19. " As the story is related the exploits 
 of the hero range over a very wide territory comprehending 
 nearly the whole lowlands of Scotland, a considerable tract 
 of country within the Highland line, the northern counties 
 of England, and several provinces of France. The poet's 
 acquaintance with these several areas is remarkable, thougli 
 unequal. Of the wilds of Lennox and Argyll, for example, 
 he writes like one who knows the country more by report 
 than from actual experience. Not so, however, of the low- 
 lands of Scotland. There he is evidently on very familiar 
 ground. He conducts liis hero from one place to another by 
 
NOTES 331 
 
 highways or byways just as occasion requires. He uner- 
 ringly strikes the way in all his journeyings. He writes like 
 one whose eyes are very wide open indeed." " The place 
 names are fitted into the long metrical narrative without 
 the slightest appearance of difficulty. They occur always in 
 strict geographical sequence. Frequently indeed we can dis- 
 cern minute touches intended doubtless to aggrandise the 
 description, and quite unimportant for the story proper, 
 which certainly indicate uncommon knowledge on the part 
 of the narrator." 
 
 Page US. *See Accounts (ed. Thomas Dickson, Edinburgh, 
 1877) from 1489 to 1497, 1, 122, 124, 128, 129, 176, 178, 179, 
 183, 340, 368. Cf. " Widderspune that tald talis to the 
 King " (I, 307; cf. I, 326, 330). 
 
 Page 1^3. fLangland writes {Piers Phwrtian, B Text, XIV, 
 24 f.: 
 Shall none heraude ne harpoure have a fairere garnement 
 Than Haukyn the actyf man and thou do by my techyng. 
 
 Activa-vita calls himself a minstrel, an apprentice of Piers 
 Plowman. He was about as good a pattern of that figure (as 
 described by Wycliffe: " Whanne men travailen forworldli 
 goodis, and kepen hem in rightwisnesse ") as Chaucer's 
 Pardoner of what he should have been. On various types 
 of minstrelsy, see Piers Plowman, C. Text, XM!, 194 fif. 
 See Skeat's notes, II, 199 f. 
 
 Irving (I, 346, note) quotes a passage in the heraldic col- 
 lection of Sir David Lyndsay: " It is to understand yat na 
 menstrale sail weir his lord or princis armes as ane herrald 
 dois," etc., and adds (p. 347) : " Mr. Pinkerton, without 
 any precise reference to ancient authorities, has affirmed 
 that in 1474 minstrels were classed with knights and heralds 
 and authorized to wear silken apparel." 
 
 Page lU- *Ed. F. Michel, London, 1883. 
 
 Page lU. fEd. E. Charriere, Paris, 1839. 
 
 Page H5. *See Schofield, Chivalry in English Literature, 
 Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1915, pp. 30 S. 
 
332 NOTES 
 
 Page U5. flV, 184, VII, 736. 
 
 Page 146. *Here his opinions are much Uke those of Chaucer. 
 Cf . the latter's discussion of poverty at the end of the Wife 
 of Bath's Tale, 321 ff. Cf. also the opinions of Burns, who 
 was devoted to Blind Harry. 
 
 Page 1^6. \Percy Folio MS., ed. Hales and Furnivall, I, 233. 
 
 Page 14^6. |Various conjectures have been made as to where 
 the poet was born. Mr. Brown says: " I am not aware that 
 it has ever been remarked that his domicile appears to have 
 been in or near Linlithgow. At any rate the royal largesse 
 was made to him on every occasion at Linlithgow when the 
 young monarch came to reside at the Palace there." Mr. 
 Neilson, on the other hand, gives reasons for thinking that 
 " the poet had a peculiar interest in the town of Perth, and 
 also in its institutions." But what about Ayr ? From the 
 numerous mentions of that place in his poem, one might 
 surmise that he was born or lived there. He apparently 
 knew what he was talking about when he wrote: " This use 
 has been oft in the town of Ayr." Perhaps, like Wallace ever, 
 " right sore he longed the town of Ayr to see." Mr. ^neas 
 Mackay remarks that the dialect of the poem is that of 
 Lothian, and adds: " He [Blind Harry] probably belonged 
 [o Lothian, for otherwise he would not have been known to 
 Major in his infancy, wliich was passed in the neighborhood 
 of North Berwick." But Major does not say that in his in- 
 fancy he knew Blind Harry, but only that the poem on 
 Wallace was written in liis infancy. Until we know more 
 about the author, we need not worry about his birthplace. 
 
 CHAPTER Vin 
 
 Page H7. *Essays and Studies, I, 109 S. 
 
 Page H9. *" It appears from a letter written in February, 
 1485-6, by Thomas Betanson to Sir Robert Plumpton, 
 that prophesying was in that year made felony " (Brand's 
 Popular Antiquities, ed. Hazlitt, IH, 56). 
 
NOTES 333 
 
 Page 150. *The Whole Prophecie of Scotland, England, and 
 some part of France, and Denmark, Prophesied bee meruel- 
 lous Merling, Beid, Bertlington, Thomas Rymour, Wald- 
 haue, EUraine, Banester, and Sibbilla, all according in one. 
 Containing many strange and meruelous things. Printed by 
 Robert Waldegraue, Printer to the King's most Excellent 
 Maiestie, Anno 1603, Reprinted for the Bannatyne Club, 
 1833. 
 
 The book contains also a prophecy attributed to Gil das; 
 and " The Scotts Prophecie in Latine." The Whole Proph- 
 esie was reprinted with additions by Andro Hart in 1615. 
 Here the Scot's Prophecy in Latin is accompanied by an 
 English translation. 
 
 The practice seems to have spread to Iceland. Keightley 
 notes (p. 161) that " there was a book of prophecies called 
 the Kruckspd, or Prophecy of Kruck, a man who is said to 
 have lived in the 15th century. It treated of the change of 
 religion and other matters said to have been revealed to him 
 by the Dwarfs. Johannseus says it was forged by Brynjulf 
 Svenonius in or about the year 1660." (See Finni Johannoei 
 Hist. Eccles. Islandiae, Copenhagen, 1774, II, 370, n.) 
 Keightley misinterprets Jonsson, to the prejudice of a man 
 worthy of all honor — Bishop Brynjolf Sveinsson, dis- 
 coverer of the Elder Edda. What Jonsson really says is that 
 the prophecy was written by an encomiast of the Bishop 
 (" ab inepto quodam Brynjulfi Svenonis, viri laude meliore 
 digni, praecone "). 
 
 Page 151. *The Political Prophecy in England, New York, 
 1911, For a book on contemporary political prophecy, see 
 Father Herbert Thurston, The War and the Prophets 
 (Burns & Gates), 1915. 
 
 Page 151 . jThe author of the Complaynt of Scotland, in 1529, 
 found it necessary to warn his countrymen against " di- 
 uerse prophane prophesies of merljTie, and vther aid cor- 
 ruptit vaticinaris, the quhilkis hes affermit in there rusty 
 ryme, that Scotland and ingland sal be vnder arie prince," 
 to which " the inglismen gifis ferme credit." (Quoted J. A. 
 H. Murray, Thomas of Erceldoune, p. xxx.) 
 
334 NOTES 
 
 Page 152. *Bk. II, ch. 4. On incubi and succubi, see Reginald 
 Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft. According to Boece, these 
 wicked spirits were exceedingly troublesome in Scotland in 
 1480. 
 
 Page 152. fBk. II, ch. 5. He discusses prophecies of Merlin 
 in Bk. IV, ch. 8; Bk. IV, ch. 19; Bk. V, ch. 7. He mentions 
 another " old prophecy " on p. 273, gives a vision of Ban- 
 ister on p. 223, and repeats without objection the following 
 story (p. 204) : " Our chroniclers here tell a story of how 
 an English hermit was witness of several souls taking their 
 flight from purgatory to heaven, and how one of these was 
 Wallace; and as he marvelled much how this could be, see- 
 ing that Wallace had shed man's blood, he got for answer 
 that it was in a just cause, and when fighting for his country's 
 freedom, that he had slain others." This story Major found 
 in Blind Harry's poem (XI, 1238 ff.). 
 
 Page 153. *Bk. IV, ch. XII; trans. Constable, pp. 190-191. 
 
 Page 153. fSee C. K. Sharpe, Historical Account of Witchcraft 
 in Scotland, 1884, pp. 30-34; cf. Tytler, History of Scot- 
 land, ed. 1887, II, 214. 
 
 Page 154-. *Wyntoun (Bk. VIII, ch. 31), who makes Thomas 
 predict the battle of Kylblene in 1335, remarks: 
 
 He sayd it in his prophecy 
 Bot how he wyst it, wes ferly. 
 
 Page 15^. fSee Neilson, Essays and Studies, I, pp. 97-98. 
 
 Page 15^^. JBk. II, 1. 86. Barbour also believed in the vatic- 
 inal tapestry made by St. Margaret; see Taylor, p. 72. 
 
 Page 164- §Bk. I, 11. 351-352. Lord Percy's men were under 
 the influence of prophecies. 
 
 In ilka part thai war gretly agast 
 
 Throw prophesye that thai had herd befor (III, 26-27). 
 
 Lord Percy himself remarks in another place : 
 Our clerkys sayis he sail ger mony de (V, 508). 
 
NOTES 335 
 
 Page IBJ^. llBk. II, 11. 346-349. Note Blind Harry's remarks: 
 Thomas Rimour in to the Faile was than. 
 With the mynystir, quhilk was a worthi man; 
 He wsyt offt to that religious place. 
 The peple demyt of witt mekill he can; 
 And so he told, thocht at thai blis or ban, 
 Quhilk hapnyt suth in mony diuers cace. (II, 288 ff .) 
 
 Dr. Moir remarks innocently (p. xxix) : " That true Thomas 
 lived at this time is very probable, but that he uttered such 
 a prophecy about a comparatively unknown young man of 
 eighteen can only be credited upon the supposition that he 
 was a veritable prophet." 
 
 Page 165. *Bk. XI, 1. 959. 
 
 Page 155. jP- W. Joyce {Social History of Ireland, II, 528) 
 writes : " The ancient Irish had a universal implicit belief 
 in the prophecies of their native saints. On the eve of a 
 battle one of the leaders — in order to encourage his men — 
 was pretty sure to bring up and read for the army some 
 prophecy, generally by the patron saint of the tribe, re- 
 ferring to the coming battle, in which victory was predicted 
 for his side. . . . Before the Battle of the Yellow Ford, 
 where Hugh O'Neill inflicted a disastrous defeat on the 
 English in 1598, he caused his hereditary ollave O'Clery to 
 read aloud for his army a prophecy of St. Columkille, made 
 a thousand years before, predicting victory for the Irish 
 army." Joyce points out that most or all of these prophecies 
 were forgeries. 
 
 Page 156. * Fenian Poems, ed. John O'Daly (Transactions of 
 the Ossianic Society for 1856), Dublin, 1859, pp. 17 S. 
 
 Page 158. *" Inimicitias Othinus serit " (Saxo, p. 142, ed. 
 1644). 
 
 Page 158. \Hist(yria Danica, Bk. VII (trans. Elton, pp. 279 S.) 
 
 Page 159. *Ed. Madden, 11. 17130 ff. See Grundtvig, I, 274; 
 Child, I, 67. 
 
 Page 169. fll, 5. 
 
 Page 169. |VII, 235-237. 
 
336 NOTES 
 
 Page 160. *Eyre-Todd, Early Scottish Poetry, pp. 181, 187. 
 
 Page 161. *Alfred Nutt {Waifs and Strays, TV, xxxiv f.) called 
 attention to the remarkable parallels between the utter- 
 ances placed in the mouth of Oisin and those assigned to 
 the Welsh warrior poet Llywarch Hen, and also to the fact 
 that it is in the ballad, not the prose, forms of the Ossianic 
 legend that the pagan spirit prevails. " The note of scorn 
 and aversion," he writes (Voyage of Bran, I, 218), " is not 
 lacking in Irish mythic literature towards the milder, blood- 
 less charms of the new faith, though the grounds upon 
 which this aversion is based appeal more forcibly to us than 
 is the case with the protest of classic or Scandinavian Pagan- 
 ism ; but in the Irish mind alone have the two worlds sought 
 to kiss each other, nowhere else has the Christian monk 
 heard the wailing cry of the birds of Faery as they await the 
 advent of the Apostle." And again (I, 235) : " The stage of 
 Fenian romance, represented by the Agallamh na Senorach, 
 in which Caoilte, last of the old hero race, is a dutiful fol- 
 lower of Patrick, has passed away from the popular con- 
 sciousness, whilst this still retains the vivid outline of the 
 defiant pagan, Oisin, reviling the Christian saint, and la- 
 menting the pride and glory of his youth. In vain did some 
 ninth or tenth century poet picture the bird-flock of the 
 Land of Promise churning the waters milk-white in their 
 passionate appeal to the national saint; the people of Ire- 
 land are mindful to this very day of songs and warblings 
 older than the cleric's bell, and wholly unaflFected by its 
 tones." 
 
 Page 161. \Dean of Lisviore's Book, p. 85. 
 
 Page 161. XWilliam Sharp. A Memoir Compiled by his Wife, 
 
 London, 1910, pp. 227-228. 
 Page 162. *Ibid., p. 231. 
 
 Page 163. * Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins, 11. 109 ff. Skelton, 
 who had much in common with Dvmbar, sneers at Cardinal 
 Wolsey in much the same manner, in his Why Come Ye Not 
 to Court: 
 
NOTES 337 
 
 God saue hys noble grace 
 
 And graunt him a place 
 
 Endlesse to dwel 
 
 With the deuyll of hell 
 
 For and he were there 
 
 We nede neuer feere 
 
 Of the fendys blake 
 
 For I vndertake 
 
 He wolde so brag and crake 
 
 That he wolde than make 
 
 The deuyls to quake. 
 
 Page 16I(.. *" Scottish Influence in British Literature " — Es- 
 says Biographical and Critical, Cambridge, 1856, p. 408. 
 
 Page 16^. ^Characteristics of English Poets, 2d ed., 1885 (first 
 ed., 1874), p. 69. 
 
 Page 165. *Scottish Review, XXII, 177. 
 
 Page 166. *I, 7 (pp. 40-41). 
 
 Page 167. *IV, 19 (p. 223). 
 
 Page 167. ^Chronicle, Bk. ix, ch. 20 (ed. Laing, III, 72). 
 
 Page 168. *Bannatyne Miscellany, III, 175. Charteris's ad- 
 dress to the reader is found in his second edition (1594), 
 but may be assumed to have stood in the first (1570), the 
 only known copy of which is imperfect, lacking title-page 
 and preliminary matter. 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Page 170. *Bk. XI, 11. 1410 £f. As early, it appears, as 1620, a 
 printer of the Wallace tells the reader that the poem was 
 " written in Latin by Master John Blair, Chaplain to Wal- 
 lace, and turned into Scots metre by one called Blind Hary, 
 in the days of IQng James the Fourth." " The Rev. John 
 Blair " has become a fixed figure in Scottish annals. 
 
 Page 170. fThis seems, at first, like a strange attribute. Dr. 
 Moir suggests (Glossary, s.v. sauage) : " Perhaps it is for 
 O. F. sgavant, with termination from O. S. sage, wise, 
 
338 NOTES 
 
 learned." There may be a corruption of the text; all one 
 needs for the sense is " sage," and this is all there is in some 
 early prints (" als right sage "); but the author was not 
 very careful about his adjectives; he applies " cruel " fre- 
 quently to Wallace and the Scots (e.g., VTI, 998), and he 
 speaks of Longaweill " that ay was full sawage " (IX, 457). 
 Of the five thousand followers of Sir John Norton (who 
 " was known worthy and wight,") we read that they were 
 " welle garnest and sawage " (VIII, 813). 
 
