(a) p. xxix. “There came a ghost to Margaret’s door.” In some versions of “Clerk Saunders” the lady’s troth is “streeked” on a rod of glass, and so she and the ghost are freed from their plighted love.(b) p. 15. “Scat, wattle, hawkhen, hagalef.” Different kinds of duties exacted in Zetland.(c) p. 18. “Berserkars.” Apparently there was a time when these formidable persons were merely champion warriors, a kind of professional soldiery. In the “Raven Song,” an old Norse lay, the Valkyrie asks the Raven about Harold Fair Hair’s Bearsarks. “Wolfcoats they call them, that bear bloody targets in battle, that redden their spear heads when they come into fight, when they are at work together. The wise king, I trow, will only reward men of high renown among them that smite on the shield.” Later, perhaps, the Bearsarks won their evil reputation, as ravening maniacs of battle, given to biting their shields and behaving in an hysterical manner. In such sagas as that of Grettir they are violent bullies, sometimes selling their services. (See Powell and Vigfussen’s “Corpus Boreale,” i. 257.)(d) p. 27. Motto. The second verse is not part of the original ballad, which was altered by Allan Ramsay.(e) p. 39. “Bolts and bars in Scotland.” There are still places so innocent—in Galloway, at least—that doors and windows may be, and are, left open all night.(f) p. 45. “Deilbelicket.” This is the name of an old Scotch dish, of which goose and gooseberries are component parts. The recipe occurs in Gait’s “Ayrshire Legatees.”(g) p. 46. “James Guthrie.” An account of this martyr of the Covenant will be found in the Editor’s Notes to “Old Mortality.”(h) p. 151. “Lucas Jacobson Debes.” “Foeroae et Foeroa Reserata. A description of the Isles and inhabitants of Faeroe, Englished by John Sterpin,” 12mo, London 1676, Abbotsford Library.(i) p. 173. “Multures—lock, gowpen, and knaveship.” Feudal and other dues on corn ground at the laird’s mill.(k) p. 231. “The wilds of Strathnavern.” Montrose met his final defeat at Strathoykel, at a steep rounded hill, still called the Rock of Lament. His men were driven into the Kyle, which there is deep and wide. Montrose fled up the Oykel, into Assynt. The Naver flows due north, the Oykel from west to east.(l) p. 234. Sword Dance. Scott can hardly have escaped being familiar with the degradation of this dance as played at Christmas by the Guizards. They are lads who go round acting and dancing in kitchens. Their songs may be found in Chambers’s “Popular Rhymes of Scotland.” Guizards performed at the Folk-Lore Congress in London 1891.(m) p. 257. “The battue in Ettrick Forest, for the destruction of the foxes.” This ceased when the Duke of Buccleugh hunted the district, but foxes are still shot in the inaccessible heights of Meggat Water.(n) p. 261. Sharing the whale. An account of a battle for a stranded whale may be read in the Saga of Grettir, translated by Mr. Morris and Mr. Magnussen.(o) p. 279. For ?efe???e??ta ?e?? read ?efe???e??ta ?e??.(p) p. 299. “That wonderful carbuncle.” This must be the origin of Hawthorne’s tale “The Great Carbuncle.”

Andrew Lang.

August 1893.