[ [194] Accounts, p. 299.
[ [195] Ane Dialog betuix Experience and ane Courteour, ll. 2661, et seq.
[ [196] Ibid., l. 2665.
[ [197] Ibid., ll. 2690-2.
[ [198] "In these tymes there was besyde Mussilburgh, St. Allarit's chapell, and in these tymes of ignorance and superstition, it was believed that if women that were in hard labour did sent ane offering to the Preist and Freirs there, they wold get easy delyverance."—History of the Regality of Musselburgh, p. 101.
[ [199] Calderwood, History of the Kirk of Scotland, vol. i, pp. 101-2. Another and less prejudiced account of this John Scott is given by Peder Swave, who visited Scotland in 1535, as Ambassador from Christian II of Denmark to James V: "On the 11th of May I met with a hermit, named John Scott, a person of noble rank, who had quitted a beautiful wife, and children, and all his household, and determined to live by himself in solitude. He ate nothing but bread, and drank nothing save water or milk. He is believed to have endured a fast of forty days and nights in Scotland, England, and Italy. He also says that, when impelled by a higher power, he could not perish by fasting, as by the kindness of the Holy Virgin he has already been able to prove; if he should wish to do this by way of wager or bargain, that he would fail. He declares that he has no sensation of hunger when he fasts, that he loses neither his strength nor his flesh, feels neither heat nor cold, goes about with head and feet naked equally in summer and winter, and that his manner of life does not induce the approaches of age. Asked by me why he left such a beautiful wife, he replied that he wished to be a soldier of Heaven, and that whether his wife determined to serve God or the world was a matter of indifference to him. By chance there was amongst us a canon regular who said that he had been asked by the hermit's wife to reconcile them, but had taken the task upon him to no purpose."—Hume Brown, Early Travellers in Scotland, p. 56.
[ [200] Row, History of the Kirk of Scotland, Woodrow Society's edition.
[ [201] History of the Regality of Musselburgh, p. 106.
—THE ISLE OF MAY—
[ [202] Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. iii, p. 84.