 Page 171. *Mr. J. T. T. Brown (pp. 50 ff.) has made it prob- 
 able that the poet referred to a " Thomas Gray " as another 
 authority contemporary with Wallace because the father 
 of the author of the Scalacronica (written ca. 1362) took 
 part in the Wallace struggles. Both he and his son, the 
 chronicler, were called Thomas Gray, Mr. Brown further 
 conjectures (though with less plausibility) that he was 
 called " parson of Liberton " because he may have held 
 " some fortalice like Oggs Castle or Whyte Castle in 
 Liberton parish." 
 
 Page 171. fV, 534 ff.; XI, 1424 f. 
 
 Page 171. JIX, 1233 ff.; IX, 1539; cf. VI, 315-316. 
 
 Page 171. §" In Wallace buk brewyt it with the layff " (IX, 
 1943-1944). See Brown, pp. 50-51, who justly applies to 
 him, after considering this situation, the brocard falsum in 
 unofalsum in omnibus. 
 
 Wallace, we may note, was described by Fordun (at A.D. 
 1297) as " thin in the flanks," an attribute attributed by 
 Dante to Michael Scot. 
 
 Page 171. ||X, 793, 893-898. In the following passage. Dr. 
 Moir reads " I " instead of " Schir," but the latter, the 
 reading in the 1570 edition, is evidently correct: 
 Bot maister Blayr spak nothing off himsell. 
 In deid off armes quhat awentur he fell. 
 Schir Thomas Gray, than preyst to Wallace, 
 Put in the buk how than hapnyt this cace 
 At Blayr was in, [and] moiny worthi deid. 
 Off quhilk him selff had no plesance to reid. 
 
NOTES 339 
 
 Page 172. *See the summary of opinion by Brown, pp. 47 ff. 
 Cf. David Laing {Poems of William Dunbar, Edinburgh, 
 1834, I, 44) : " It is somewhat singular that his own work 
 should have usually been regarded in the light of an original 
 composition, when it is evident from the concluding address, 
 that it was in a great measure a translation from the Latin." 
 Sir Walter Scott seems to have been an exception. " It is 
 a great pity," he says (in the Tales of a Grandfather) , " we 
 do not know exactly the history of this brave man [Wal- 
 lace]; for at the time when he lived, every one was so busy 
 fighting, that there was no person to write down the history 
 of what took place; and afterwards, when there was more 
 leisure for composition, the truths that were collected were 
 greatly mingled with falsehood." Sir Walter knew too much 
 of ancient ballad worthies and heroic champions to swallow 
 Blind Harry whole. 
 
 Page 172. fSee Veitch, Feeling for Nature in Scottish Poetry, 
 I, 173 ff.: " John Blair, the chaplain of Wallace, was little 
 likely in the midst of the hurry of incidents, to pause on the 
 aspects of outward nature. He would be suflBciently oc- 
 cupied in noting events as they occurred. In all probability 
 the descriptions of nature are the wandering minstrel's 
 own " (p. 176). 
 
 Page 172. JDr. Craigie writes of the Latin book (p. 182): 
 " That this work did exist we do not doubt for a moment, 
 and if it could possibly be recovered, the manifold confu- 
 sions in the poem might be explained more simply than 
 they can with our present imperfect knowledge of the 
 period. A man who could say ' I haiff had blayme to say the 
 suthfastness ' (7, 917) was not likely to be utterly reckless 
 in his use of his authority." Scottish Review, XXII. 
 
 Irving (Lives, I, 340 ff.) discusses the possibility of his 
 being an ecclesiastic at considerable length, showing that 
 " the canon law did not exclude a blind man from holy 
 orders," but he does not reach any definite conclusion. 
 
 The devout editor of the Wallace surmises that Blair had 
 still another function. Apropos of the hero's amour with 
 
340 NOTES 
 
 the maid of Lanark, and the question in the author's mind 
 as to whether she was Wallace's wife or not, Dr. Moir notes 
 (p. 406) : " Blair, as the bosom friend of Wallace, may have 
 married them privately," adding: " One would like to con- 
 sider her his wife; and the whole passage is so elevated and 
 touching, that it could hardly be inspired by an illicit 
 amour." Dr. Moir might well read the scenes between 
 Troilus and Cressida, to get light on this episode. Blind 
 Harry says that Marian Bradfute was married to Wallace: 
 " Myn auctor sais, scho was his rychtwys wyff " (VI, 48). 
 His author was really here Wyntoun, who says just the op- 
 posite, that she was Wallace's " lemman." 
 
 Page 17P. ^Scottish History and Literature, Glasgow, 1884, p. 
 
 60. 
 Page 172. \\ Scottish Vernacular Literature, pp. 66-67. 
 Page 173. *Introduction, pp. XI-XH; cf. Garnett, I, 292. 
 
 Page 173. fAndrew Lang {History of Scotland, 1900, I, 180) 
 takes Blair's Latin book seriously. 
 
 Page 173. JSee Neilson, Essays and Studies, I, p. 101. Mr 
 Neilson, however, thinks that further search may yet show 
 that Master Blair " had some kind of basis for his alleged 
 existence." 
 
 Page 173. §See Brown, pp. 48 S. 
 
 Page 17Jf. *" Chaucer's Lollius " in Harvard Studies in 
 Classical Philology, XXVIII (1917), 49 f., 55. 
 
 Page 175. *Blind Harry asserts the same of himself; see 
 above, p. 127. 
 
 Page 177. *Bk. I, ch. XVII (Sommer's edition, p. 62). Blaise 
 appears in the Suite de Merlin (ed. Gaston Paris and Jacob 
 Ulrich, S.A.T.F., 1886, I, 30 ff., 44 ff., 47 f., 61, 85, 90, 
 115, 133, 232). In II, 139 we read of his being at Camelot: 
 " Blaises demouroit encore a Camalaoth, et si tost que 
 Merlins estoit avoec lui, il li disoit les aventures qui ave- 
 • noient ou roiaume de Logres [et] grant partie des choses qui 
 sont a avenir, si que cil ot son livre bien ordene et auques 
 
NOTES 341 
 
 mene a fin anchois que Merlins se partesist de la grant 
 Bretaigne." It is here explained (I, 48) that " Merlins le 
 clama maistre pour chou que il avoit este maistres sa mere." 
 
 Page 178. *Roman de Merlin, ed. Sommer, pp. 17 f., 26 f.; 
 of. also pp. 35, 41, 48, 52, 58, 73, 78, 128, 190, 191, 220 f., 
 273, 312 f., 322, 337, 401, 452, 435, 452, 483, etc. Master 
 Blair is represented as a boon companion of Wallace. 
 
 To se his heyle his comfort was the mor 
 
 As thai full oft togyddyr war before (V, 547-548). 
 
 And Maister Blair to Wallace cam hot baid. 
 
 With that gud lord that nobill cher thaim maid, 
 
 Wallace send Blayr, in [to] his preistis weid. 
 
 To warn the west quhar freyndys had gret dreid 
 
 Master Jhon Blair was blith off that semble (IX, 1235 ff.). 
 
 For other references to Blair, see VIII, 1197-1198, IX, 
 1539, 1943, X, 793 ff. 
 
 Page 178. ^Roman, p. 128, Compare: " Si sen ala Merlins a 
 Blaise son maistre en Norhomberlande qui moult grant ioie 
 li fist quant il le uit car moult lama de grant amor, & il 11 
 enquist & demanda comment il auoit puis fait & il li conte 
 toutes les choses en si comme vous aues oi el conte puis quil se 
 parti de lui & il le mist tut en escrit & par ce le sauons nous 
 encore. Et quant Merlins vint a conter de la damoisele 
 quil ama par amor si en pesa moult a Blaise car paor ot 
 quele ne le decheust & quil nen perdist son grant sauoir si 
 len commencha a castoier, & cil li dist les prophesies teles 
 comme eles estoient auenues & des autres qui puis auindrent 
 en la terre ensi comme li contes vous deuisera cha en auant 
 & Blayse mist tout en escrit ensi comme Merlins li conta " 
 (p. 273). Master Blaise was the last person Merlin talked 
 with before he finally repaired to Viviane and was im- 
 prisoned by her (p. 483). 
 
 Page 178. JCf. " Merlins sen ala en Norhomberlande a Blaise 
 por atorner & metre a point toute ceste estoire " {Roman, 
 p. 52). 
 
342 NOTES 
 
 Page 179. *Roman, pp. 17, 35, 312, 401, notes. " Ensi com 
 Merlins est deuant Maister Blaise & li fait mettre lez auen- 
 tures en escrit " — is the title of the miniature at the end 
 of the description of Merlin as an " homs sauvage " (p. 312) . 
 
 Page 179. fEd. F. J. Furnivall, Rolls Series, I, 288. Mer- 
 lin's other associates, Tolomer and sire Amytayn (Aun- 
 tayn ?), are more obscure even than Blair's Thomas Gray. 
 
 Page 180. *" Ce scribe imaginaire," says Gaston Paris, " se 
 retrouve naturellement dans le Perceval de Robert [de 
 Boron]," and he goes on to show that the Helye to whom 
 the author of the Suite du Merlin appeals to translate the 
 Conte del Brait (the tale of the last cry of Merlin) from the 
 Latin Book of the Holy Grail, was similarly a fictitious 
 parsonage, though to him was also attributed the romance 
 of Tristan. " Je prie," says the false Robert, " a mon 
 signeiu" Helye, qui a este mes compains a armes et en jo- 
 veneche et en viellece," etc. These words cannot but remind 
 us of the Wallace-poet's statement that his hero and 
 Master Blair had been companions at school. See Introduc- 
 tion to the Huth Merlin, S.A.T.F., pp. XIV, XXV S. 
 
 Page 180. fThe one name is variously spelt: Blaise, Blayse, 
 Bleise, Bleyse, Blase; the other, Blair, Blayr, Blare. 
 
 Page 180. |In Italy, in the fifteenth century, to judge from 
 MSS. of Merlin's prophecies written in 1442, his name was 
 transformed into Basil; see Rupert Taylor, Political Proph- 
 ecy, pp. 144, 152. 
 
 Page 180. §Pp. 56 ff. Mr. Brown writes: "The chaplain 
 Master John Blair, who received reward from James III 
 for the transcript of Mandeville, was Vicar of Maybole 
 and in all likehhood related to the Blairs of Adamtoim or 
 Ardblare, near neighbours and kinsmen of Wallace of 
 Craigie, chief of the Scottish Wallaces. He witnessed chart- 
 ers granted by Adam Blair, at Adamtoun and Inchinnan, 
 between 1467 and 1490." Cf. Sir Bryss the Blayr in the 
 Wallace, VII, 209, note p. 417. — Mandevile's Travels was 
 put into Irish by Fingin O'Mahony in 1475 (Stokes, Zt. /. 
 celt. Phil., n, 1). 
 
NOTES 343 
 
 Page 181. *" To Mandeville's burlesque account of the ob- 
 taining of the Papal imprimatur, it will be difficult to find 
 an analogue in English literature other than the lines of the 
 Wallace just quoted " (Brown, p. 57). Mr. G. C. Coulton 
 has pointed out that at the time Mandeville wrote, the 
 Pope lived, not at Rome, but at Avignon. 
 
 Page 182. *The name occurs in many forms; for this one, see 
 Jessie L. Weston, Romania, XXXIII, 333, 340. 
 
 Page 183. *Silva Gadelica, II, 127; cf. pp. 115, 122, 132, 190. 
 Compare: " ' Success and benediction, Caeilte! ' said Der- 
 mot, grandson of CerbhaU; * and where are Ireland's sages 
 and her antiquaries ? In oUave's diction be these matters 
 written down upon the tabular staves of poets and in records 
 of the learned ; to the end that of all the knowledge, the en- 
 lightenment, the hill-lore, and of all the doughty deeds of 
 arms which Caeilte and Ossian have communicated to us, 
 each and all may to their own country and to their land take 
 back their share.' Even so it was done " (p. 167). 
 
 Page 183. \Ihid., p. 112. 
 
 Page 185. *Itin. Kambriae, I, 5. 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Page 187. *Bannatyne Miscellany, Edinburgh, 1855, III, 
 169 f. See above, p. 168, note. 
 
 Page 188. *Bk. IV, ch. 13, 15, trans. Constable, pp. 195, 
 204 f. 
 
 Page 189. *Lives of Scottish Worthies, London, 1831, 1, 132- 
 133. 
 
 Page 190. *Tytler certainly knew, for example,|that from Blind 
 Harry alone could have been derived most of the following 
 information about Blair, yet at this point he carefully re- 
 frains from naming his " authority " : " Blair was of like 
 age with Wallace, and the two youths formed a lasting at- 
 tachment to each other. When he became celebrated, Wal- 
 
344 NOTES 
 
 lace chose his early friend for his chaplain; and it is a sub- 
 ject of deep regret that a Latin life of his master and patron, 
 which was written by Blair, has, with the exception of a 
 few fragments, been lost or destroyed." Tytler uses con- 
 stantly " the Minstrel biographer," even when he must 
 have known no probability could attend his story. What 
 elaborate pains he takes, thereby showing his hero's " re- 
 morse " on doing a mean thing, to explain Fawdoun's ghost 
 as due to " natural causes " ! 
 
 Page 191. *Sir David Dalrymple, Annals of Scotland, Edin- 
 burgh, 1776, I, 245-252. Compare lais comment on " Blind 
 Harry, whom every historian copies, yet whom no historian 
 but Sir Robert Sibbald, will venture to quote " (p. 281, 
 note). 
 
 Page 191. fPp. xiii, xvii, note. 
 
 Page 192. *This view is echoed by Dr. yEneas Mackay in the 
 Dictionary of National Biography, who, writing of Major's 
 rejection of Wallace's visit to France, speaks of that as con- 
 firmed by subsequent research, and also, writing of ' Henry 
 the Minstrel,' mentions that narrative among certain 
 others, as " corroborated by records or histories discovered 
 or published since it was written." Likewise Andrew Lang 
 (History of Scotland, 1900, I, 180) remarks: "Later dis- 
 coveries have corroborated by documents some of Harry's 
 assertions"; but he remains vague. Further (p. 189): 
 " This confirms, so far. Blind Harry's tale of Wallace's 
 journey to France, which has other confirmation in papers 
 found upon the hero when finally taken." How far ? 
 
 Page 193. *History, I, 358 fiF. 
 
 Page 193. "tCyclopedia of Eng. Lit., Boston, 1860, I, 29, 
 Chambers remarked naively: " That the author meant only 
 to state real facts must be concluded alike from the simple 
 unaffectedness of the narration and from the rarity of de- 
 liberate imposture, in comparison with credulity, as a fault 
 of literary men of the period." 
 
 Page 193. |See J. H. Burton, Hist, of Scotland, 1873, H, 183. 
 
NOTES 345 
 
 Page 19 Jf. * Essays and Studies, I, 112. 
 
 Page 195. *The words of a poem by Glareanus written in 1515. 
 
 Page 195. fW. A. B. Coolidge in the Encyclopcedia Britannica, 
 where suflScient bibUography is given. 
 
 Page 196. * Journey to the Western Islands, 1775, Works, 1787, 
 X, 462-464. 
 
