‘Powbate, an ye break,
Tak’ the Moorfoot in yere gate;
Moorfoot and Mauldslie,
Huntlycote, a’ three,
Five kirks and an Abbacie!’ ”
In explanation of this prophecy Chambers remarks: “Moorfoot, Mauldslie, and Huntlycote are farm-towns in the immediate neighbourhood of the hill. The kirks are understood to have been those of Temple, Carrington, Borthwick, Cockpen, and Dalkeith; and the abbacy was that of Newbottle, the destruction of which, however, has been anticipated by another enemy.”
The Scottish imagination, in attributing wonderful properties to springs, has not gone the length of ascribing to any the power possessed by St. Ludvan’s Well in Cornwall. This fountain has been already referred to as the giver of increased sight. But it had the still more marvellous power of preventing any one baptised with its water from being hanged by a hempen rope. Nor have we heard of any spring north of the Tweed that could be a match for another Cornish well, viz., that of St. Keyne, familiar to readers of Southey. Whoever, after marriage, first drank of its water would be the ruler of the house. On one occasion a bridegroom hurried to make sure of this right, but was chagrined to find that he had been anticipated: his bride had taken a bottleful of the water with her to church.