Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border Volume Ii Part 8

But chiefly in Italy were traced many dim characters of ancient mythology, in the creed of tradition. Thus, so lately as 1536, Vulcan, with twenty of his Cyclops, is stated to have presented himself suddenly to a Spanish merchant, travelling in the night, through the forests of Sicily; an apparition, which was followed by a dreadful eruption of Mount Aetna.--_Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels,_ p. 504 Of this singular mixture, the reader will find a curious specimen in the following tale, wherein the Venus of antiquity a.s.sumes the manners of one of the Fays, or Fatae, of romance. "In the year 1058, a young man of n.o.ble birth had been married at Rome, and, during the period of his nuptial feast, having gone with his companions to play at ball, he put his marriage ring on the finger of a broken statue of Venus in the area, to remain, while he was engaged in the recreation. Desisting from the exercise, he found the finger, on which he had put his ring, contracted firmly against the palm, and attempted in vain either to break it, or to disengage his ring. He concealed the circ.u.mstance from his companions, and returned at night with a servant, when he found the finger extended, and his ring gone. He dissembled the loss, and returned to his wife; but, whenever he attempted to embrace her, he found himself prevented by something dark and dense, which was tangible, though not visible, interposing between them; and he heard a voice saying, 'Embrace me! for I am Venus, whom this day you wedded, and I will not restore your ring.'

As this was constantly repeated, he consulted his relations, who had recourse to Palumbus, a priest, skilled in necromancy. He directed the young man to go, at a certain hour of night, to a spot among the ruins of ancient Rome, where four roads met, and wait silently till he saw a company pa.s.s by, and then, without uttering a word, to deliver a letter, which he gave him, to a majestic being, who rode in a chariot, after the rest of the company. The young man did as he was directed; and saw a company of all ages, s.e.xes, and ranks, on horse and on foot, some joyful and others sad, pa.s.s along; among whom he distinguished a woman in a meretricious dress, who, from the tenuity of her garments, seemed almost naked. She rode on a mule; her long hair, which flowed over her shoulders, was bound with a golden fillet; and in her hand was a golden rod, with which she directed her mule. In the close of the procession, a tall majestic figure appeared in a chariot, adorned with emeralds and pearls, who fiercely asked the young man, 'What he did there?' He presented the letter in silence, which the daemon dared not refuse.

As soon as he had read, lifting up his hands to heaven, he exclaimed, 'Almighty G.o.d! how long wilt thou endure the iniquities of the sorcerer Palumbus!' and immediately dispatched some of his attendants, who, with much difficulty, extorted the ring from Venus, and restored it to its owner, whose infernal banns were thus dissolved."--FORDUNI _Scotichronicon,_ Vol. I. p. 407, _cura_ GOODALL.

But it is rather in the cla.s.sical character of an infernal deity, that the elfin queen may be considered, than as _Hecate_, the patroness of magic; for not only in the romance writers, but even in Chaucer, are the Fairies identified with the ancient inhabitants of the cla.s.sical h.e.l.l.

Thus Chaucer, in his _Marchand's Tale_, mentions

Pluto that is king of fayrie--and Proserpine and all her fayrie.

In the _Golden Terge_ of Dunbar, the same phraseology is adopted: Thus,

Thair was Pluto that elricke incubus In cloke of grene, his court usit in sable.

Even so late as 1602, in Ha.r.s.enet's _Declaration of Popish Imposture,_ p. 57, Mercury is called _Prince of the Fairies._

But Chaucer, and those poets who have adopted his phraseology, have only followed the romance writers; for the same subst.i.tution occurs in the romance of _Orfeo and Heurodis_, in which the story of Orpheus and Eurydice is transformed into a beautiful romantic tale of faery, and the Gothic mythology engrafted on the fables of Greece. _Heurodis_ is represented as wife of _Orfeo_, and queen of Winchester, the ancient name of which city the romancer, with unparalleled ingenuity, discovers to have been Traciens, or Thrace. The monarch, her husband, had a singular genealogy:

His fader was comen of King Pluto, And his moder of King Juno; That sum time were as G.o.des y-holde, For aventours that thai dede and tolde.