 Page 196. ^Scotish Songs, 1794, 1, Ixi-lxvi. Pinkerton recanted 
 in his Ancient Scotish Poems, 1786. See S. B. Hustvedt, Bal- 
 lad Criticism in Scandinavia and Gt. Britain. Monograph of 
 the American Scandinavian Foundation, New York, 1916, 
 p. 257. It may be noted that Burns was influenced by 
 Hardyknute, even as by the Wallace. See his Works, ed. 
 Currie, London, 1903, I, 278 ff. 
 
 Page 196. JSir David Wemyss was one of the Scottish am- 
 bassadors sent to Norway to conduct the youthful queen 
 to her new dominion. It was at Sir John Wemyss' request 
 that Wyntoun wrote his Oryginale Cronykil, before 1424. 
 
 Page 197. *The Legendary and Myth-making Process in His- 
 tories of the American Revolution (Proceedings of the Amer. 
 Philosopliical Soc, Vol. 51, 1912, pp. 65 f.) Dr. Fisher quotes 
 among other passages the following description of Morgan 
 at the battle of Saratoga : " The face of Morgan was like the 
 full moon in a stormy night when she looks down red and 
 fiery on the raging deep, amidst foundering wrecks and 
 cries of drowning seamen; wliile his voice like thunder on 
 the hills was heard loud shouting his cavalry to the charge." 
 
 Page 199. *Knickerbocker was " particularly anxious that his 
 work should be noted for its authenticity; which, indeed, 
 is the very life and soul of history." " Like Xenophon," he 
 says, " I have maintained the utmost impartiality, and the 
 strictest adherence to truth throughout my history." 
 " The chief merit on which I value myself, and foimd my 
 hopes for future regard, is that faithful veracity with which 
 I have compiled this invaluable little work; carefully win- 
 nowing away the chaflf of hypothesis and discarding the 
 
346 NOTES 
 
 tares of fable, which are too apt to spring up and choke the 
 seeds of truth or wholesome knowledge." 
 
 We are reminded of Master John Blair when we read 
 what he says of Master Robert Juet of Limehouse, in Eng- 
 land, " chief mate and favorite companion " of Commodore 
 Henrik Hudson. " To this universal genius," wrote Knick- 
 erbocker, " are we indebted for many particulars concern- 
 ing this voyage; of which he wrote a history, at the request 
 of the commodore, who had an imconquerable aversion to 
 writing himself, from having received so many floggings 
 about it when at school. To supply the deficiencies of Master 
 Juet's journal, which is written with true log-book brevity, 
 I have availed myself of divers family traditions, handed 
 down from my great-great-grandfather, who accompanied 
 the expedition in the capacity of cabin-boy." 
 Page 201. *R. Morison, Junior, Perth, 1790, I, 19-20. 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Page 203. *Camden even called Chaucer " our English 
 Homer " (Remaines, ed. 1657, p. 313). 
 
 Page 204. *Geofifrey of Monmouth (trans. Giles, p. 104) makes 
 Homer testify that Tours was built by Brutus. In another 
 place he says: " At this time Samuel the prophet governed 
 in Judaea, Sylvius Aeneas was yet living, and Homer was 
 esteemed a famous orator and poet " (p. Ill; cf. pp. 112, 
 113). 
 
 Page 205. *Historia Ecclesiastica, No. 662, ed. Bannatyne 
 Club, 1829, II, 349: "Henricus quidam, a nativitate caecus, 
 rara tamen ingenii felicitate, Homerus alter, patriam lin- 
 guam supra aetatem suam ditavit. Scripsit operosum et 
 grande opus versu vernaculo." 
 
 Page 205. ]A Collection of Old Ballads, London, 1723-25, I, 
 p. iii; cf. S. B. Hustvedt, Ballad Criticism, pp. 98, 100, 
 
 Page 205. JPp. 116, 103. 
 
NOTES 347 
 
 Page 206. *I, 352. 
 
 Page 206. ^Specimens of the Early English Poets, 5th edition, 
 London, 1845, I, 284. 
 
 Page 207. * English Writers, VI, 244. The indebtedness of the 
 Wallace to oral tradition has been much emphasized. — 
 Robert Wood {Essay on Homer, London, 1824, p. 57) re- 
 marks: "As to the diflBculty of conceiving how Homer 
 could acquire, retain, and communicate, all he knew, with- 
 out the aid of letters, it is, I own, very striking. And yet, I 
 think, it will not appear insurmountable, if, upon compar- 
 ing the fidelity of oral tradition, and the powers of memory, 
 with the poet's knowledge, we find the two first much 
 greater, and the latter much less, than we are apt to im- 
 agine." 
 
 Page 207. f^Eneas Mackay, Dictionary of National Biography. 
 
 Page 207. JThe words of Eyre-Todd, Early Scottish Litera- 
 ture, p. 187. 
 Page 207. §11, 109-110. 
 
 Page 208. *Keble in his Praelectiones (Lectures on Poetry, 
 1832-18U, trans. E. K. Francis, Oxford, 1912, I, 279 ff.) 
 argued for the traditional belief that Homer was blind 
 " before the last years of his old age, while he was still 
 strong enough to travel through cities and isles, singing 
 his wonted lays." He admitted that on first impression it 
 seems impossible that " Homer was already stricken in 
 sight when he wrote the two great poems we possess and 
 enjoy today." — " For how can we associate with a blind 
 poet those many word-pictures, so varied in kind, form, 
 colour, movement, and gesture — all so richly and truth- 
 fully painted ? " These, however, he maintained, were 
 fruits of the memory, and held that there was a diflference 
 on this point between the Iliad and the Odyssey. " I de- 
 cidedly think the whole position is best explained by sup- 
 posing that the Iliad was written while Homer's sight re- 
 mained to him, and the Odyssey, or most of it at least, when 
 he had lost it." 
 
348 NOTES 
 
 Page 208. \English Literature, an Illustrated Record, London, 
 1903, 1, 292. It is not strange that all blind minstrels should 
 suggest Homer. An example from Ireland in recent times 
 attests the irresistible reaction. Mr. Yeats, in his account 
 of " The Last Gleeman," Michael Moran (tl846), who is 
 said to have gone blind a fortnight after his birth, relates 
 {Celtic Twilight, p. 74) : " Once an officious peeler arrested 
 him as a vagabond, but was triumphantly routed amid the 
 laughter of the court, when Moran reminded his worship of 
 the precedent set by Homer, who was also, he declared, a 
 poet, and a blind man, and a beggarman." The transition 
 is easy from " like Homer " in some respects to like Homer 
 in others, or all. 
 
 Page 208. fPlato {Republic, X, 600) attests the tradition 
 that Homer was greatly neglected when he was alive. He 
 was evidently allowed, the pliilosopher thought, to go about 
 as a rhapsode because men in his day did not esteem Mm 
 as a teacher. Learned critics, from Major down, have per- 
 sistently treated the Wallace-poet patronizingly. Until 
 recently no one divined the real purpose of liis poem. 
 
 Page 209. *See Pauly-Wissowa, XVI, 2199. 
 
 Page 209. fEphorus thought the name "O/zijpos simply meant 
 " the blind one "; the lonians called the blind o/xrjpoi, be- 
 cause they needed people to lead them about. The poet 
 was first called Melesigenes, and later Homer after he 
 became blind. See Pseudo-Plutarch, I, 2. 
 
 Page 209. JWood {op. cit., pp. 168-169) compares Homer's 
 case in tliis respect with that of Ossian: "If then, with 
 Josephus, we suppose that Homer left no written copy of 
 his works, the account we find of them in ancient writers 
 becomes more probable. It is generally supposed that Ly- 
 curgus brought them from Ionia into Greece, where they 
 were known before only by scraps and detached pieces. 
 Diogenes Laertius attributed the merit of this perform- 
 ance to Solon; Cicero gives it to Pisistratus; and Plato to 
 Hipparchus; and they may possibly have been all concerned 
 
NOTES 349 
 
 in it. But there would have been no occasion for each of 
 these persons to have sought so diligently for the parts of 
 these poems, and to have arranged them so carefully, if 
 there had been a complete copy. If, therefore, the Spartan 
 Lawgiver, and the other personages committed to writing, 
 and introduced into Greece, what had been before only sung 
 by the rhapsodists of Ionia, just as some curious fragments 
 of ancient poetry have been lately collected in the northern 
 parts of this island, their reduction to order in Greece was 
 a work of taste and judgment; and those great names 
 which we have mentioned might claim the same merit in 
 regard to Homer, that the ingenious editor of Fingal is 
 entitled to from Ossian." 
 
 Page 209. §Bk. I, 11. 355 ff.; cf. Moir's edition, p. 388. 
 
 Page 211. *For these and other details see Pauly-Wissowa; 
 Vni (16), 2190 f., 2198 ff. 
 
 Page 21 S. *See Nutt, Voyage, II, 200; Magnus Maclean, Lit. 
 of the Celts, p. 175. Shades of O'Curry rest in peace! 
 
 Page 213. fTylor, Primitive Culture, I, 276. 
 
 Page 214-. *According to Snorri, Thrudheim was Thrace, 
 Baldr (Beldeg) ruled over Westphalia; Sif was the Sibyl; 
 etc. 
 
 Page 214- fOdin engaged in various contests of the same sort. 
 
 Page 2U. tCorpus Poeticum Boreale, I, 260 f., 262; Grim- 
 nismdl, 44; Lokasenna, 11-18; Sigrdrifumdl, 16. 
 
 Page 215. *Cf. the Skaldskaparmdl, § 10; see below, pp. 247 ff. 
 
 Page 215. fSee Bugge, Bidrag til den oeldste Skaldedigtnings 
 Historic, Christiania, 1894; F. Jonsson, Den, Oldnorske og 
 Oldislandske Literaturs Historie, I, 417 ff. Once admit the 
 conception of a minstrel, and of course he has to be imag- 
 ined going about from place to place. There was such a 
 tradition of Celtic mythological poets. See Rhys, Hibbert 
 Lectures, pp. 324 ff., following O'Curry, MS. Materials, 
 p. 265. 
 
350 NOTES 
 
 Page 216. *Snorri's words remind us strikingly of those of 
 Plutarch at the beginning of his Life of Theseus: " I desire 
 that the fabulous material I deal in may be subservient to 
 my endeavours, and, being moulded by reason, may accept 
 the form of history, and, when it obstinately declines prob- 
 ability and will not blend appropriately with what is credi- 
 ble I shall pray my readers may be indulgent and receive 
 with kindness the fables of antiquity." 
 
 Snorri emphasizes the great age of his men of lore. It has 
 always been an easy step from old to blind. See the account 
 of the blind old prophet of Moster in the large Saga of Olaf 
 Tryggvason (trans. Sephton, pp. 399 f.). 
 
 Page 216. ^Primitive Culture, I, 400 f. See his remarks on 
 eponymous ancestors in Greece and elsewhere. 
 
 Page 217. * Republic, II, 382, trans. Jowett. 
 
 Page 218. *The Rigspula, a poem showing marked Celtic in- 
 fluence, even in the title. Cf . the Mothers in Fau^t. 
 
 Page 219. *It should be noted that Woden was also placed at 
 the head of race-genealogies. In one manuscript of Nen- 
 nius (trans. Giles, pp. 412 ff.) he begins the lists of the kings 
 of Bernicia, East Anglia, the Mercians, the Deiri — 
 " Woden begat," etc. 
 
 Page 219. fScholars have reluctantly given up belief in the 
 sixth-century fabulist of this name, now recognizing that 
 *' some of the fables attributed to him are drawn from 
 Egyptian sources older by 800 years than the famous 
 dwarf who is supposed to have invented them." But why 
 repeat that he was represented as deformed " perhaps to 
 indicate his nearer approach to the animals and his peculiar 
 sympathy with their habits " ? 
 
 Page 222. *" An examination of both the Gaelic and British 
 legendary romances shows," a recent writer has said, 
 imder embellishing details added by later hands, an inner 
 core of primeval thought which brings them into line with 
 the similar ideas of other races in the earliest stage of cul- 
 ture. Their * local colour ' may be that of their last ' editor,' 
 
NOTES 351 
 
 but their * plots ' are pre-mediaeval, pre-Christian, pre- 
 historic. The characters of early Gaelic legend belong to the 
 same stamp of imagination that created Olympian and 
 Titan, ^Esir and Jotun." 
 
 " " Roughly speaking, one may compare [the civilization 
 of the Celts] with the civilization of the Greeks, as de- 
 scribed by Homer. Both peoples were in the tribal and 
 pastoral stage of culture, in which the chiefs are the great 
 cattle-owners round whom their less wealthy fellows gather. 
 Both wear much the same attire, use the same kind of 
 weapons, and fight in the same manner — from the war- 
 chariot, a vehicle already obsolete even in Ireland by the 
 first century of the Christian era. Battles are fought single- 
 handed between chiefs, the ill-armed common people con- 
 tributing little to their result, and less to their history. Such 
 chiefs are said to be divinely descended — sons, even, of the 
 immortal gods. Their tremendous feats are sung by the 
 bards, who, like the Homeric poets, were privileged persons, 
 inferior only to the war-lord. Ancient Greek and ancient 
 Celt had very much the same conceptions of life, both as 
 regards this world and the next." See Squire, Mythology of 
 the British Islands, pp. 15, 25-26; cf. D'Arbois, La Civilisa- 
 tion des Celtes et celle de VEpopee Hom^riqiie {Cours de la 
 Litt. Celt., Vol. VI). 
 
 For analogies between the Northern heroic literature and 
 the Homeric, see W. P. Ker, Epic and Romance, 1897, 
 pp. 9 fl'. 
 
 Page 223. *Homer sometimes refers to the Muse, sometimes 
 to the Muses. 
 
 Page 225. *Compare Prometheus, the omniscient seer who 
 taught the art of prophecy to men, and was chained by 
 Zeus for acting contrary to his will. 
 
 Page 226. *2 Kings VI, 18; Genesis XIX, 11; Acts IX, 8, 
 XIII, 11. 
 
 Page 226. fMatthew XII, 22; Mark VIII, 23; John IX, 6-7; 
 Matthew XX, 30-34; Mark, X, 46-52. 
 
352 NOTES 
 
 Page m. *John IX, 2-5. 
 
 Page 227. fExodus IV, 10 fiF. 
 
 Page 227. XPhaedrus, 243; trans. Jowett, I (1871), 57. " Die 
 Dublette zu Stesichoros ist vervoUstandigt in vit. 6 Sittl. 
 6: Helena lasst H. erblinden, weil er die Epen nieht ver- 
 brennen will (umgekehrt Isocr. Helena, 64-65; Hel. er- 
 scheint H. und tragt ihm auf zu dicliten) " (Pauly- 
 Wissowa, 2201). 
 
 Page 228. *VII, 647 fiF. 
 
 Page 228. tPauly-Wissowa, 2201. 
 
 Page 228. JSee Ed. Young, Conjectures on Original Composi- 
 tion, 2d ed. London, 1759, p. 40. 
 
 Page 228. §See Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, p. 211. 
 
 Page 229. *See Nutt, Voyage, I, 213 S.; Rev. Celt., XV, 315; 
 Bodley Dinnsenchas, No. 36. 
 
