(fancy “nerves” in a ballad!)—
“Sir knight, Sir knight, a beauty bright
In durance waits for you.”
The ballad, written by M.G. Lewis, now describes in a painfully commonplace manner the knight’s further adventures. He and his guide wandered round and round and high and low in the maze of chambers within the castle, until at last a door of brass, whose bolt was a venomous snake, gave them entrance to a gloomy hall, draped in black, which the “hundred lights” failed to brighten. In the hall a hundred knights of “marble white” lay sleeping by their steeds of “marble black as the raven’s back.” At the end of the hall, guarded by two huge skeleton forms, the imprisoned lady was seen in tears within a crystal tomb. One skeleton held in his bony fingers a horn, the other a “falchion bright,” and the knight was told to choose between them, and the fate of himself and the lady would depend upon his choice. Sir Guy, after long hesitation, blew a shrill blast upon the horn; at the sound the hundred steeds stamped their hoofs, the hundred knights sprang up, and the unlucky knight fell down senseless, with his ghastly guide’s words ringing in his ears—
“Shame on the coward who sounded a horn
When he might have unsheathed a sword!”
In the morning, the unfortunate Sir Guy awoke to find himself lying amongst the ruins, and forthwith began his ceaseless and unavailing search for the lady he had failed to rescue.
The legend similar to this in many respects is that of King Arthur and his court at Sewingshields, to which allusion has already been made in the chapter on the Roman Wall. I cannot do better than give this in the words of Mr. Hodgson, who tells the story in his History of Northumberland. “Immemorial tradition has asserted that King Arthur, his queen Guenever, his court of lords and ladies, and his hounds were enchanted in some cave of the crags, or in a hall below the castle of Sewingshields, and would continue entranced there until someone should first blow a bugle-horn that lay on a table near the entrance of the hall, and then with the ‘sword of the stone’ (was this Excalibur?) cut a garter, also placed there beside it. But none had ever heard where the entrance to this enchanted hall was, till the farmer at Sewingshields, about fifty years since, was sitting knitting on the ruins of the castle, and his clew fell, and ran downwards through a rush of briars and nettles, as he supposed, into a subterraneous passage. Full in the faith that the entrance to King Arthur’s hall had now been discovered, he cleared the briary portal of its weeds and rubbish, and entering a vaulted passage, followed in his darkling way the thread of his clew. The floor was infested with toads and lizards; and the dark wings of bats, disturbed by his unhallowed intrusion, flitted fearfully around him. At length his sinking courage was strengthened by a dim, distant light, which as he advanced grew gradually brighter, till all at once he entered a vast and vaulted hall, in the centre of which a fire without fuel, from a broad crevice in the floor blazed with a high and lambent flame, that showed all the carved walls and fretted roof, and the monarch and his queen and court reposing around, in a theatre of thrones and costly couches. On the floor beyond the fire lay the faithful and deep-toned pack of thirty couple of hounds; and on a table before it the spell-dissolving horn, sword, and garter. The shepherd reverently, but firmly, grasped the sword, and as he drew it leisurely from its rusty scabbard, the eyes of the monarch and his courtiers began to open, and they rose till they sat upright. He cut the garter; and as the sword was being slowly sheathed the spell assumed its ancient power, and they all gradually sank to rest; but not before the monarch had lifted up his eyes and hands, and exclaimed—
“O woe betide that evil day
On which this witless wight was born,
Who drew the sword, the garter cut.
But never blew the bugle horn!”
Terror brought on loss of memory, and the shepherd was unable to give any correct account of his adventure, or to find again the entrance to the enchanted hall.
Another legend is connected with Tynemouth. Just above the short sands was a cave known as Jingling Geordie’s Hole; the “Geordie” is evidently a late interpolation, for earlier mention of the cave gives it as the Jingling Man’s Hole. No one knows how it came by its name; tradition says that it was the entrance to a subterranean passage leading from the Priory beneath the Tyne to Jarrow. In this cave it was said that a treasure of a fabulous amount was concealed, and the tale of this hoard fired a boy named Walter to seek it out, when he heard the tale from his mother. On his attaining to knighthood, he resolved to make the finding of the treasure his particular “quest,” and arming himself, he adventured forth on the Eve of St. John. Making his way fearlessly down into the cave, undaunted by spectre or dragon, as they attempted to dispute his passage, he arrived at a gloomy gateway, where hung a bugle, fastened by a golden cord. Boldly he placed the bugle to his lips, and blew three loud blasts. To his amazement, at the sound the doors rolled back, displaying a vast and brightly-lit hall, whose roof was supported on pillars of jasper and crystal; the glow from lamps of gold shone softly down on gold and gems, which were heaped upon the floor of this magic chamber, and the treasure became the rich reward of the dauntless youth.
“Gold heaped upon gold, and emeralds green,
And diamonds and rubies, and sapphires untold,
Rewarded the courage of Walter the Bold.”