591. Snowdoun. An old name of Stirling Castle. See vi. 789below.
592. Lord of a barren heritage. "By the misfortunes of the earlier Jameses, and the internal feuds of the Scottish chiefs, the kingly power had become little more than a name. Each chief was a petty king in his own district, and gave just so much obedience to the king's authority as suited his convenience"(Taylor).
596. Wot. Knows; the present of the obsolete wit (the infinitive to wit is still use in legal forms), not of weet, as generally stated. See Matzner, Eng. Gram. i. 382. Cf.
Shakespeare, Rich. III. ii. 3. 18: "No, no, good friends, God wot." He also uses wots (as in Hen. V. iv. 1. 299) and a participle wotting (in W. T. iii. 2. 77).
602. Require. Request, ask; as in Elizanethan English. Cf.
Shakespeare, Hen. VIII. ii. 4. 144: "In humblest manner I require your highness," etc.
603. The elder lady's mien. The MS. has "the mother's easy mien."606. Ellen, though more, etc. The MS. reads:
"Ellen, though more her looks betrayed The simple heart of mountain maid, In speech and gesture, form and grace, Showed she was come of gentle race;'T was strange, in birth so rude, to find Such face, such manners, and such mind.
Each anxious hint the stranger gave, The mother heard with silence grave."616. Weird women we, etc. See on 35 above. Weird here =skilled in witchcraft; like the "weird sisters" of Macbeth. Down = hill (the Gaelic dun).
622. A harp unseen. Scott has the following note here: "'"They [the Highlanders] delight much in musicke, but chiefly in harps and clairschoes of their own fashion. The strings of the clairschoes are made of brasse wire, and the strings of the harps of sinews; which strings they strike either with their nayles, growing long, or else with an instrument appointed for that use.
They take great pleasure to decke their harps and clairschoes with silver and precious stones; the poore ones that cannot attayne hereunto, decke them with christall. They sing verses prettily compound, contayning (for the most part) prayses of valiant men. There is not almost any other argument, whereof their rhymes intreat. They speak the ancient French language, altered a little."[FN#6]([FN#6] Vide Certayne Matters concerning the Realme of Scotland, etc., as they were Anno Domini 1597. London, 1603.)
'The harp and chairschoes are now only heard of in the Highlands in ancient song. At what period these instruments ceased to be used, is not on record; and tradition is silent on this head.
But, as Irish harpers occasionally visited the Highlands and Western Isles till lately, the harp might have been extant so late as the middle of the present century. Thus far we know, that from remote times down to the present, harpers were received as welcome guests, particularly in the Highlands of Scotland; and so late as the latter end of the sixteenth century, as appears by the above quotations, the harp was in common use among the natives of the Western Isles. How it happened that the noisy and inharmonious bagpipe banished the soft and expressive harp, we cannot say; but certain it is, that the bagpipe is now the only instrument that obtains universally in the Highland districts'
(Campbell's Journey through North Britain. London, 1808, 4to, i.
175).
"Mr. Gunn, of Edinburgh, has lately published a curious Essay upon the Harp and Harp Music of the Highlands of Scotland. That the instrument was once in common use there, is most certain.
Cleland numbers an acquaintance with it among the few accomplishments which his satire allows to the Highlanders:--'In nothing they're accounted sharp, Except in bagpipe or in harm.'"624. Soldier, rest! etc. The metre of this song is trochaic;that is, the accents fall regularly on the odd syllables.
631. In slumber dewing. That is, bedewing. For the metaphor, cf. Shakespeare, Rich. III. iv. 1. 84: "the golden dew of sleep;"and J. C. ii. 1. 230: "the honey-heavy dew of slumber."635. Morn of toil, etc. The MS. has "noon of hunger, night of waking;" and in the next line, "rouse" for reach.
638. Pibroch. "A Highland air, suited to the particular passion which the musician would either excite or assuage; generally applied to those airs that are played on the bagpipe before the Highlanders when they go out to battle" (Jamieson). Here it is put for the bagpipe itself. See also on ii. 363 below.
642. And the bittern sound his drum. Goldsmith (D. V. 44) calls the bird "the hollow-sounding bittern;" and in his Animated Nature, he says that of all the notes of waterfowl "there is none so dismally hollow as the booming of the bittern."648. She paused, etc. The MS. has "She paused--but waked again the lay."655. The MS. reads: "Slumber sweet our spells shall deal ye;"and in 657:
"Let our slumbrous spells| avail ye | beguile ye."657. Reveille. The call to rouse troops or huntsmen in the morning.
669. Forest sports. The MS. has "mountain chase."672. Not Ellens' spell. That is, not even Ellen's spell. On the passage, cf. Rokeby, i. 2:
"Sleep came at length, but with a train Of feelings true and fancies vain, Mingling, in wild disorder cast, The expected future with the past."693. Or is it all a vision now? Lockhart quotes here Thomson's Castle of Indolence:
"Ye guardian spirits, to whom man is dear, From these foul demons shield the midnight gloom:
Angels of fancy and love, be near.
And o'er the blank of sleep diffuse a bloom:
Evoke the sacred shades of Greece and Rome, And let them virtue with a look impart;But chief, awhile, O! lend us from the tomb Those long-lost friends for whom in love we smart, and fill with pious awe and joy-mixt woe the heart.
"Or are you sportive?--bid the morn of youth Rise to new light, and beam afresh the days Of innocence, simplicity, and truth;To cares estranged, and manhood's thorny ways.