 Page 229. \The Prose Edda, trans. Brodem-, xv, p. 27. This 
 story was probably only attached to Odin to explain why 
 he was one-eyed, the real reason for that situation being 
 more primitive than that. " Odin's single eye," says Tylor 
 (Primitive Culture, I, 351) " seems certainly to be the sun 
 in heaven." Whether or no this be the case, it should be 
 observed that there are many one-eyed folk in primitive 
 myth, from Polyphemus down. The Cyclopes, with whom 
 he was connected, were reputed to be of the sons of Uranus 
 and Ge, and belonged to the Titans. At first the Cyclopes 
 were regarded as giant herdsmen (cf . the one-eyed being of 
 that sort in Yvain). But in later Greek tradition they were 
 represented as the assistants of Hephaestus, who make 
 arms and ornaments for gods and heroes, like the Northern 
 dwarfs. The architects so-called were supposed to be a 
 race of men who derived their name from a king Cyclops 
 and lived in Thrace. (It may be noted that Snorri identified 
 Thrudheim with Thrace and represents Thor as fostered 
 there.) We are reminded of the race of demons at the com- 
 mand of Merlin, who were set to build a brazen wall round 
 Caermarthen, as told by Spenser in the Faery Queen (III, 
 
NOTES 353 
 
 3, 10). In Celtic story, the one-eyed Gow MacMorn is said 
 to have partially lost his sight in combat with Luichet (see 
 prologue to the Boyish Exploits of Finn). King Echaid mac 
 Luchtai is said to have been one-eyed because he gave the 
 other to the poet Aidherne (see Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 
 326-327). 
 
 Page 229. JCf. Hdvamdl (st. 110): 
 
 M41s at t>ylja jjular stokki a: 
 
 Url>ar brunni at 
 sak ok l>agj)ak, sak ok hugj^ak, 
 hlyddak a Hgva hiqI. 
 
 Page 231. *Mr. H. Munro Chad wick says, apropos of the 
 story of Wayland (Volundarkvi&a) : "There can be no 
 doubt that in the Heroic Age — and indeed in much earlier 
 times — princes were especially anxious to obtain slaves, 
 whether foreigners or not, who were skilled in metallurgy. 
 And it is by no means incredible that such slaves were 
 sometimes lamed in order to prevent any attempt at 
 escape — although, quite apart from tliis explanation, 
 smith's work may be regarded as a vocation natural to the 
 lame man, just as minstrelsy to the blind " {The Heroic 
 Age, Cambridge, 1912, p. 134). 
 
 Page 232. *In the Life of St. Liudger we have a story of a 
 blind Frisian minstrel, named Bernlef, who is said to have 
 been " greatly loved by his neighbors because of his genial- 
 ity and his skill in reciting to the accompaniment of the 
 harp stories of the deeds of the ancients and the wars of 
 kings." Vita S. Livdgeri, II, 1 {Mon. Germ. Scriptores, II, 
 p. 412). See Chadwick, p. 80. It is well to recall that, ac- 
 cording to convention, ancient bards almost invariably sing 
 of the ancients, though in the light of contemporary events, 
 and to instruct or inspire their descendants. 
 
 Page 232. fObviously, I do not agree with the attitude of Mr. 
 Walter Leaf, in his recent book Homer and History, London, 
 1915, pp. 25 ff. " The fact is," he says, " that the human 
 race does not make men out of gods; but it is always very 
 
354 NOTES 
 
 busy making gods out of men. . . . Until the contrary is 
 proved, then, or at least made probable, we are bound, 
 when we find a character at one time human, at another 
 time divine, to assume that the human element is the 
 original, the divine superadded to it later." Snorri human- 
 ized Odin after the author of the Chanson de Roland hero- 
 icized Charlemagne. Gawain and Perceval were humanized 
 at the same time that Godefroy de Bouillon and Richard 
 Coeur de Lion were heroicized. Were Robin Hood and 
 Hereward the same sort of outlaws ? Were Nectanebus and 
 Virgil the same sort of magicians ? Arthur and Napoleon 
 are surely not in the same class, any more than William Tell 
 and William Wallace. 
 
 Page 233. *Paradise Lost, Bk. Ill, 11. 35 ff. Milton is the only 
 great poet who can be proved to have been actually blind, 
 and he did not become so until he was about fifty years of 
 age and had by then become a perfect master of style. 
 Marston and his like are in a different class. 
 
 Page 23J^. *See John Walter Good, Studies in the Milton 
 Tradition, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana, 1915, pp. 51 ff.; also 
 App. B., pp. 252 ff. 
 
 Page 235. * Poems, 1900. The volume contains Christ in Hades, 
 beginning " Keen as a blinded man." 
 
 Page 236. *Faust, 2d Part, V, v., trans. Bayard Taylor. 
 
 Page 236. t"Aus pergamenischer Quelle vielleicht " — Pauly- 
 Wissowa. The allegorical explanation of myths was com- 
 bated by Socrates, Plato and Aristarchus, but still survives. 
 
 Page 236. JCf. Walter Pater, Renaissance, Studies in Art and 
 Poetry, 1900, p. 37. 
 
 Page 236. ^Vindication of Mr. Milton's Paradise Lost, quoted 
 Good, pp. 253-254; " The bountiful powers above did more 
 than make him amends for their taking away his sight, by 
 so illumining his mind as to enable him most completely 
 to sing of matchless beings, matchless things, before un- 
 known to, and even unthought of by the whole race of men." 
 
 Page 237. *Multitude and Solitude, New York, 1911, p. 170. 
 
NOTES 355 
 
 CHAPTER Xn 
 
 Page 239. *Primitive Culture, I, 273. 
 
 Page 2^2. *M.N.D., V, i, 12 fiF. I can find no illuminating com- 
 mentary on this passage, and some discussions of it are 
 truly sad. 
 
 In a summary of a paper by A. W. Pollard and J. Dover 
 Wilson, read before The Bibliograpliical Society on Decem- 
 ber 16, 1918 (published in the News-Sheet, January, 1919), 
 it is most interestingly suggested that the first six lines of 
 the above quotation, together with the four beginning 
 *' Such shaping phantasies," quoted on page 270, that is, 
 those specially dealing with the " poet," were an after- 
 thought on Shakespeare's part, " written as a cramped 
 marginal addition for a revival not very long before the 
 play was printed in 1600." " Read the rest by itself and we 
 find the theme of ' lovers and mad men ' developed in 
 Shakespeare's early style." 
 
 Page 2H- *" Amergin," wrote Alfred Nutt, " chief poet of 
 the race which is to conquer the Tuatha de Danann, the 
 lords of Faery, and Taliessin, chief of the Welsh poets, 
 son of the enemy of the goddess of the cauldron, the Welsh 
 counterpart of the Irish Tuatha De, may be regarded as 
 varying forms of one mythic original. Their pretensions 
 are the same, and have the same basis. Foes of the wizard 
 gods who shift their shape, who are invisible at will, who 
 manifest themselves under different forms, they, too, by 
 might of the magic all-compelling chanted spell, have 
 acquired like powers {Voyage of Bran, II, 92). 
 
 Page 21^6. *Nutt, Mabinogion, pp. 295 ff. See p. 34, above, 
 and note *. 
 
 Page 246. \Hihhert Lectures, pp. 549-550; cf. Book of Talies- 
 sin, Poem xiv, trans. Rhys, Arthurian Legend, p. 301; see 
 below, pp. 279-281. 
 
 Page 2Ji.7. *Squire's translation, on the basis of previous ones 
 by Stephens, Skene, Nash and Rhys {Mythology, p. 319). 
 
356 NOTES 
 
 Page 2^7. \Hihhert Lectures, pp. 282 flF. 
 
 Page SJi-?. JCf. Corpus Poeticum Boreale, I, 70. In the Loka- 
 senna, Loki reminds Odin that the latter dealt in magic 
 in his old doings. Odin's shape-shifting and adventurous 
 amours (of. the Hdvamdl) we ignore when we write of old 
 Norse mythology. In Homer, though Athene is the goddess 
 of wisdom, she can change her shape. Homer too, ignored 
 the baser myths. 
 Page 2^8. *Snorri's Edda, trans. Brodeur, pp. 82 fif. Bragi 
 
 is the son of Odin as Gwydion is the son of Don. 
 Page 249. *Cf. the numerous forms Taliessin took in flight 
 from the court of Ceridwen: 
 I have fled with vigour, I have fled as a frog, 
 I have fled in the semblance of a crow, scarcely finding rest; 
 I have fled vehemently, I have fled as a chain, etc. 
 
 (Nutt, Mabinogion, p. 299.) 
 Page 2ji-9. fSee Burns, The Kirk's Alarm, stanza 11, for a 
 
 similar idea (Brodeur). 
 Page 250. *Revue Celtique, XV, 315 ; Bodley Dinnsenchas, 
 
 No, 36; above, p. 229. 
 Page 250. jSee Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 270 ff. Rhys points 
 to an identification of Seon with Hercules. Ogmios also was 
 it seems, equated with Hercules, " and according to Lu- 
 cian's account of him [Ogmios], he was the personification 
 of speech, and all that conduced to make speech a powerful 
 agency." 
 Page 250. XRevue Celtique, XV, 457 ; Bodley Dinnsenchas, 
 
 No. 30. 
 Page 251. *Cf. Nutt, Voyage, I, 213 ff. 
 
 Page 251. jAs told in the Book of the Dun Cow, trans. Crowe, 
 Journal Kilkenny Arch. Soc, 1870-71, 371 ff.; cf. Rhys, 
 Hibbert Lectures, pp. 259 ff. In the prologue to Chretien de 
 Troyes's Conte del Graal, we learn how King Amangons and 
 his men carried off the golden cups of faery damsels, and 
 as a result the land of Logres became waste; cf. Rhys, 
 Arthurian Legend, p. 247. 
 
NOTES 357 
 
 Page 251. JWith these Celtic cauldrons Rhys compares the 
 holy tripods of the Greek oracles. " All these cases," he 
 remarks, " connecting the sacred vessel or its contents with 
 poetry and inspiration, point possibly back to some primitive 
 drink brewed by the early Aryan, and taken by the medi- 
 cine-man to produce a state of ecstasy or intoxication " 
 {Arthurian Legend, pp. 326-327). 
 
 Page 252. *Hibbert Lectures, pp. 292-298, where references 
 are given. " In Norse poetry the stealing of the precious 
 mead is spiritualized into a story of the origin of poetry and 
 wisdom, and the Welsh tradition makes the cauldron of 
 the Head of Hades a vessel whence the muses and their 
 inspiration ascend; while Vedic literature clings rather to 
 the more original idea of an intoxicating drink, in that it 
 loves to dwell on Indra's excessive fondness of soma, 
 and on its power to stimulate and strengthen him to fight 
 the powers of darkness." 
 
 Page 252. fR.V. IV, 26, 4; see Andrew Lang, Encyc. Brit., 
 under Mythology: " Yehl, the Tlingit god-hero, was a 
 raven or crane when he stole the water (Bancroft, III, 100- 
 102). The prevalence of animals, or of god-animals, in myths 
 of the stealing of water, soma, and fire, is very remarkable." 
 Compare the way 0dm turned himself into a serpent and 
 an eagle when stealing Suttungr's mead. Also the case of 
 Tahessin above, pp. 33-34. 
 
 Page 252. JSee Silva Gadelica, II, 385 ff. 
 
 Page 255. *Trans. Stokes, Irische Texte, Leipzig, 1891, III, I, 
 211-216; cf. Wentz, pp. 340 ff., 427 ff. In the Gilla Decair, 
 Dermot is reminded (by Fergus Truelips, Finn's oUave) that 
 he had studied with Manannan in the Land of Promise, 
 had been accurately taught by Angus Oge, the Daghda's 
 son, and was therefore fit for superhuman feats on earth. 
 
 Page 257. *See Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 547-548. 
 
 Page 257. fLondon, 1603, p. 57 (error for 73). 
 
 Page 259. *0n the whole question of rebirth, see Wentz, The 
 Fairy Faith, Oxford, 1911, pp. 359 ff. 
 
358 NOTES 
 
 Page 260. *Meno, 81, trans. Jowett. I have used Wentz's 
 translation (p. 382) " surpassing in poetical skill " for 
 Jowett's " great in wisdom." 
 
 Page 262. *Bacon, in his essay 0/ Friendship, discussing 
 Aristotle's statement, " Whoever is delighted in solitude, 
 is either a wild beast or a god," maintains that " it is most 
 untrue that it [aversion to society] should have any char- 
 acter at all of the divine nature, except it proceed, not out 
 of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire 
 to sequester a man's self for a higher conversalion: such as is 
 found to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the 
 heathen; as Epimenides, the Candian; Numa, the Roman; 
 Empedocles, the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana; and 
 truly and really in divers of the ancient hermits and holy 
 fathers of the Church." 
 
 Page 262. jit may be noted that the philosophers whom 
 Dante put in limbo, " spoke seldom and with low voices." 
 
 Page 262. t2 Cor. 12 : 1-4. 
 
 Page 263. *Cf. Judges, 6:12ff.; 11:29; 13:25; 14:6,19; 
 15:14; 1 Kings 17:2, 24. 
 
 Page 263. fLuke 4:33-34. Cf. Peter 1:21: "No prophecy 
 ever came by the will of man; but men spake from God, 
 being moved by the Holy Ghost." 
 
 Page 26^. *Luke 4: 14; John 11: 51; 1 John 4: 1. 
 
 Page 26^. ^Description of Wales, Bk. I, ch. XVI; cf. his tale 
 of Meilerius, above, p. 57. Major as we have noted, specu- 
 lated much about the British prophets (see above, pp. 151- 
 153), also Wyntoun in his Chronicle and Kirk in the Secret 
 Commonwealth. 
 
 Page 265. *V, Prose III. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth 
 (VIII, 10), MerUn tells Aurehus that if he (the wizard) 
 should say anything out of wantonness or vanity, the spirit, 
 or demon, which taught him would immediately leave him. 
 (This is repeated in Robert of Gloucester.) Major says (Bk. 
 II, ch. 6) : " The extravagant laudation of Arthur by the 
 Britons leads to a partial doubt of the facts of his life. 
 
NOTES 359 
 
 The stories told about Arthur's vows concerning the Peri- 
 lous Bed, as well as many other things relative to Arthur 
 and Valvanus [Gawain] and what they say happened in 
 Britain at that time — all these I count as fiction, unless 
 indeed they were brought about by craft of demons." 
 
 Page 265. ^Inferno, xx. 
 
 Page 265. JSee Keble's Lectures on Poetry, trans. E, K. Fran- 
 cis, Oxford, 1912, II, 476 note. 
 
 Page 265. ^Advancement of Learning, 11, xxii, 13; Essay I. 
 
 Page 266. *Song of Angels, ed. E. G. Gardner, The Cell of 
 Self-Knowledge, pp. xxii f,, 69. 
 
 Page 266. ]Romeo and Juliet, I, iv, 97 f . 
 
 Page 266. %Merry Wives of Windsor, III, iii, 230. 
 
 Page 267. *Primitive Culture, II, 137-138, 124, 128. 
 
 Page 268. *See Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 278-279; cf. p. 99. 
 
 Page 269. *Joyce, Social History of Ireland, I, 224 ; see Todd, 
 Book of Hymns, p. 90. " In Tahiti," remarked Tylor (II, 
 134), " it was often noticed that men who in the natural 
 state showed neither ability nor eloquence would in con- 
 vulsive delirium burst forth into earnest lofty declamation, 
 declaring the will and answers of the gods, and prophesying 
 future events, in well-knit harangues full of the poetic figure 
 and metaphor of the professional orator. But when the fit 
 was over and sober reason returned, the prophet's gifts 
 were gone." 
 