Reposing, unwarily, at noon, under the shade of an ymp tree,[A]

_Heurodis_ dreams that she is accosted by the King of Fairies,

With an hundred knights and mo, And damisels an hundred also, Al on snowe white stedes; As white as milke were her wedes; Y no seigh never yete bifore, So fair creatours y-core: The kinge hadde a croun on hed, It nas of silver, no of golde red, Ac it was of a precious ston: As bright as the sonne it schon.

[Footnote A: _Ymp tree_--According to the general acceptation, this only signifies a grafted tree; whether it should he here understood to mean a tree consecrated to the imps, or fairies, is left with the reader.]

The King of Fairies, who had obtained power over the queen, perhaps from her sleeping at noon in his domain, orders her, under the penalty of being torn to pieces, to await him to-morrow under the ymp tree, and accompany him to Fairy-Land. She relates her dream to her husband, who resolves to accompany her, and attempt her rescue:

A morwe the under tide is come, And Orfeo hath his armes y-nome, And wele ten hundred knights with him, Ich y-armed stout and grim; And with the quen wenten he, Right upon that ympe tre.

Thai made scheltrom in iche aside, And sayd thai wold there abide, And dye ther everichon, Er the qeun schuld fram hem gon: Ac yete amiddes hem ful right, The quen was oway y-twight, With Fairi forth y-nome, Men wizt never wher sche was become.

After this fatal catastrophe, _Orfeo_, distracted for the loss of his queen, abandons his throne, and, with his harp, retires into a wilderness, where he subjects himself to every kind of austerity, and attracts the wild beasts by the pathetic melody of his harp. His state of desolation is poetically described:

He that werd the fowe and griis, And on bed the purpur biis, Now on bard hethe he lith.

With leves and gresse he him writh: He that had castells and tours, Rivers, forests, frith with flowrs.

Now thei it commence to snewe and freze, This king mot make his bed in mese: He that had y-had knightes of priis, Bifore him kneland and leuedis, Now seth he no thing that him liketh, Bot wild wormes bi him striketh: He that had y-had plente Of mete and drinke, of ich deynte, Now may he al daye digge and wrote, Er he find his fille of rote.

In sorner he liveth bi wild fruit, And verien hot G.o.de lite.

In winter may he no thing find, Bot rotes, grases, and the rinde.

His here of his herd blac and rowe, To his girdel stede was growe; His harp, whereon was al his gle, He hidde in are holwe tre: And, when the weder was clere and bright, He toke his harpe to him wel right, And harped at his owen will, Into al the wode the soun gan s.h.i.+ll, That al the wild bestes that ther beth For joie abouten him thai teth; And al the foules that ther wer, Come and sete on ich a brere, To here his harping a fine, So miche melody was therein.

At last he discovers, that he is not the sole inhabitant of this desart; for

He might se him besides Oft in hot undertides, The king of Fairi, with his route, Come to hunt him al about, With dim cri and bloweing, And houndes also with him berking; Ac no best thai no nome, No never he nist whider thai bi come.

And other while he might hem se As a gret ost bi him te, Well atourued ten hundred knightes, Ich y-armed to his rightes, Of c.u.n.tenance stout and fers, With mani desplaid baners; And ich his sword y-drawe hold, Ac never he nist whider thai wold.

And otherwhile he seighe other thing; Knightis and lenedis com daunceing, In queynt atire gisely, Queyete pas and softlie: Tabours and trumpes gede hem bi, And al mauer menstraci.-- And on a day he seighe him biside, s.e.xti leuedis on hors ride, Gentil and jolif as brid on ris; Nought o man amonges hem ther nis; And ich a faucoun on bond bere, And riden on hauken bi o river.

Of game thai found wel G.o.de haunt, Maulardes, hayroun, and cormoraunt; The foules of the water ariseth, Ich faucoun hem wele deviseth, Ich fancoun his pray slough, That seize Orfeo and lough.

"Par fay," quoth he, "there is fair game, "Hider Ichil bi G.o.des name, "Ich was y won swich work to se:"

He aros, and thider gan te; To a leuedie hi was y-come, Bihelde, and hath wel under nome, And seth, bi al thing, that is His owen quen, dam Heurodis; Gern hi biheld her, and sche him eke, Ac nouther to other a word no speke: For messais that sche on him seighe, That had ben so riche and so heighe, The teres fel out of her eighe; The other leuedis this y seighe, And maked hir oway to ride, Sche most with him no longer obide.

