The prototype of Jeanie Deans was Helen Walker, to whose memory Sir W. Scott erected a tombstone in Irongray churchyard (Kirkcudbright).
Dean (Elder). Rigid and puritaincal church, official who brings a charge of heretical opinions and blacksliding against his pastor's wife in John Ward, Preacher, Margaret Deland (1888).
Death or Mors. So did Tennyson call Sir Ironside the Red Knight of the Red Lands, who kept Lyonors (for Lionês) captive in Castle Perilous. The name "Mors," which is Latin, is very inconsistent with a purely British tale, and of course does not appear in the original story.—Tennyson, Idylls ("Gareth and Lynette"); Sir T. Malory, History of Prince Arthur, i. 134-137 (1470).
Death from Strange Causes.
Æschylus was killed by the fall of a tortoise on his head from the claws of an eagle in the air.—Pliny, Hist. vii. 7.
Agath'ocles (4 syl.), tyrant of Sicily, was killed by a tooth-pick, at the age of 95.
Anacreon was choked by a grape stone.—Pliny, Hist. vii. 7.
Bassus (Q. Lucilius) died from the prick of a fine needle in his left thumb.
Chalchas, the soothsayer, died of laughter at the thought of his having outlived the time predicted for his death.
Charles VIII., conducting his queen into a tennis-court, struck his head against the lintel, and it caused his death.