 *' In a dialogue between Myrddin and his sister Gwend- 
 dydd, contained in the Red Book of Hergest, there is a curi- 
 ous reference to ghosts of the mountain who, just like 
 fairies that live in the mountains, steal away men's reason 
 when they strike them, — in death which may appear 
 natural, in sickness, or in accident. And after his death — 
 after he has been taken by these ghosts of the mountain — 
 Myrddin returns as a ghost and speaks from the grave a 
 prophecy which ' the ghost of the mountain in Aber Carav ' 
 told him " (Wentz, p. 330). 
 
360 NOTES 
 
 Page 269. tPliny remarks {Natural History, xxx, 13) : " To- 
 day Britain practises the art [of magic] with religious awe 
 and with so many ceremonies that it might seem to have 
 made the art known to the Persians." See Mac CuUoch, 
 Religion of the Ancient Celts, 1911, pp. 249-250, 293 ff., 300, 
 311, 325. 
 
 Page 269. JCicero, De Natura Deorum, II, 66; Aristotle, 
 Problemata, 30, 1; Seneca, De Tranquillitate Animi, 17; 
 Absalom and Achitophel, 163-164. 
 
 Page 270. *0n " The Lover's Malady of Ereos," see J. L. 
 Lowes, Modem Philology, XI, 491 ff. 
 
 Page 271. *Cuchulinn was also afflicted by battle-frenzy 
 wliich made him proceed against his enemies with a rage 
 akin to that of the Old Norse berserker; cf. Rhys, Arthurian 
 Legend, pp. 216-217. 
 
 According to some traditions, Heracles, after his return 
 from Hades, was seized with madness — a calamity sent to 
 him by Hera for a feigned reason. 
 
 Page 271. fSee Malory, Bk. XI, ch. 8 ff., XII, ch. 1 ff.; cf. 
 Wentz, p. 316. 
 
 Page 271. JSee Schofield, Studies on the Libeaus Desconus., 
 pp. 197 ff. 
 
 Page 272. *The Lay of Narcissus and the Lay of Aristotle, 
 show the naturalness with which antique fables could be 
 treated in the style of Breton lays. There were all sorts of 
 lays, but " most they ben of faery." The charm of other 
 world music appears in Yonec. 
 
 Page 273. *See As You Like It, III, iii, 19. Blackwell re- 
 marked {Essay on Homer, pp. 145 f .) : " Fiction and lying are 
 inseparable from poetry. This was the first profession of the 
 Muses, as they told Hesiod one day they appeared to limi 
 while he fed his lambs in a vale of Helicon: ' Shepherd, said 
 they, 
 
 'T is ours false tales to frame, resembling true; 
 
 And ours t' unfold the truth itself to men. 
 
NOTES 361 
 
 Then they gave him a fair rod, a shoot of verdant laurel, 
 breathed into him a divine song, and made him celebrate 
 things past and things to come." 
 
 Page 27^. *Plato, Ion, 533-535, trans. Jowett. Plato con- 
 cludes in the Meno (p. 99) that not only diviners and 
 prophets and poets, but also statesmen, " may be said to 
 be divine and illumined, being inspired and possessed of 
 God, in which condition they say many grand things, not 
 knowing what they say." 
 
 Page 276. *Conjectures on Original Composition, 2d ed., Lon- 
 don, 1759, pp. 26 f., 36 f., 45. 
 
 Page 276. tSee J. F. Nisbet, Insanity of Genius, 1891 ; Sir 
 Francis Galton, Hereditary Genius, new ed. 1892; C. Lom- 
 broso, Man of Genitis, Eng. trans., 1891. 
 
 Page 277. *Was it only a fasliion of speech that made Byron 
 say of Rousseau, whose work he counted a prelude to the 
 French Revolution: 
 
 From him came 
 As from the Pythian's mystic cave of yore. 
 Those oracles which set the world in flame ? 
 
 {Childe Harold. 3, 81.) 
 
 Page 278. *Joseph Warton (in the Enthusiast) represents 
 Fair Fancy as finding Shakespeare on the banks of the 
 Avon and bearing " the smiling babe " to a close cavern, 
 where she soothed his wondering ears with songs. 
 Still the shepherds show 
 The sacred place, whence with religious awe 
 They hear, returning from the field at eve. 
 Strange whisperings of sweet music through the air. 
 
 Page 278. fRichard of St. Victor, whom Dante puts among 
 the glowing souls of the great doctors and theologians in 
 the fourth Heaven and describes as " in contemplation more 
 than man," shows in his De Gratia Contemplationis how the 
 soul passes upward through various steps of contemplation 
 until " it contemplates what is above reason, and seems 
 to be beside reason, or even contrary to reason." He teaches 
 
362 NOTES 
 
 that " there are three qualities of contemplation according 
 to its intensity: mentis dilatio, an enlargement of the soul's 
 vision without exceeding the bounds of human activity; 
 mentis suhlevatio, elevation of mind, in which the intellect, 
 divinely illumined, transcends the measure of humanity, 
 and beholds the things above itself, but does not entirely 
 lose self-consciousness; and mentis alienatio, or ecstasy, in 
 which all memory of the present leaves the mind, and it 
 passes into a state of divine transfiguration, in which the 
 soul gazes upon truth without any veils of creatures, not 
 in a mirror darkly, but in its pure simplicity " {The Cell of 
 Self -Knowledge, ed. Edmund G. Gardner, 1910, p. xiii). 
 
 Page 279. *Ars Poetica, 296. 
 
 Page 279. ^Lectures on Poetry, I, 55 ff. 
 
 Page 280. *Tale of Taliessin, in Nutt's edition of the Mabi- 
 nogion, pp. 306-613; cf. Voyage, II, 84 ff. 
 
 Page 282. *Latin Epistle to Diodati, Elegy VI. 
 
 Page 282. f" To feel of a sudden," says Mr. Stewart, " that 
 there is surely an eternal world behind, or within, the 
 temporal world of particular items, is to experience the 
 Kdidapais which Poetry — one among other agencies — 
 effects in us." 
 
 " The Soul of Poetry is apprehended in its Body at the 
 moment when we awake from the ' Poet's Dream,' and on 
 a sudden see the passing figures and events of his interest- 
 ing story arrested in their temporal flight, like the ' brede of 
 marble men and maidens ' on the Grecian Urn, and stand- 
 ing still, sub specie aeternitatis, as emblems — of what ? — 
 of Eternal Verities, the purport of which we cannot now 
 recall; but we know that they are valid, and are laid up in 
 that other world from which we are newly returned ' 
 {Myths of Plato, pp. 388, 385). 
 
 Page 283. * Julian and Maddalo, 11. 544-546. 
 
 Page 28^. *Preserved in the Book of Leinster; ed. and transl. 
 Whitley Stokes, Revue Celtique, XXVI, 4 ff.; Eleanor Hull, 
 The Poem-Book of the Gael, 1913, pp. 53 ff, 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abhdaein, 74. 
 
 Achaeans, the, 93. 
 
 Achilles, 20, 228, 234. 
 
 Achinlek, Vidas, 326. 
 
 Adam, 82. 
 
 Adam Bell, 112. 
 
 Adamnan, 80. 
 
 Adonis, 93. 
 
 Advocates' Library, the, 142. 
 
 Aedh, 73, 74, 97. 
 
 Aegir, 215, 248, 249. 
 
 Aeneas, 257. 
 
 Aeschylus, 217. 
 
 Aesir, 249 f . 
 
 Aesop, 219. 
 
 Afflek, see Auchinleck. 
 
 Aidherne, 353. 
 
 Aidoneus, 78. 
 
 Ajax, 20. 
 
 Alban Gael, the, 162. 
 
 Albany, Duke of, 148. 
 
 Albion, 216. 
 
 Alcinous, 93, 223. 
 
 Alemannus, 216. 
 
 Alexander the Great, 34. 
 
 Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, 1 19 f. 
 
 Alexander, king of Scotland, 21. 
 
 Alexander of Paphos, 212. 
 
 Alexti, 42. 
 
 Alfred, king of England, 80. 
 
 Allen, Grant, 161 f. 
 
 Allerton Moor, 121. 
 
 Allfather, 229. 
 
 Amangons, King, 356. 
 
 Ambrosius, 264 f . 
 
 Amergin, 33, 34, 51, 79, 244. 
 
 American Revolution, the, 197. 
 
 Amphiaraus, 93, 265. 
 
 Amphion, 77. 
 
 Amytayn, 179. 
 
 Ananias, 225. 
 
 Andrew, St., 105, 106, 110, 
 
 Anelida and Arcite, 8. 
 
 Aneurin, 79. 
 
 Anglo-Saxon myth, 91 f. 
 
 Angus, son of John, last Lord of 
 the Isles, 293. 
 
 Angus mac Oc, 271. 
 
 Angus Oge, 357. 
 
 Annandale, 149. 
 
 Annwyn, 246, 247. 
 
 Answer to a Highlandman's Invec- 
 tive, 23. 
 
 Antiope, 77. 
 
 Antony, Mark, 272. 
 
 Aphrodite, 94, 268. 
 
 Apocalypse, the, 152, 277. 
 
 Apollo, 77, 93, 209, 224, 255, 268. 
 
 Apollonius of Tyana, 358. 
 
 Araby the Blest, 51. 
 
 Arawn, 256. 
 
 Arcite, 129 f. 
 
 Arden, forest of, 71. 
 
 Argyle, Argyll, Argyleshire, 25, 50, 
 78, 293. 
 
 Argonauts, the, 224. 
 
 Aridaeus-Thespesius, 261. 
 
 Ariel, 43. 
 
 Arion, 76. 
 
 Aristarchus, 354, 
 
366 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Aristophanes, 209. 
 
 Aristotle, 93, 269, 358. 
 
 Ark, the, 34. 
 
 Arran, 78. 
 
 Arthur, King, 20, 28, 32, 46, 69, 
 70, 71, 73, 108, 119, 159, 177, 
 178, 184, 185, 186, 231, 271, 354. 
 
 Asgard, 214, 249. 
 
 Ash of Yggdrasill, the, 229. 
 
 Asia, 34, 51, 214. 
 
 Athena, 225, 356. 
 
 Athens, 39, 243. 
 
 Auchinleck, James, 123. 
 
 Augustine, St. (d. 430), 265. 
 
 Augustine, St. (d. 604), 16, 299. 
 
 AureHus, 358. 
 
 Austria, 195. 
 
 Avalon, 70, 78. 
 
 Awdy, 142. 
 
 Awennithion (Awenyddion), 264. 
 
 Ayr, 48, 332. 
 
 Bacchanals, 50-54. 
 
 Bacchic maidens, 274. 
 
 Bacchus, 36, 48, 51. 
 
 Bacchus-Dionysus, 48. 
 
 Bacon, Francis, 265; quoted, 
 
 150 f., 358. 
 Badammar, 99. 
 Baldred, St., 17. 
 Balkin, 35, 36. 
 Banister, 150. 
 Bannockburn, 63. 
 Barbour, John, 10, 63, 144, 146, 
 
 148, 154, 165, 206. 
 Bardus, 216. 
 Bar-jesus, 226. 
 Bartimaeus, 226. 
 Battle of the Frogs and Mice, 94. 
 Bayonne, 42. 
 
 Bede, 56, 80, 84, 150, 217. 
 Bedivere, Sir, 70. 
 
 Belelah (Behal), 35, 43, 44. 
 
 Bellenden, John, 14, 189. 
 
 Beltane, 49. 
 
 Bennat, 233. 
 
 Benoit, 174, 175. 
 
 Beowulf, 220, 221. 
 
 Berdok, king of Babylon, 40. 
 
 Bernlef, 353. 
 
 Berwick, 148. 
 
 Bethsaida, 226. 
 
 Bible, the, 6, 225 S., 252, 263 f. 
 
 Biggar, 136, 137. 
 
 Bil-eygr, 102. 
 
 Billie Blin(d), 100-103, 108, 157 f., 
 160. 
 
 Bilwis, 158. 
 
 Black Prince, the, 144. 
 
 Blackwell, Thomas, 205 f., 237; 
 quoted, 360 f. 
 
 Blai, 87. 
 
 Blair, Arnold, 208. 
 
 Blair, Master John, 106, 117, 121, 
 170-183, 208. 
 
 Blaise, Master, 176-180, 182. 
 
 Bledhericus, Blihis, 182 f. 
 
 Blind, 100. 
 
 Blind Guaire, 98, 99. 
 
 Blind Harry, the problem of, 3-13; 
 Major's evidence, 14-25; The 
 Dwarfs Part cf the Play, 26-54 
 Blind Harry and faery, 55-78 
 the real Blind Harry, 96-115 
 Blind Hari-y and Blind Homer, 
 203-238. See Life of William 
 Wallace. 
 
 Blindr (the Blind One), 230. 
 
 Blind the Bad, 158. 
 
 Blind the Bale-wise, 100, 102, 
 103. 
 
 Blind Willie, see Wandering Willie. 
 
 Boadach, 298. 
 
 Boand, 229, 250. 
 
INDEX 
 
 367 
 
 Boccaccio, 131, 174, 175, 176; 
 
 quoted, 260 f . 
 Bodhb Derg, 75. 
 Bodn, 248, 249, 250. 
 Boece, Hector, 14, 189. 
 Bol-eygr, 102. 
 Bolverkr, 158, 249. 
 Boethius, 176, 265. 
 Bolwis, 158. 
 Boneless, 36. 
 Book of Conquests, 81. 
 Book of Leinster, 83, 99, 213. 
 Book of Taliessin, 244 f., 257. 
 Book of the Chronicles of Scotland, 
 
 14. 
 Book of the Dean of Lismore, 64, 
 
 97, 155 f. 
 Book of the Dun Cow, 84, 88; 
 
 quoted, 299. 
 Bower, Walter, 154. 
 Bradfute, Marian, 127, 340. 
 Bragaroethr, 215. 
 Bragi, 214 f., 248 f., 253. 
 Bran, son of Febal, 66 f., 85, 256. 
 Brand, John, 302. 
 Branwen, 159. 
 Brehon laws, 80. 
 Brendan, St., 217. 
 Breri, 182 f. 
 
 " Bret Glascurion," see Glasgerion. 
 Bridlington, 150. 
 Brigit, 215, 256. 
 Britons, 184. 
 Brittany, 119, 144. 
 Britto, 216. 
 Brogan, 76, 183. 
 Bromius, 51. 
 Brown, John Thomas Toshach, 9, 
 
 123, 127, 134 f., 142, 180; 
 
 quoted, 10, 28, 29 f., 173 f., 328, 
 
 332, 338, 342. 
 Brownie, 35, 36, 43, 51. 
 
 Brownie-Puck, 47. 
 
 Bruce, Robert, 63, 130, 154. 
 
 Bruce, The, 10, 11. 148, 154. 
 
 Brut, 159. 
 
 Brutus, 119, 133, 185, 216, 265, 
 
 346. 
 Buan, 254. 
 
 Buchanan, George, 153. 
 Burlow Beanie, 102 f . 
 Burnet, William, 324. 
 Burns, Robert, 332; quoted, 6. 
 Bute, John, Marquess of, quoted, 
 
 289 f. 
 Byron, Lord, quoted, 361. 
 
 Cader Idris, 268. 
 
 Cadmus, 51, 53. 
 
 Caedmon, 84. 
 
 Caeilte, son of Ronan, 74, 75, 76, 
 86 ff., 90. 98, 161, 183, 219. 
 
 Caermarthen, 352. 
 
 Caer Sidi, 246. 
 
 Caesar, Julius, 35. 
 
 Cairell's wife, 81. 
 
 Cairpre, 256. 
 
 Caithness, 35, 123. 
 
 Calchas, 93, 212, 265. 
 
 Calliope, 77, 94. 
 