"Allas!" quoth he, "nowe is mi woe, "Whi nil deth now me slo; "Allas! to long last mi liif, "When y no dare nought with mi wif, "Nor hye to me o word speke; "Allas whi nil miin hert breke!

"Par fay," quoth he, "tide what betide, "Whider so this leuedis ride, "The selve way Ichil streche; "Of liif, no dethe, me no reche.

In consequence, therefore, of this discovery _Orfeo_ pursues the hawking damsels, among whom he has descried his lost queen. They enter a rock, the king continues the pursuit, and arrives at Fairy-Land, of which the following very poetical description is given:

In at roche the leuedis rideth, And he after and nought abideth; When he was in the roche y-go, Wele thre mile other mo, He com into a fair c.u.n.tray, As bright soonne somers day, Smothe and plain and al grene, Hill no dale nas none ysene, Amiddle the loud a castel he seighe, Rich and reale and wonder heighe; Al the utmast wal Was cler and schine of cristal; An hundred tours ther were about, Degiselich and bataild stout; The butra.s.s come out of the diche, Of rede gold y-arched riche; The bousour was anowed al, Of ich maner deuers animal; Within ther wer wide wones Al of precious stones, The werss piler onto biholde, Was al of burnist gold: Al that loud was ever light, For when it schuld be therk and night, The riche stonnes light gonne, Bright as doth at nonne the sonne No man may tel, no thenke in thought.

The riche werk that ther was rought.

Than he gan biholde about al, And seighe ful liggeand with in the wal, Of folk that wer thidder y-brought, And thought dede and nere nought; Sum stode with outen hadde; And some none armes nade; And sum thurch the bodi hadde wounde; And sum lay wode y-bounde; And sum armed on hors sete; And sum astrangled as thai ete; And sum war in water adreynt; And sum with fire al for schreynt; Wives ther lay on childe bedde; Sum dede, and sum awedde; And wonder fere ther lay besides, Right as thai slepe her undertides; Eche was thus in this warld y-nome, With fairi thider y-come.[A]

There he seize his owhen wiif, Dame Heurodis, his liif liif, Slepe under an ympe tree: Bi her clothes he knewe that it was he, And when he had bihold this mervalis alle, He went into the kinges halle; Then seigh he there a semly sight, A tabernacle blisseful and bright; Ther in her maister king sete, And her quen fair and swete; Her crounes, her clothes schine so bright, That unnethe bihold he hem might.

_Orfeo and Heurodis, MS._

[Footnote A: It was perhaps from such a description that Ariosto adopted his idea of the Lunar Paradise, containing every thing that on earth was stolen or lost.]

_Orfeo_, as a minstrel, so charms the Fairy King with the music of his harp, that he promises to grant him whatever he should ask. He immediately demands his lost _Heurodis_; and, returning safely with her to Winchester, resumes his authority; a catastrophe, less pathetic indeed, but more pleasing, than that of the cla.s.sical story. The circ.u.mstances, mentioned in this romantic legend, correspond very exactly with popular tradition. Almost all the writers on daemonology mention, as a received opinion that the power of the daemons is most predominant at noon and midnight. The entrance to the Land of Faery is placed in the wilderness; a circ.u.mstance, which coincides with a pa.s.sage in Lindsay's _Complaint of the Papingo:_

Bot sen my spreit mon from my bodye go, I recommend it to the queue of Fary, Eternally into her court to tarry In _wilderness_ amang the holtis hair.

LINDSAY'S _Works_, 1592, p. 222.

Chaucer also agrees, in this particular, with our romancer:

In his sadel he clombe anon, And priked over stile and ston, An elf quene for to espie; Til he so long had riden and gone That he fond in a privie wone The countree of Faerie.

Wherein he soughte north and south, And often spired with his mouth, In many a foreste wilde; For in that countree nas ther non, That to him dorst ride or gon, Neither wif ne childe.

