Giggleswick Fountain ebbs and flows eight times a day. The tale is that Giggleswick was once a nymph living with the Oreads on Mount Craven. A satyr chanced to see her, and resolved to win her; but Giggleswick fled to escape her pursuer, and praying to the “topic gods” (the local genii), was converted into a fountain, which still pants with fear. The tale is told by Drayton, in his Polyolbion, xxviii. (1622).
Gilbert, butler to Sir Patrick Charteris, provost of Perth.—Sir W. Scott, Fair Maid of Perth (time, Henry IV.).
Gilbert (Miss), an ambitious girl with a taste for literary celebrity. She writes one book which is a slight success, another which “takes.” Petted from her childhood, and spoiled by the tolerable measure of adulation she receives subsequently, she needs the discipline of mortification and schooling to tone her down to what an originally fine nature was designed to become. She becomes the happy wife of a self-made man who has done his work well.—Josiah Gilbert Holland, Miss Gilbert’s Career (1859).
Gilbert (Sir), noted for the sanative virtue of his sword and cere-cloth. Sir Launcelot touched the wounds of Sir Meliot with Sir Gilbert’s sword and wiped them with a cere-cloth, and “anon a wholer man was he never in all his life”—Sir T. Malory, History of Prince Arthur, i. 116 (1470).
Gilbert with the White Hand, one of the companions of Robin Hood, mentioned often in The Lyttell Geste of Robyn Hode (fytte v. and vii.).
Thair saw I Maitlaind upon auld Beird Gray
Robene Hude and Gilbert “with the quhite hand,”
Quhom Hay of Nauchton slew in Madin-land.
Scottish Poems, i. 122.
Gil´bertscleugh, cousin to Lady Margaret Bellenden.—Sir W. Scott, Old Mortality (time, Charles II.).