 Cambridge History of English Liter- 
 ature, quoted, 207 f . 
 
 Campbell, John Francis, quoted, 
 62, 306. 
 
 Campi Elysii, 257. 
 
 Canemor, 22. 
 
 Caradoc of Llancarvan, 119, 133. 
 
 Care, 236. 
 
 Caridwen, Ceridwen, 244 f ., 256, 
 281. 
 
 Carl Blind, 158. 
 
 Carswell, Bishop, quoted, 299 f. 
 
 Cascorach, son of Cainchinn, 75, 
 76. 
 
368 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Cassandra, 93, 265. 
 
 Cattle-liftings, 89. 
 
 Caxton, William, 169, 186 ff., 194. 
 
 Cecrops, 93. 
 
 Celts, the, 243; Celtic folklore, 34, 
 44. 68, 72-77; the Celtic under- 
 world connected with the classi- 
 cal, 48; influence of the religion 
 of the British tribes on litera- 
 ture, 70 f.; Celtic bards, 79-92; 
 comparison with bards in classi- 
 cal tradition, 92 f.; Celtic con- 
 ceptions of poesy, 243-247, 
 279 flf.; inspired madmen, 267 &.; 
 gifts obtained by mortal visi- 
 tors to the otherworld, 252-258; 
 Giraldus Cambrensis on sooth- 
 saying, 264 f . 
 
 Chadwick, Hector Munro, quoted, 
 353. 
 
 Chalcis, 212. 
 
 Chalcondylas, Demetrius, 204. 
 
 Chambers, Edmund Kerchever, 
 quoted, 315 f. 
 
 Champions Ecstasy, The, 81 f. 
 
 Chandos, Earl of, 144. 
 
 Chanson de Roland, 220. 
 
 Charlemagne, 354. 
 
 Charles the Bold, duke of Bur- 
 gundy, 20. 
 
 Charteris, Henry, quoted, 168 f., 
 187. 
 
 Chdtillon, Gauchier de, 144. 
 
 Chaucer, 8, 48, 76, 123, 124, 127- 
 133, 135, 140, 144 f., 165, 174 ff., 
 206, 295, 332. 
 
 Chepman, Walter, 114. 
 
 Chad, Francis James, 100 f., 112, 
 157 f. 
 
 ChUds, Francis Lane, 12, 127, 194. 
 
 Chiron, 76. 
 
 Chretien of Troyes, 69. 
 
 Christ, 226 f ., 262, 264. See Jesus. 
 
 Christian Year, The, 278. 
 
 Cian, 252. 
 
 Cicero, 209, 269. See Tully. 
 
 Cieran, St., 84. 
 
 Ciniu, 47. 
 
 Cithaeron, 53. 
 
 Cleopatra, 272. 
 
 Clerk, John, 123. 
 
 Clio, 94, 132. 
 
 Clonmacnoise, 84. 
 
 Cnoc na Righ, 98. 
 
 Cnu, 74 f . 
 
 Cole, King, 32. 
 
 Colkelbie Sow, 322. 
 
 Collins, William, quoted, 298. 
 
 Colloquy of the Elders, 98, 219; 
 
 quoted, 87. 
 Colophon, 211. 
 Columba, 80. 
 Colum Cille, 81. 
 Colville, Samuel, quoted, 306. 
 Comar, battle of, 87. 
 Comgan, 268 f. 
 Complaint of Anelida upon Arcite, 
 
 8, 
 Comyn, Michael, 64. 
 Conchobar, 271. 
 Conn of the Hundred Battles, 23, 
 
 81 f., 253. 
 Connaught, 66. 
 Connla, 253. 
 
 Connla's Well, 250 f., 255. 
 Corcyra, 94. 
 Cormac, 253 ff. 
 Cornwall, King, 102 f. 
 Corspa trick, 24. 
 Corybantian revellers, 274. 
 Court of Love, 123. 
 Couvin, Watriquet de, 144. 
 Craigie, William Alexander, 165; 
 
 quoted, 9, 339. 
 
INDEX 
 
 369 
 
 Craik, George Lillie, quoted, 7 f. 
 
 Crawar, William, 142. 
 
 Creophylus, 211. 
 
 Cressida, 127. 
 
 Cretheis, 212. 
 
 Crunnchu, 87. 
 
 Cuchulinn, 46, 82 ff., 251, 271. 
 
 CuUmenn, The, 83. 
 
 Cumaean Sibyl, the, 257. 
 
 Cumhail, 32. 
 
 Cummyn, Sir William, quoted, 
 
 140 f. 
 Cuvelier, 144. 
 Cyclopes, 352. 
 
 Daemonologie, 257. 
 
 Dag, 158. 
 
 Dagda. the, 75, 250, 256. 
 
 DaiTnones, 48. 
 
 Damascus, 225. 
 
 Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins, 24. 
 
 Dante, 204, 240, 260 f., 265, 275, 
 
 282, 358, 361. 
 Dares Phrygius, 175, 219. 
 Darnaway Castle, 140. 
 David, 35, 217. 
 Decies, 268. 
 Delphi, 228, 266. 
 Democritus, 279. 
 Demodocus, 93, 94, 210, 223, 224, 
 
 233. 
 Dempster, Thomas, 114, 205. 
 Denmark, 215. 
 De Nugia Curialium, 67. 
 Dereoil, 75. 
 Destructions, 89. 
 
 Dialogue ofOisin and Patrick, 156 f. 
 Diana, 322. 
 Dictaean Zeus, 262. 
 Dictionary of National Biography, 
 
 182. 
 Dictys Cretensis, 175, 219. 
 
 Dinnesenchas, 229, 250 f . 
 Diogenes Laertius, 348. 
 Dionysus, 46, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 
 
 53, 54, 268, 274. 
 Don, court of, 34. 
 Dornoch, 123. 
 
 Douglas, Gavin, 76; quoted, 63. 
 Douglas, James, last Earl of, 148. 
 Douglas of Kilspendie, Archibald, 
 
 114. 
 Druids, the, 49, 246, 269, 271. 
 Druis, 216. 
 
 Dryden, John, quoted, 269. 
 Du£F, William, 206. 
 Dunadoon, 78. 
 Dunbar, castle of, 153. 
 Dunbar, William, 14, 15, 23, 24, 
 
 25. 63, 72, 96, 104, 110, 112. 
 
 113, 122, 124, 163, 204; his 
 
 Dwarfs Part of the Play, 26-54. 
 Dunkeld, 181. 
 
 Dunlop, John Colin, quoted, 174. 
 Dwarfs' Drink, 249. 
 Dwarf's Part of the Play, The, 26- 
 
 54. 
 Dyer, Louis, quoted, 53 f. 
 
 Earl Brand. 101. 
 
 Ebro, the, 22. 
 
 Eddie lays, 214 f., 217 ff., 220, 
 
 247-250. 
 Edinburgh, 31, 47, 142, 302 f. 
 Edward I, king of England, 22, 
 
 136 f., 147. 
 Edward IV, king of England, 
 
 147 ff. 
 Eger. 69. 
 
 Eger and Grime, 69, 113. 
 Egypt, 270, 272. 
 Eildon Tree, the, 55. 
 Elaine, 271. 
 Elder Edda, 216. 
 
370 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Eli, 34. 
 
 Elijah, 263. 
 
 Elisha, 225. 
 
 Ellis, George, 206. 
 
 Elphin, 245. 
 
 Elton, Charles Isaac, quoted, 70 f . 
 
 Elymas, 226. 
 
 Elysium, 66, 252, 257. 
 
 Emania, 73, 74. 
 
 Emelye, 129. 
 
 Emer, 271. 
 
 Empedocles, 358. 
 
 Encyclopaedia Britannica, 163 f. 
 
 England, queen of, 139, 143. 
 
 Enoch, 34. 
 
 Ephorus, 209, 230. 
 
 Epimenides, 262. 
 
 " Eques Montanus," 114. 
 
 Erato, 94. 
 
 Erceldoun, Ercildoun, 55, 58, 108. 
 
 Erginas of Orchomenos, 297. 
 
 Eros, 268, 271. 
 
 Erroll, Earl of, 142. 
 
 Erse, the, 23 fiF., 163. 
 
 Esirt, 73 f . 
 
 Eskdale, 149. 
 
 Eugaion, 212. 
 
 Eumolpus, 93. 
 
 Euripides, 50 fiF. 
 
 Eurydice, 77, 272. 
 
 Evnissyen, 158 f. 
 
 Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, 113. 
 
 Ezekiel, 234. 
 
 Fail, 167. 
 Faile, 154. 
 Fairie Queene, 71. 
 Fal, the, 228. 
 Falkirk, 188. 
 Fand, 271. 
 " Far-Traveller," 92. 
 Faust, 110, 235 f. 
 
 Fawdoun, ghost of, 99, 104, 128' 
 
 129, 187. 
 Feeling Jor Nature in Scottish 
 
 Poetry, The, by Veitch, quoted, 
 
 4f. 
 Fehew, see Fitz Hugh. 
 Fenians, 155 £F., 159. 
 Ferdinand, 43. 
 Fergus mac Roich, 22, 73, 74, 83 f ., 
 
 90. 
 Fergus Truelips, 89, 90. 
 Fiachu, 99. 
 Fian-lore, the, 74, 76. 
 Fianna, Fians, the, 75, 85-88, 89, 
 
 97 f., 213. 
 Fife, 143. 
 Fingal, 27. 
 Finn, Fionn, Finn mac Coul, Finn 
 
 mac Cumhail(l), 63, 64, 65, 75, 
 
 77, 86, 88 fiF., 96, 98, 99, 155, 
 
 156 f., 212 f. 
 Finnen of Moville, 81. 
 Fintan, 81. 
 Fintray, 156. 
 Firth of Forth, the, 148. 
 Fisher, Sydney George, quoted, 
 
 196 f. 
 Fitz Hugh, 136 f . 
 Fjallar, 248. 
 Flodden, 146, 165. 
 Flood, the, 81. 
 Florence, 204. 
 Flyting, of Dunbar and Kennedy, 
 
 23 f . ; of Montgomery and 
 
 Polwart, 49 f ., 103. 
 Ford, Master, 266. 
 Ford, Paul Leicester, 197. 
 Forgoll, 88. 
 Forts, 89. 
 Fortune, 106, 126. 
 Fountain of Knowledge, the, 254, 
 
 255. 
 
INDEX 
 
 371 
 
 France, 187, 188, 192, 231. 
 
 France, king of, 137 f. 
 
 Francus, 216. 
 
 Friar Tuck, 112. 
 
 Froissart, Jean, 17. 
 
 Fyn MacKowle, see Fingal, Finn. 
 
 Gabhra, battle of, 85. 
 
 Gaels, the, 32, 160, 162; Gaelic 
 tongue, the, 23 S., 163; Gaelic 
 tradition, 35, 62; Gaelic folk- 
 lore, 44; Gaelic folklore and 
 Blind Harry, 96-107, 109 f.; 
 Scottish Gaelic verse, 64; Gaelic 
 poem by Comyn, 64; the Gaelic 
 inheritance in Scottish literature, 
 161-164. 
 
 Galarr, 248. 
 
 Galloway, 142. 
 
 Gangleri, 100, 219. 
 
 Garadh's Well, 98. 
 
 Garaidh, Garadh, Garry, or Gairri 
 mac Morn, 97 f ., 161. 
 
 Garnett, Richard, quoted, 208. 
 
 Garog, 43. 
 
 Gask Hall, 99. 
 
 Gathelus, 22. 
 
 Gaudifer de Larys, 306. 
 
 Gawain, 28, 32, 41, 271, 359. 
 
 Ge, 352. 
 
 Gefion, 215. 
 
 Genius astral, 35. 
 
 GeoflFrey of Monmouth, 44, 118- 
 123, 133, 151, 175, 182, 184 f., 
 198, 265. 
 
 Gessler, 195. 
 
 Giant Turk, the, 41, 43. 
 
 Gideon, 263. 
 
 Gildas, 333. 
 
 Gildon, Charles, 236. 
 
 Giraldus Cambrensis, quoted, 57 f ., 
 182, 185, 264 f. 
 
 Gjallar-Horn, 229. 
 
 Glamis, Lord, 142. 
 
 Glasgerion, 76, 271. 
 
 Glasgow, 15. 
 
 Glass Fortress, the, 246. 
 
 Glaucus, 93. 
 
 Godefroy de Bouillon, 354. 
 
 Gododin, 313. 
 
 Goethe, 235 f . 
 
 Gog Magog, 27, 43, 44. 
 
 Gog's wife, 28. 
 
 Golden Isle, the, 272. 
 
 Goldyn Targe, 204. 
 
 Golias, Bishop, 219. 
 
 Goll mac Morna, see Gow mac 
 
 Morn. 
 Gomorrah, 34. 
 Gower, John, 132. 
 Gow mac Morn, 28, 63 f., 89, 
 
 96 f., 155, 157. 
 Gowra, battle of, 87. 
 Gowrie, William, first Earl of, 114. 
 Graelent, 308. 
 Grail, the, 182. 
 Gray, Lord, 142. 
 Gray, Margaret Muriel, 326. 
 Gray, Sir Thomas, 154. 
 Gray, Thomas, of Libertoun, 171, 
 
 173. 
 Gray, Thomas, English poet, 278; 
 
 quoted, 234, 255. 
 Gray Steil, 113 f. 
 Greece, 45, 47, 255. 
 Greek myth, 46, 252, 255, 266, 
 
 270. 
 Greek prophets, 264. 
 Greeks, 243. 
 Grimsby, 137, 171. 
 GrufiFydd, William John, quoted, 
 
 313, 314. 
 Guaire Goll, 98, 99. 
 Gude Wallace, 319. 
 
372 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Guesclin, Bertrand du, 144. 
 Guest the Blind, 100. 
 Guido delle Colonne, 175. 176. 
 Guinevere, 271. 
 Guingamor, 67 f . 
 Gunnlod, 248, 249, 298. 
 Guy. 26, 32, 41 f.^ 43, 57, 110. 
 Guy on. Sir, see Huon. 
 Gweir, 246, 247. 
 Gwenddydd, 359. 
 Gwion Bach, 245 f. 
 Gwydion, 34, 247, 251, 256, 316. 
 Gwyn ap Nudd, 71. 
 Gyges, 60. 
 Gylfaginning, 229. 
 Gyre (Gyir) Carling, the, 56, 103, 
 104. 
 
 Hades, 92. 246, 360. 
 
 Hagal, 101. 
 
 Hailes, Lord, 191; quoted, 151. 
 
 Halbjorn Hali, 84. 
 
 Hallowe'en. 49. 50. 
 
 Hamlet, 105. 
 
 Hamlet's father, 128. 
 
 Hamund, 158. 
 
 Hannibal, 292. 
 
 Hardyknute, 196. 
 
 Harlequin, 69. 
 
 Harog, 43. 
 
 Harr, 99 f., 218 f. 
 
 Harry Gad, 320. 
 
 Harry the Minstrel, 163. 
 
 Hdvamdl, 218. 
 
 Hawes, Stephen. 123. 
 
 Head of Hades, the, 251. 
 
 Hebrew myth, 251. 
 
 Hebrew prophets, 264. 
 
 Hebrides, the, 302, 306. 
 
 Hecate, 104. 
 
 Hector. Sir. 271. 
 
 Heimskringla, 214. 
 
 Helen, 227. 270, 272. 
 
 Helenus, 93. 
 
 Helgi, 101, 102, 158. 
 
 Helgi Hundingslayer, 101. 
 