_Rime of Sir Thopas._

V. Other two causes, deeply affecting the superst.i.tion of which we treat, remain yet to be noticed. The first is derived from the Christian religion, which admits only of two cla.s.ses of spirits, exclusive of the souls of men--Angels, namely, and Devils. This doctrine had a necessary tendency to abolish the distinction among subordinate spirits, which had been introduced by the superst.i.tions of the Scandinavians. The existence of the Fairies was readily admitted; but, as they had no pretensions to the angelic character, they were deemed to be of infernal origin. The union, also, which had been formed betwixt the elves and the Pagan deities, was probably of disservice to the former; since every one knows, that the whole synod of Olympus were accounted daemons.

The fulminations of the church were, therefore, early directed against those, who consulted or consorted with the Fairies; and, according to the inquisitorial logic, the innocuous choristers of Oberon and t.i.tania were, without remorse, confounded with the sable inhabitants of the orthodox Gehennim; while the rings, which marked their revels, were a.s.similated to the blasted sward on which the witches held their infernal sabbath.--_Delrii Disq. Mag._ p. 179. This transformation early took place; for, among the many crimes for which the famous Joan of Arc was called upon to answer, it was not the least heinous, that she had frequented the Tree and Fountain, near Dompre, which formed the rendezvous of the Fairies, and bore their name; that she had joined in the festive dance with the elves, who haunted this charmed spot; had accepted of their magical bouquets, and availed herself of their talismans, for the delivery of her country.--_Vide Acta Judiciaria contra Johannam D'Arceam, vulgo vocutam Johanne la Pucelle._

The Reformation swept away many of the corruptions of the church of Rome; but the purifying torrent remained itself somewhat tinctured by the superst.i.tious impurities of the soil over which it had pa.s.sed. The trials of sorcerers and witches, which disgrace our criminal records, become even more frequent after the Reformation of the church; as if human credulity, no longer amused by the miracles of Rome, had sought for food in the traditionary records of popular superst.i.tion. A Judaical observation of the precepts of the Old Testament also characterized the Presbyterian reformers. _"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,"_ was a text, which at once (as they conceived) authorized their belief in sorcery, and sanctioned the penalty which they denounced against it. The Fairies were, therefore, in no better credit after the Reformation than before, being still regarded as actual daemons, or something very little better. A famous divine, Doctor Jasper Brokeman, teaches us, in his system of divinity, "that they inhabit in those places that are polluted with any crying sin, as effusion of blood, or where unbelief or superst.i.tione have gotten the upper hand."--_Description of Feroe._ The Fairies being on such bad terms with the divines, those, who pretended to intercourse with them, were, without scruple, punished as sorcerers; and such absurd charges are frequently stated as exaggerations of crimes, in themselves sufficiently heinous.

Such is the case in the trial of the noted Major Weir, and his sister; where the following mummery interlards a criminal indictment, too infamously flagitious to be farther detailed: "9th April, 1670. Jean Weir, indicted of sorceries, committed by her when she lived and kept a school at Dalkeith: that she took employment from a woman, to speak in her behalf to the _Queen of Fairii, meaning the Devil_; and that another woman gave her a piece of a tree, or root, the next day, and did tell her, that as long as she kept the same, she should be able to do what she pleased; and that same woman, from whom she got the tree, caused her spread a cloth before her door, and set her foot upon it, and to repeat thrice, in the posture foresaid, these words, _'All her losses and crosses go alongst to the doors,'_ which was truly a consulting with the devil, and an act of sorcery, &c. That after the spirit, in the shape of a woman, who gave her the piece of tree, had removed, she, addressing herself to spinning, and having spun but a short time, found more yarn upon the pirn than could possibly have come there by good means."[A]--_Books of Adjournal._

[Footnote A: It is observed in the record, that Major Weir, a man of the most vicious character, was at the same time ambitious of appearing eminently G.o.dly; and used to frequent the beds of sick persons, to a.s.sist them with his prayers. On such occasions, he put to his mouth a long staff, which he usually carried, and expressed himself with uncommon energy and fluency, of which he was utterly incapable when the inspiring rod was withdrawn. This circ.u.mstance, the result, probably, of a trick or habit, appearing suspicious to the judges, the staff of the sorcerer was burned along with his person. One hundred and thirty years have elapsed since his execution, yet no one has, during that s.p.a.ce, ventured to inhabit the house of this celebrated criminal.]

