Allar Cunningham, in Songs of Scotland" (1825), vol. i. p. 239, gives a somewhat different version of this spell, Who sains the house to-night! Saint Colme and his hat, Keep this house from the weir. At the period when such lyrical prayers were popular, it required the strong protection of a military saint to save a house from being harried by the Borderers. Their song of peater was, (e) p. 24. He that ordained us to be born, Names of astrologers, Pythagoras, Hippocrates, etc. Pythagoras is only the shadow of a name in science. Born about 603 B. c. in Samos, his lore is mainly fictitious, — a pious invention of the Neoplatonists. — Hippocrates of Cos (circa 430 B. c.) is also credited with many writings, of which great part is apocryphal. - The Diocles mentioned may be the Euboean physician of the fourth century B. C. -Avicenna, the famed Arabian philosopher. See M. Renan's "Averroes.”—Messahala, “De Scientia Motus Orbis" (Nuremberg, 1504). - Guido Bonatus, an astronomer of the thirteenth century. See biography by Buoncompagni (Rome, 1851). Dariot, Claude. Ad Astrorum indicia facilis introductio" (Lugduni, 1557). English translation, 1598. — Ptolemy. Ptolemæus Claudius flor. circ. A. D. 139 at Alexandria; author of the Ptolemaic system of astronomy. — Haly, Albohazen. "Liber de Fatis Astrorum" (Venice, 1485). Etzler, Augustus, author of "Isagoge Physico Magico Medico (Strasburg, 1631). — Dieterick, “ Elogium Planetarum cælestium et terrestrium Macrocosmi et Microcosmi." Imperfect; only six pages of preliminary matter. "Novis Orbis, in quo, quæcunque de Nato et Creato serio et joco scire vel desiderare possunt, inusitata rerum varietate et mira elogiorum jucunditate omnia proponuntur," etc.-"Naibob." Nabod. Valentinus, "Enarratio elementorum astrologia" (Cologne, 1560).- Zael, "Liber novem judicum in judiciis astrorum, 1509," contains Zael, Messahala, Aristotle, Ptolemy, etc. Tannstetter Collimitius (Georg). "In gratiā . . . Ferdinandi Principis Hispaniarũ. . . libellus cōsolatorius, quo, opinionē jā, dudū anis hominu ex quorunda Astrologastro divinatiōe insidente, de futuro diluvio & cunctis aliis horrēdis periculis XXIII anni a fundamētis extirpare conatur" (Vienna Austria 1523. 4to). "Artificium de applicatione astrologie ad medicinam canones aliquot & quædam alia etc." (Argentorati, 1531. 8vo). Agrippa, "De Occulta Philosophia' (Antwerp, 1531; Cologne, 1533. French translation, The Hague, 1727). Sir Walter used the translation by J. F., 4to, London, 1651. — Maginus, Johannes Antonius, author of "Ephemerides Colestium Motuum" (Venice, 1582).— Origen. The early Christian author of that name was born about 186 A. D. But was Scott thinking of David Origan, author of "Ephemerides Novæ Annorum XXXVI.” (1599) ? — Argol.1 Johannes Argolus, born in Naples 1609; studied at Padua; died about 1660.— Heydon, Sir Christopher, author of "Defence of Judicial Astrology," in answer to Mr. John Chambers (Cambridge, 1603). This is the controversy referred to in "Guy Mannering" at the close of chapter iii. It is curious that out of all these occult philosophers, Scott possessed only the works of Cornelius Agrippa and of William Lilly, alluded to in the opening of "Guy Mannering" (vol. i. chap. iv.). Sir Walter's collection contains Lilly's "Christian Astrology, modestly treated in three books" (London, 1647). Other tracts of Lilly's he also possessed, in that magical department of his library. His knowledge of occult topics cannot be estimated by the "Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft" (1830), the labour of a brain overtaxed. He had contemplated a set of Dialogues on the Black Art, familiarly called "The Bogles," in 1822-23. (See "Archibald Constable and his Literary Correspondents," iii. 266.) 1 Argol. More probably Andreas Argolus, professor of mathematics in Padua, author of "Ephemerides ab 1640 ad 1700." Of Maginus there is an English version, "The Italian Prophecies; that is, a Prognostication for the year 1622" (1722). (p. 31. Sir Thomas Browne says: "Thus doth Satan sometimes delude us in the conceits of stars and meteors, besides their allowable actions ascribing to them effects therewith of independent causation" ("Pseudodoxia Epidemica," Behn, London, 1852, vol. i. p. 80). Bacon's remarks on astrology occur in "De Augmentis Scientiarum," vol. iii. Astrology, he says, is rather to be puritied than utterly rejected; he proposes what he calls "astrologia sana.” (1) p. 36. “As she spun, she sung what seemed to be a charm." The connection between Fate and spinning is very ancient. The earliest example is probably in the Odyssey, vil 197: He shall endure such things as Fate and the stern spinning-women drew off the spindles for him at his birth when his mother bare him." For the German spinning-women of destiny, see Grimm's "German Mythology" (Stally brass, vol. i. p. 414 and vol. iv. 1402). Mr. E. B. Tylor