 Helgi Thorisson. 60. 
 
 Helicon, 255, 279, 360. 
 
 Hellekin, 69. 
 
 Henderson, Thomas F.. quoted, 
 
 10 ff., 172. 
 Henry H, king of England, 68. 
 Henry of Huntingdon, 119. 
 " Henry the Minstrel." 6. 27. 59, 
 
 190. 208. 
 Henryson. Robert, 11. 
 Hephaestus. 94, 231. 
 Hera, 225, 360. 
 
 Heracles, 94, 360. See Hercules. 
 Heraclides. 209. 
 Hercules, 20, 38, 39, 44. See 
 
 Heracles. 
 Hereward, 354. 
 Herla, 48, 68. 
 Hermes, 37, 77. 
 Hesiod. 48. 211, 212. 214, 322, 
 
 360. 
 Hibernia. 22. 
 Highlanders, ancestry of, 22 f.; 
 
 bards among, 23 f.; the Erse, 
 
 23 f . ; connection with the Irish, 
 
 22-25; at Bannockburn, 63. 
 Hill of the Kings, 98. 
 Hilton, Walter, quoted, 265 f. 
 Hind Etin, 104. 
 Hipparchus, 348. 
 Hippolyta, 273. 
 Historia Regum Britanniae, 118, 
 
 133. 184. 
 History of Britain, by Milton, 
 
 216 f. 
 History of Greater Britain, by 
 
 Major. 15. 
 Hnitbjorg, 248, 249. 
 
INDEX 
 
 S7S 
 
 Hobgoblin, 40. 
 
 Horselberg, 58. 
 
 Holland, Sir Richard, 23, 140. 
 
 Holyrood, 142. 
 
 Holy Spirit, the, 225 f., 263, 264, 
 
 Homer, 19 ff., 93 f., 175, 201 f., 
 
 203-238, 240, 265, 267, 322. 
 Horace, 279. 
 Horatio, 105. 128. 
 Horus, 212. 
 
 House of Fame, 76, 135. 
 Howlat, 23. 
 Hugh, see Aedh. 
 Hughes, John, quoted, 234. 
 Hume of Godscroft, quoted, 114. 
 Hunding, 101. 
 Huon of Bordeaux, Sir, 71. 
 Hyacinthus, 93, 94. 
 
 lacchus, 51. 
 
 Iber, 22. 
 
 Iceland, 333. 
 
 Idunn, Idun, 215. 253. 
 
 Iliad. 94, 205, 237. 
 
 Ind, 32. 39, 52. 
 
 Indra, 251 f. 
 
 Ingeborg of the Glittering Plains, 
 60. 
 
 Innocent III, bull of, 299. 
 
 Inverallochy, 140. 
 
 Inverness, 61. 
 
 Ireland, 22, 23. 153. 
 
 Irish, the. poetry of. 21. 33; 
 descent of. 22; supposed an- 
 cestors of the Highlanders. 22 f. 
 
 Irving. David. 193. 206. 327. 331, 
 339. 
 
 Irving, Washington. 198 flf . ; quoted, 
 345 f. 
 
 Isis. 212. 
 
 Isle of Joy. the, 66. 
 
 Isle of Man, the, 41. 
 
 Isles of the Dead, 162. 
 Isocrates, quoted, 201. 
 Israel, 263. 
 Ithaca, 211. 
 
 Jack Harys, 320. 
 
 Jack Raker, 324 f . 
 
 James I, king of Scotland. 21. 153, 
 
 203. 
 James III. king of Scotland. 112 f., 
 
 153. 
 James IV. king of Scotland. 20, 23, 
 
 63. 113, 114, 302. 
 James V, king of Scotland, 42, 56, 
 
 63. 103. 114. 141. 231, 257. 
 Japhet. 216. 
 Jaques. 282. 
 Jean de Bourgogne. see Mande- 
 
 ville. 
 Jehovah, 227. 
 Jephthah, 263. 
 Jerome, St., 25. 265. 
 Jerusalem. 35. 
 Jesus, 263. 264. See Christ. 
 Juet. Robert. 346. 
 Jews. the. 226 f.. 264. 
 Joan of Arc. 231. 
 Job. 217. 
 
 Jocelin of Furness. 300. 
 Johannaeus. quoted. 333. 
 John of Lynn, 171, 188. 
 John the Evangelist, St., 152, 185, 
 
 277; quoted. 44, 264. 
 Johnson, Samuel. 196. 
 Jonet the Widow, 320 f . 
 Jonson, Ben, 321. 
 Jop, 137, 171. 
 
 Josephus, Flavins, 207. 348. 
 Jove, 255, 282. See Zeus. 
 Joyce, Patrick, quoted. 300, 335. 
 Joyous Isle, the, 271. 
 Jubhdan. King. 73. 74. 
 
374 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Kay, Sir, 70. 
 
 Keble, John, 278 f.; quoted, 347. 
 
 Keightley, Thomas, quoted, 333. 
 
 Kennedy, Walter, 23, 24. 
 
 Kentigern, St., 58. 
 
 Kern of the Narrow Stripes, the, 
 
 311. 
 Kilspendie, see Douglas. 
 King Arthur and King Cornwall, 
 
 102. 
 King of Shadows, 71. 
 Kirk, Robert, 45, 358; quoted, 60 f. 
 Kittredge, George Lyman, 112; 
 
 quoted, 174 fiF. 
 Knickerbocker, Diedrich, 198 ff. 
 Knight's Tale, The, 127, 128, 129, 
 
 130, 171. 
 Kouretes, 48, 49, 52. 
 Kouros, 50. 
 Kvasu-, 248. 
 Kvasir's Blood, 249. 
 
 Lady of the Golden Isle, the, 304 f. 
 
 Laegaire mac Neill, 82. 
 
 Lailoken, 58. 
 
 Laing, David, quoted, 339. 
 
 L' Allegro, 103. 
 
 Lament for the Makers, 14, 110, 
 
 112, 113, 124. 
 Lamerik, 142. 
 Lancaster, House of, 149. 
 Lancelot, 271. 
 Lancelot of the Laik, 326. 
 Land of Promise, the, 250, 253 S. 
 Land of Women, the, 66. 
 Land of Youth, the, 64 f., 86. 
 Lang, Andrew, quoted, 344. 
 Langland, William, 37; quoted, 
 
 331. 
 Langtoft, Pers de, 194. 
 Lanval, 271, 308. 
 La Rochelle, 138. 
 
 Latin historical works. Major's 
 
 opinion of, 17. 
 La Vie du Prince Noir, 144. 
 La Vie Vaillant Beriran du Gues- 
 
 clin, 144. 
 Layamon, 122, 159. 
 Lay of Aristotle, 360. 
 Lay of Narcissus, 360. 
 Lay of Oisin (Ossin), 64 f., 85 f. 
 Leabhar Gabhala, 81. 
 Leabhar na hUidhre, 84. 
 Leaf, Walter, quoted, 353 f . 
 Ler, 250. 
 Liban, 271. 
 
 Libeaus Desconus, 271 f ., 304 f. 
 Liddell, 121, 133. 
 Liddesdale, 148. 
 Life of Dante, by Boccaccio, 
 
 quoted, 260 f . 
 Life of Homer, by Blackwell, 205 f . 
 Life of Williain Wallace, 3 f . ; real 
 
 author of the, 116-146; purpose 
 
 and spirit of, 148-169; Master 
 
 Blair's " Latyn buk " the poet's 
 
 supposed authority, 170-183; 
 
 the Wallace as history, 184-202. 
 
 See Blind Harry. 
 Linlithgow, 10, 332. 
 Linus, 93, 94. 
 
 Little Brawl at Almhaiyi, The, 89. 
 Little John, 16. 
 Lives of the Scottish Poets, 206. 
 Llewarch Hen, Llywarch Hen, 79, 
 
 90 f. 
 Lochmaben, 148. 
 Lodan Lucharglan, 250. 
 Lodge, Henry Cabot, 197. 
 Loegaire mac Crimthain, 66. 
 Logres, 356. 
 Loki, 356. 
 Lollius, 131, 174 ff. 
 Lomond, Loch, 28. 
 
INDEX 
 
 375 
 
 London, 228. 
 
 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 
 
 quoted, 283. 
 Longueville, Thomas, 188. 
 Loosepain, 309. 
 Lordship of the Isles, the, 23. 
 Lome, Lord of, 63. 
 Lot, 225. 
 
 Lothian, 143, 332. 
 Lough Neagh, 268. 
 Lucerne, 195. 
 Lucian, 209, 316, 356. 
 Lucifer, 34, 104. 
 Lug, 81 f. 
 Lunette, 308. 
 Lupracdn, the, 73. 
 Luridan, 35, 43, 51. 
 Lycurgus, 211, 224. 
 Lydgate, John, 123, 320; quoted, 
 
 70. 
 Lyndsay, Sir David, 24 f., 42 f., 
 
 56f., 63f., 141f.; quoted, 324. 
 Lyon Herald, 142. 
 Lyon King at Arms, 142. 
 
 Mab, 272. 
 Mabinogi, the, 159. 
 Mac-da-cerda, 268 f, 
 Macdonalds, the, 23. 
 Macdougals, the, 23. 
 Macewens, the, 23. 
 MacFadden, 24, 145, 163. 
 MacKay, 97. 
 Mackay, Aeneas James George, 16, 
 
 28, 344; quoted, 290, 325, 332. 
 Mackie, 97. 
 Maclauchlans, the, 23. 
 Macleod, 110. 
 
 MacLeod, Fiona, see Sharp. 
 MacLughach, 89. 
 Macneills, the, 23. 
 Macpherson, James, 196, 204. 
 
 Maelgwn, 280. 
 
 Magh Aei, 83. 
 
 Mag Mell, 66. 
 
 Magog, see Gog Magog. 
 
 Magus, 216. 
 
 Mahoun, 162, 163, 321. 
 
 Maitland Club, the, 191. 
 
 Major, John, 4, 7, 8, 9, 48, 115, 
 120 f., 160, 187 ff., 192, 194, 
 207, 332; his evidence, 14-25, 
 208; on prophets, 151 ff.; on 
 prejudice, 166 f.; on King Ar- 
 thur, 358 f . 
 
 Malory, Sir Thomas, quoted, 177. 
 
 Manannan MacLir, 254 f . 
 
 Mandeville, Sir John, 180 ff. 
 
 Manerus, 93. 
 
 Map, Walter, 48, 68, 203 f. 
 
 Mappa Mundi, 181. 
 
 Mar, Earl of, 153. 
 
 March, 256. 
 
 Marchmond Herald, 140. 
 
 Margaret, St., 334. 
 
 Margaret of Anjou, 149. 
 
 Margaret Tudor, Princess, 302. 
 
 Margites, 94. 
 
 Marie de France, 67. 
 
 Marlyng, see Merlin. 
 
 Mars, 219. 
 
 Marston, Philip Bourke, 236, 237. 
 
 Marvell, Andrew, quoted, 234. 
 
 Masefield, John, 237. 
 
 Masson, David, 164. 
 
 Master of Wisdom, 284. 
 
 Math, 247, 256. 
 
 Maximus of Tyre, 262. 
 
 Media, 51. 
 
 Medon, 211. 
 
 Meilerius, 57 f., 185, 368. 
 
 Melampus, 93. 
 
 " Men of Hu," 257. 
 
 Mercury, 214, 255 
 
376 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Mercutio, 266. 
 
 Merlin, 46, 56, 58, 73, 119 f., 149- 
 
 155, 159, 176-179, 230, 246, 
 
 264 f., 321. 
 Merlin Sylvester, 58, 
 Merry Wives of Windsor, 266. 
 Merse, the, 143. 
 Mesnie Hellekin, 68 f . 
 Midsummer-Night's Dream, 45, 50, 
 
 242 f. 
 Milton, John, 210, 126 f., 233 ff., 
 
 236, 240, 303; quoted, 281 f. 
 Mimir, 229, 247. 
 Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 
 
 quoted, 108. 
 Minto, William, quoted, 164. 
 Moir, James, 172 f., 209 f.; quoted, 
 
 327, 335, 340. 
 Monarchy, The, 25. 
 Mongan, 46, 88. 
 Monkton Kirk, 105. 
 Monstrelet, Enguerrand de, 17. 
 Montgomery, Alexander, 23, 114; 
 
 quoted, 49. 
 Mopsus, 93, 212. 
 Moran, Michael, 348. 
 Moray, Earl of, 140. 
 Morgain la Fee, 69, 70. 
 Morgan, Daniel, 345. 
 Morison, R., 205. 
 Morley, Henry, 207, 325. 
 Morn, Sons of, 161. 
 Morna, clan of, 98. 
 Morte AHhure, 169, 177, 186 f. 
 Moses, 227. 
 
 Mount Vernon, Virginia, 196. 
 Munster, 268. 
 
 Miuray, Gilbert, quoted, 49. 
 Musaeus, 93, 322. 
 Muses, the, 77, 201, 221, 223 f., 
 
 233, 234, 268, 273 f., 322, 326, 
 
 360 f, 
 
 Myllar, Andrew, 114. 
 Myrddin, 359. 
 
 Napoleon, 354. 
 
 Narcissus, 93. 
 
 Nash, Thomas, 110; quoted, 45. 
 
 Nealus, 22. 
 
 Nechtan, son of Colbran, 66 f ., 85. 
 
 Nechtan, son of Labraid, 229, 250. 
 
 Nectanebus, 354. 
 
 Neilson, George, 136, 194; quoted, 
 12, 18, 201, 332; on the date of 
 the Wallace, 147 flf., 328. 
 
 Neilson, William Allan, 290 f. 
 
 Neptune, 216. 
 
 Newark, 4. 
 
 News out of Purgatory, 110. 
 
 New Testament, the, 264. 
 
 New York, 198 flf. 
 
 Niall, 82. 
 
 Niamh, 64, 65, 77. 
 
 Nibelungenlied, 220. 
 
 Nicholson, William, 321. 
 
 Nine Worthies, the, 186. 
 
 Nissyen, 158 f, 
 
 Noah, 34. 
 
 Normans, the, 265. 
 
 North Berwick, 332. 
 
 Northern Fairies, 35. 
 
 Northumberland, 177, 178. 
 
 Norway, 214. 
 
 Numa, 358. 
 
 Nutt, Alfred, quoted, 45 f., 82, 
 90 f., 213, 251, 307, 336, 355. 
 
 Oberon, 39, 71. 
 
 Ocean Sea, the, 28. 
 
 O'Clery, Michael, 314. 
 
 Odin, 92, 99 f ., 158, 159, 160, 213 ff. 
 
 217 ff., 220, 229, 230, 231, 247. 
 
 249 f., 251, 298, 308, 314. 
 Odrerir, 248, 249, 250, 
 
INDEX 
 
 377 
 
 Odysseus, 93, 224. See Ulysses. 
 
 Odyssey, 94, 210. 
 
 Oedipus, 53. 
 
 Oengus, 250. 
 
 Oger le Danois, 69 f . 
 
 Ogma Cermait, 256. 
 
 Ogmios, 316, 356. 
 
 Ogyrven, 256. 
 
 Oisin, see Ossian. 
 
 Olaf Tryggvason, 60, 217, 229. 
 
 Old Carl Hood, 158. 
 
 Old Poet, the, 284. 
 
 Olen, 93. 
 
 Ollarba, battle of, 87. 
 
 Olyfant, Lord, 142. 
 
 Olympus, 223. 
 
 O'Mahony, Fingin, 342. 
 
 O'Neill, Hugh, 335. 
 
