For she heard the water-kelpie roaring.’
[193] Frequent reference has been made to the supposed power of fairies over unchristened children and their mothers. ‘Changelings’ were greatly feared. If a child developed a strong and uncontrollable temper there arose a suspicion that it was a ‘changeling,’ the meaning being that the fairies had slipped away the mother’s own child and substituted a little fiend in human form in its stead. It was believed that the best way to set the suspicion at rest was to submit the little unfortunate to the test of the fire. We have not, however, noticed any case where the test was actually carried out.
[194] The ‘mauken’s fit’ was particularly feared by the fishers on the east-coast of Scotland. Very recently, and it may be so still, it was sufficient to raise the ire of a fisher woman to wish she had a hare’s foot in her creel. The wish was regarded as equivalent to a malediction.
[195] That is, a maker of shallow baskets such as are used by fishers for carrying their fish.
[196] ‘Maids of honour,’ instead of ‘Maries,’ in the more recent editions. Jamieson, under the word ‘Maries,’ says:—‘The designation given to the maids of honour in Scotland.... This Queen [Mary Stuart] had four maids of honour, all of the name of Mary. There were Mary Livingston, Mary Fleming—Seaton, and—Beaton. Hence it has been supposed, that the name passed into a general denomination for female attendants.... From analogy, I am much inclined to think that the term is far more ancient than the period referred to. For we learn from Lye [Dictionarium Saxonico et Gothico-Latinum], that the O. E. [Old English] called the queen’s maids, the Queen’s Meys. Hence it is highly probable that our term Marie is an official designation, and allied to Isl. [Icelandic] maer, a maid, a virgin.... Thus the Queen’s Maries, a phrase still common among the vulgar, may be exactly synonymous with the Queen’s Maids.’
[197] This story is not given in Randall’s edition; but it has been inserted here from the Falkirk 1799 edition. A similar story is told of ‘Tom Tram,’ an English chap-book hero, and of Sancho Panza, in Don Quixote.
[198] In the later editions the dispute is said to have arisen about ‘education,’ not ‘religion,’ and it is stated of George that ‘he blanked the bishop remarkably.’ While this story undoubtedly presents an exaggerated picture of the educational virtues of Scotland, it must be remembered that owing to the system of parochial schools instituted by Knox the lower classes in Scotland had facilities for instruction, especially in the classics, which the otherwise more favoured English people did not possess.
[199] A similar story will be found in Bacon’s Apothegms. See Essays and Historical Works, Bohn’s edition, p. 189.
[200] Properly ‘Kinbot.’ The law or custom is much older than the reign of James VI., as the story here indicates. Jamieson derives the word from Anglo-Saxon cin, kindred, and bot, compensation. The present editor, in his History of Glasgow, p. 114, gives an account of an interesting case which occurred in Glasgow in the sixteenth century.
[201] ‘One hundred crowns,’ in the later editions.