Neither was the judgment of the criminal court of Scotland less severe against another familiar of the Fairies, whose supposed correspondence with the court of Elfland seems to have const.i.tuted the sole crime, for which she was burned alive. Her name was Alison Pearson, and she seems to have been a very noted person. In a bitter satire against Adamson, Bishop of St Andrews, he is accused of consulting with sorcerers, particularly with this very woman; and an account is given of her travelling through Breadalbane, in the company of the Queen of Faery, and of her descrying, in the court of Elfland, many persons, who had been supposed at rest in the peaceful grave.[A] Among these we find two remarkable personages; the secretary, young Maitland of Lethington, and one of the old lairds of Buccleuch. The cause of their being stationed in Elfland probably arose from the manner of their decease; which, being uncommon and violent, caused the vulgar to suppose that they had been abstracted by the Fairies. Lethington, as is generally supposed, died a Roman death during his imprisonment in Leith; and the Buccleuch, whom I believe to be here meant, was slain in a nocturnal scuffle by the Kerrs, his hereditary enemies. Besides, they were both attached to the cause of Queen Mary, and to the ancient religion; and were thence, probably, considered as more immediately obnoxious to the a.s.saults of the powers of darkness.[B] The indictment of Alison Pearson notices her intercourse with the Archbishop of St Andrews, and contains some particulars, worthy of notice, regarding the court of Elfland. It runs thus: "28th May, 1586. Alison Pearson, in Byrehill, convicted of witchcraft, and of consulting with evil spirits, in the form of one Mr William Simpsone, her cosin, who she affirmed was a gritt schollar, and doctor of medicine, that healed her of her diseases when she was twelve years of age; having lost the power of her syde, and having a familiaritie with him for divers years, dealing with charms, and abuseing the common people by her arts of witchcraft, thir divers years by-past.

[Footnote A:

For oght the kirk culd him forbid, He sped him sone, and gat the thrid; Ane carling of the quene of Phareis, That ewill win geir to elpliyne careis; Through all Brade Abane scho has bene, On horsbak on Hallow ewin; And ay in seiking certayne nightis, As scho sayis with sur silly wychirs: And names out nybours s.e.x or sewin, That we belevit had bene in heawin; Scho said scho saw theme weill aneugh, And speciallie gude auld Balcleuch, The secretar, and sundrie uther: Ane William Symsone, her mother brother, Whom fra scho has resavit a buike For ony herb scho likes to luke; It will instruct her how to tak it, In saws and sillubs how to mak it; With stones that meikle mair can doe, In leich craft, where scho lays them toe: A thousand maladeis scho hes mendit; Now being tane, and apprehendit, Scho being in the bischopis cure, And keipit in his castle sure, Without respect of worldlie glamer, He past into the witches chalmer.

_Scottish Poems of XVI. Century,_ Edin. 1801, Vol. II, p. 320.]

[Footnote B: Buccleuch was a violent enemy to the English, by whom his lands had been repeatedly plundered (See _Introduction,_ p. xxvi), and a great advocate for the marriage betwixt Mary and the dauphin, 1549.

According to John Knox, he had recourse even to threats, in urging the parliament to agree to the French match. "The laird of Buccleuch," says the Reformer, "a b.l.o.o.d.y man, with many G.o.ds wounds, swore, they that would not consent should do worse."]

"_Item,_ For banting and repairing with the gude neighbours, and queene of Elfland, thir divers years by-past, as she had confest; and that she had friends in that court, which were of her own blude, who had gude acquaintance of the queene of Elfland, which might have helped her; but she was whiles well, and whiles ill, sometimes with them, a'nd other times away frae them; and that she would be in her bed haille and feire, and would not wytt where she would be the morn; and that she saw not the queene this seven years, and that she was seven years ill handled in the court of Elfland; that, however, she kad gude friends there, and that it was the gude neighbours that healed her, under G.o.d; and that she was comeing and going to St Andrews to haile folkes thir many years past.