 Onomacritus, 93. 
 
 Orpheus, 21, 76, 77, 78, 92, 93, 94, 
 
 203, 272 f., 322. 
 Oscar, 89. 
 Ossian, 62-66, 74 f., 77 f., 86 ff., 
 
 89, 90 f., 97, 98, 110, 155 flF., 
 
 160,161, 212 f., 215, 219, 220; 
 
 Macpherson's Ossian, 196, 204. 
 Ossian Dall, 86. 
 Ossian s Prayer, 155 f. 
 Ouchterhous, 134. 
 Ovid, 175, 176. 
 Owain Miles, 261. 
 
 Pagan Review, 162. 
 
 Palace of Honor, 63, 76. 
 
 Palamon, 128, 129 f. 
 
 Pallas, 255. 
 
 Pamphos, 93. 
 
 Pan, 37, 38, 44, 48, 50. 
 
 Paradise, 262. 
 
 Paradise Lost, 210, 236. 
 
 Paris, 15, 16, 17, 19, 138, 170. 
 
 Paris, Gaston, quoted, 308, 342. 
 
 Parker, Martin, 325. 
 
 Parnassus, 326. 
 
 Patrick, St., 64, 65, 74, 75, 76, 78, 
 
 80, 81, 82, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89 f., 
 
 98, 110, 155 ff., 183, 219, 300. 
 Paul, St., 259. See Saul. 
 Pausanias, 209. 
 Penelope, 211. 
 Pentheus, 53. 
 Perceval, Sir, 271. 
 Persephone, 260, 307 f . 
 Persians, the, 360. 
 Perth, 332. 
 Phaedrus. 267 f . 
 Pharais, 162. 
 Pharaoh of Egypt, 22. 
 Philammon, 93. 
 Philips, Ambrose, 205. 
 Phillips, Stephen, quoted, 235. 
 Philostratus, 211. 
 Phineus, 224, 233. 
 Picts, 168. 
 Piers Plowman, 30. 
 Pierus, 224. 
 Pindar, 255, 265. 
 Pisistratus, 209. 
 
 Plains of Pleasure, the, 66, 271. 
 Plato, 217, 227, 267 f., 270, 275, 
 
 279, 348, 354; quoted, 259 f., 
 
 273f., 322, 361. 
 Play, allegorical figure, 47, 50. 
 Pliny Major, quoted, 360. 
 Plutarch, 94, 261; quoted, 350. 
 Pluto, 48. 
 
 Poema del Cid, 220. 
 Poesy, pedigree of, 284. 
 Polwart(h), Sir Patrick Hume of, 
 
 49; quoted, 50, 103. 
 Pomona, 35. 
 Prelude. 228. 
 Priam, 211. 
 Progress of Poesy, 255, 
 
378 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Prometheus, 283, 351, 
 Prophecy of Waldhave, 58. 
 Prophisies of Rymour, Beid, and 
 
 Marlyng, The, 56. 
 Proserpina, 48. 
 Pryderi, 246. 
 Puck, 38, 39, 46. 
 Purgatory of St. Patrick, 261. 
 Pwyll, 246, 256. 
 Pythia, the, 267. 
 
 QuareofJelusy, 123 S., 126. 
 Quiggm, Edmund Crosby, quoted, 
 312. 
 
 Rabelais, 294. 
 
 Ramsay, John, scribe, 10, 14. 
 
 Ramsay, Sir John, 134. 
 
 Rath Cruachan, 161. 
 
 Red (Reid) Etin, the, 56, 103 f. 
 
 Redgauntlet, quoted, 108 f . 
 
 Register of Arms, 142. 
 
 Reid, Sir John, 113. 
 
 Remarks on the History of Scotland, 
 
 151. 
 Rhodes, Knights of, 139. 
 Rhys, Sir John, 246; quoted, 90, 
 
 247, 251 f., 316. 
 Richard I, king of England, 17, 
 
 354. 
 Richard of St. Victor, quoted, 
 
 361 f. 
 Rig- Veda, the, 252. 
 Ritson, Joseph, 196. 
 Robert, Earl of Gloucester, 119. 
 Robert of Brunne, 179, 194. 
 Robin Goodfellow, 36, 39 f., 45, 
 
 47, 103, 110. 
 Robin Goodfellow, 46. 
 Robin Hood, 16, 112, 354. 
 Rochester, 16. 
 
 Rollins, Hyder Edward, 325. 
 Roman de Merlin, 177, 178. 
 Romans, 266. 
 Romanus, 216. 
 Rome, 181, 192, 219. 
 Romulus, 219. 
 Roscommon, 83. 
 Ross, Earl of, 123. 
 Ross, John Merry, quoted, 172. 
 Ross Herald, the, 134. 
 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 236. 
 Round Table, the, 70, 108, 272. 
 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 361. 
 Russ, Melchior, 195. 
 
 Saemund's Edda, 158. 
 
 Saga, seeress, 247. 
 
 Saga of Olaf Tryggvason, 60. 
 
 St. Andrews, 15. 
 
 St. David's, church of, 57. 
 
 St. Johnston, 127, 143, 
 
 Samson, 86, 263. 
 
 Samuel, 346. 
 
 Sanskrit myth, 251 f. 
 
 Saron, 216. 
 
 Satire of the Three Estates, 63. 
 
 Satyr, 51. 
 
 Saul, 225 f., 263. See Paul. 
 
 Saxo Grammaticus, 195; quoted, 
 158. 
 
 Saxons, 68, 264. 
 
 Scandinavians, the, 213 f.; Scan- 
 dinavian or Old Norse myths, 
 60, 84, 92, 213-216, 217-219, 
 229, 247-251, 253, 255. 
 
 Scath, 82, 251. 
 
 Schipper, Jakob, 27-29. 
 
 Scone, stone of, 22, 
 
 Scot, Michael, 265. 
 
 Scot, Reginald, quoted, 36. 
 
 Scota, 22. 
 
 Scotichronicon, 192, 201. 
 
INDEX 
 
 379 
 
 Scotland, fairies and fiends in, 43, 
 49; the Wallace and Scottish 
 national feeling, 5, 146, 147 ff., 
 160, 165-168; political proph- 
 ecies, 151-155; the Gaelic in- 
 heritance in Scottish literature, 
 161-164. 
 
 Scott, Alexander, 39. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 3, 4, 55, 107 fF., 
 330; quoted, 5, 339. 
 
 Scotticism, 163 f . 
 
 Scottish Vernacular Literature, by 
 T. F. Henderson, quoted, 10 ff. 
 
 Secret Commonwealth of Elves, 
 Fauns, and Fairies, 45. 
 
 Secret Well, the, 229. 
 
 Selund, 215. 
 
 Semele, 46, 51. 
 
 Senchan Torpeist, 83. 
 
 Seneca, quoted, 269. 
 
 Seon, 250. 
 
 Shakespeare, 39, 45, 105, 240, 
 242 f., 266, 270, 272, 279, 361. 
 
 Shannon, the, 251. 
 
 Sharp, William, 161 f.; quoted, 
 77 f. 
 
 Shaw, Quentin, 112. 
 
 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, quoted, 
 282, 283. 
 
 Sibyl, 218, 219, 221, 247. 
 
 Sigar, 158. 
 
 Siloam, pool of, 226. 
 
 Silver Branch, the, 254. 
 
 Simeon, 263. 
 
 Simon Magus, 321. 
 
 Sinclair, Bishop, 181, 329. 
 
 Sinend, 250 f. 
 
 Sion Kent, 257. 
 
 Sirens, 224. 
 
 Sir John Rowll's Cursing, 43. 
 
 Sir Orfeo, 272. 
 
 Sir Tristrem, 59, 108. 
 
 Skaldskaparmdl, 247-250. 
 Skeat, Walter William, 127. 
 Skelton, John, 165 f., 320; quoted, 
 
 337. 
 Smith, George Gregory, quoted, 
 
 294. 
 Snorri Sturluson, 92, 99 f., 214, 
 
 215, 216, 219, 229, 247-250. 
 Snowdon, 268. 
 Socrates, 266, 354. 
 Sodom, 34, 225. 
 Sokkmimir, 229. 
 Solomon, 35, 86. 
 Solon, 348. 
 Son, 248, 249, 250. 
 Sophocles, 53. 
 Spain, 22. 
 Spenser, Edmund, 123; quoted, 37, 
 
 329. 
 Spottiswood, John, 114. 
 Srub Brain, 66. 
 Stanley, house of, 146. 
 Statins, 175, 176. 
 Stesichorus, 227. 
 Stevenson, Joseph, 191 f. 
 Stewart, John Alexander, quoted, 
 
 362. 
 Stirling, 113. 
 Stobo, 112 f., 114. 
 Story of Engla7id, 179. 
 Strabo, quoted, 49. 
 Strode, Ralph, 132. 
 Stubbes, Thomas, quoted, 303. 
 Stygian Jupiter, the, 20. 
 Suidas, 236. 
 Sultan-land, 26, 32, 41. 
 Sunk-bench, 247. 
 Sutherland, 35. 
 Suttungr, 248, 249. 
 Sveinsson, Brynjolf, 333. 
 Sweden, 215. 
 Swegdir, King, 308. 
 
380 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Swiss, the, 195. 
 Syria, 29. 
 Syrians, 225. 
 
 Tahiti, 359. 
 
 Tdin bd Cudlgne, 83, 89. 
 
 Taliessin, 33, 34, 51, 79, 244 ff., 
 
 279 ff. 
 Tam Lin, Tamlane, 59 f. 
 Tannhauser, 58. 
 Tara, 254. 
 
 Tarlton, Richard, 110. 
 Taylor, Rupert, 151. 
 Teigue, 252 f . 
 Tell, William, 195, 354. 
 Thamyris, 94, 224, 233. 
 Thebes, 51, 52. 
 Theophilus Insulanus, 110. 
 Theopompus, 211. 
 Theseus, 243, 270, 273. 
 Thomas, Anglo-Norman poet, 182f. 
 Thomas k Becket, 80, 106, 
 Thomas of Brittany, 59. 
 Thomas Rhymer, 55-57, 59-62, 
 
 68, 72, 80, 105 f., 107, 108, 109, 
 
 110, 149 flF., 152-155,259. 
 Thomson, James, quoted, 302. 
 Thrace, 352. 
 Thucydides, 209. 
 Timarchus, 261. 
 
 Tiresias, 53, 54, 224, 225, 233, 234, 
 
 265. 
 Tir na nOg, 64 f., 85. 
 Titans, the, 38, 352. 
 Tokko, 195. 
 Tolomer, 179. 
 To Milton — Blind, 235. 
 Tomnafurach, 62. 
 Tom Tumbler, 36. 
 Tours, 346. 
 Treasurer's Accounts of Scotland, 
 
 111, 112, 113, 142 f. 
 
 Tristram, Tristrem, 70, 108, 183. 
 270. 
 
 Trailus, 127, 128, 131 f., 141, 174. 
 
 Trojans, 265. 
 
 Trojan War, the, 176, 211, 219. 
 
 Trophonius, 262. 
 
 Troy, 34, 94, 265. 
 
 True Thomas, see Thomas Rhy- 
 mer. 
 
 Tuan MacCairill, 80 f., 304, 
 
 Tuatha de Danann, 44, 46, 75, 254. 
 
 TuUy, 204. Se« Cicero. 
 
 Tundalus, 110. 
 
 Turk and Gawain, The, 41. 
 
 Turkey, 215. 
 
 Turks, the, 36. 
 
 Two Fiddlers, the, 68. 
 
 Tylor, Edward Burnett, quoted, 
 216, 239, 266 f., 299, 359. 
 
 Tytler, Patrick Fraser, quoted, 
 189 {., 191, 343 f. 
 
 Tzetzes, John, 214. 
 
 Ucht Cleitigh, 87. 
 
 Ulster, 73, 81. 
 
 Ulysses, 20. See Odysseus. 
 
 Uranus, 352. 
 
 Uri, 195. 
 
 Urien, 256. 
 
 Urthin Wadd Elgin, 35. 
 
 Uther Pendragon, 152, 246, 
 
 Valfather, 218, 229. 
 
 Vani, 248. 
 
 Varia Capella, see Falkirk. 
 
 Vegtamr, 92. 
 
 Veitch, John, quoted, 4 f., 6, 339. 
 
 Veitch, William, 324. 
 
 Venus, 127, 131. 
 
 Verona, 260. 
 
 Virgil, 257, 326, 354. 
 
 Virgin, the, 42, 105 f. 
 
INDEX 
 
 381 
 
 Visio Tnugdali, 110. 
 
 Vita Merlini, 58. 
 
 Vita S. Littdgeri, quoted, 353. 
 
 Voluspa, 229. 
 
 Vortigern, 74, 152. 
 
 Voyage of Bran, 47, 85. 
 
 Waldhave, see Waltheof . 
 Wales, 35, 70, 79, 256, 264. 
 Wallace, king's messenger, 142 f. 
 Wallace, Sir Richard, 209 f. 
 Wallace, Sir William, see Life of 
 
 William Wallace. 
 Wallace of Craigie, 121, 133. 
 Wallace Papers, 191 f. 
 Walter, archdeacon of Oxford, 119. 
 Waltheof, St., abbot of Melrose, 
 
 58. 150. 
 Wandering Willie, 108 f . 
 Wantonness, 47, 50. 
 Warton, Joseph, quoted, 361. 
 Warton, Thomas, quoted, 135. 
 Washington, George, 196 f. 
 Wayland Smith, 353. 
 Way-wont, 92. 
 
 Wealth, allegorical figure, 32,47, 50. 
 Webster, Kenneth Grant Tre- 
 
 mayne, 291. 
 Weems, Mason Locke, 196 f . 
 Wee Wee Man, The, 71 f. 
 Wee Wee Men, 38 f . 
 Welfare, 47, 50. 
 Welsh myths, 33, 158 f. 
 Wentz, Walter Yeeling Evans, 
 
 quoted, 359. 
 Whitby, 84. 
 Whittier, John Greenleaf, quoted, 
 
 297. 
 Whole Prophecy of Scotland, 58, 
 
 150. 
 
 Wtdsith, 91 f. 
 
 Wild Chase, the, 69. 
 
 Wild Scots, the, 21, 22, 160. 
 
 William of Cloudesley, 195. 
 
 William of Malmesbury, 119, 133, 
 
 184. 
 William of Newbury, 184. 
 Winkle, Rip Van, 198, 199. 
 Wister, Owen, 197. 
 Woden, see Odin. 
 Wolf, Friedrich August, 206. 
 Wood, Robert, 206; quoted, 347, 
 
 348 f. 
 Wooing of Etain, 272. 
 Wooings, 89. 
 
 Wordsworth, William, quoted, 228. 
 World War, the, 169. 
 Wye, the, 68. 
 Wyntoun, Andrew of, 154, 167, 
 
 358. 
 
 Yehl, 357. 
 
 Ygerne, 152. 
 
 Yggdrasill, 229, 247. 
 
 Ynglinga^aga, 216. 
 
 Yonec, 360. 
 
 York, House of, 149. 
 
 Young, Edward, 206; quoted, 
 
 276. 
 Young Akin, 104. 
 Young Hastings, 104. 
 Young Poet, the, 284. 
 Young Tamlane, see Tam Lin. 
 Ysolde, Ysolt, 108, 270. 
 Yvain, 69, 271, 308. 
 
 Zacharias, 263. 
 Zarri, see Garaidh. 
 Zeus, 46, 51, 52, 77, 93, 224, 225, 
 262. See Jove. 
 
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