adds a reference to Wuttke's Deutsche Volksaberglaube" (Berlin, 1869) about the German Burgfräulein who spins the gossamer in ruined towers, like Meg Merrilies. They mostly appear in threes. -one white, one gray, one black, like Meg's yarns. Scott may perhaps have been acquainted with this belief, being deeply read in German superstitions, and in correspondence with Jacob Grimm. The coincidences of the colours and the place chosen by Meg for her spinning are certainly curious. (1) p. 65. ** Maroon war." The war in South America with the runaway negroes marooned" in the bush. (p. 67. Ne movess Camerinam." The Latin version of the Greek oracular phrase: "Move not Camarina; better it is unmoved.” See Scott's "Journal," ii. 479. Silius Italicus has (xiv. 198), — *F: cui non licitum fatis Camarina moveri." See also Virgil. Eneid, iii. 700. Camarina was an ancient eclony of Syracuse, in the south of Sicily. The stagnation of the river Hipparis made a pestilent marsh. On asking the Delphian oracle whether they should drain it, the people received the proverbial answer corresponding to "Let sleeping dogs lie." They drained the marsh, however, thereby depriving their walls of a natural moat. The enemy thus captured Camarina. The date of this legendary event is unknown. (k) p. 75. Dirk Hatteraick. Scott appears to have taken the name of Hatteraick from a story in Sinclair's "Satan's Invisible World Displayed" (Reid, Edinburgh, 1685). To a warlock named Alexander Hunter, Satan gave the name, in irreligion, of Hatteraick. In this anecdote of Sinclair's occurs the phrase "damnum minatum, et malum secutum,” applied to Meg Merrilies ("Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft," London, Murray, 1830, p. 300). 66 () p. 110. Conveyed to Fairy-land for a season." According to Professor Sayce, this kind of kidnapping by fairies has been practised, in living memory, in Wales. The locus classicus is the case of Tamlane, in the "Border Minstrelsy." Allan Cunningham, in "Songs of Scotland," i. 146, tells the following curious anecdote, proving that, in Guy Mannering's time, the fairies still were "mickle of might:" "It happened, when I was a child, that a neighbouring gentleman was returning from a fair with his only son, a fine youth some seventeen years old. Within call of his house was a brook which, in summer-time, a child four years old might wade, but which now, augmented by a thunder-shower at the head, came down deep and broad; and being somewhat of a mossy stream, the increase of its waters made no great increase of its sound. The night was dark, and when the father reached the opposite side of the brook, his son's horse was by his side, but the saddle was empty. Instant search was made, but the body of the youth was nowhere to be found. Soon after, it happened that the young man's sister was returning home along the bank of the same stream. It was about the twilight, and she had reached the fatal ford, when her brother suddenly appeared and addressed her. He told her he was not drowned, but was carried into Fairy-land, and allowed to revisit the earth but once every moon. On reaching Fairyland, a fairy passed her hand over his face and bade him look, for he was among friends; and he looked, and saw the faces of many men who were supposed to have fallen in battle or perished at sea, and one of them was his own uncle, whose ship had sunk in the Solway with all its mariners on board." He told his sister how she might rescue him, as Janet rescued Tamlane. But she had not the courage of the heroine of Carter-haugh or of Alice Brand; she allowed her brother to go De Braait. I seems that mid te ne laval za the present Sir Walter meant to have used Napeleon's pistols, taken from his coach arter Waterion (Loekimart, ix 154; Journal, ii. 26). (4) p. ISL. ~ He had never seen so many books together." The books were the bequest of Colonel Mannering's uncle, the bishop who, we are told, had left Mannering only “his blessing, his manuscript sermons, and a curious portfolio containing the heads of eminent divines of the Church of Englandi" (chap. xii.). Such a slip in Homer would be taken to imply a plurality of authors. (9) p. 1-2. That weight of wood, with leathern coat o'erlaid." From Dr. Ferriar's Bibliomania" (London, 1809). (p) p. 197. "Tam Hudson. The real name of this veteran sportsman is now restored." The name as originally written was Jamie Grieve. (4) p. 222. The "maud, or a gray shepherd's-plaid.” A lament on the introduction of the Lowland maud into the Highlands, and the disuse of the tartan, may be found by the curious in the "Vestiarium Scoticum," by John Sobieski Stuart, 1843. The preface also contains a defence of the theory that the Lowland clans had at the time worn tartans. Scott was not inclined to believe this (Journal, ii. 297). (r) p. 225. "The Pychely Hunt." Properly spelled "Pytchley." |
