“Juxta hoc marmor jacet Carolus Bligh, Gen.
Aldermanus et hujus municipii sæpius Prætor
Qui cum sibe satis, suis parum diu vixerat
Pietate plenus obiit A.D. 1716, Die 8bris 2do
Hunc jam Æternitatem inhians Iudith uxor 27 Maii
An. Dni.
1717mo secuta est.”
The Botathen Ghost story, as told by “the Rev. Mr. Ruddell” himself, occupies five pages of C. S. Gilbert’s “History Survey of Cornwall, 1817” (vol. i. pp. 115-119). Gilbert does not mention how he came by it. Hawker’s version is obviously a paraphrase of this, with some embellishments of his own.
APPENDIX J (p. [185])
MICHAEL SCOTT AND EILDON HILL
Michael Scott, the Wizard of the North, was a mediæval scientist around whose memory many traditions have gathered. Compare “The Lay of the Last Minstrel,” canto 2, stanza 13. The Monk speaks.
“In these far climes it was my lot
To meet the wondrous Michael Scott;
A wizard of such dreaded fame,
That when, in Salamanca’s cave,
Him listed his magic wand to wave,
The bells would ring in Notre Dame!
Some of his skill he taught to me,
And, warrior, I could say to thee
The words that cleft Eildon Hills in three,
And bridled the Tweed with a curb of stone:
But to speak them were a deadly sin;
And for having but thought them my heart within,
A treble penance must be done.”
In the note on this passage Sir Walter says—
“In the South of Scotland any work of great labour or antiquity is ascribed either to the agency of Auld Michael, of Sir William Wallace, or of the devil.”
Gilfillan tells an amusing anecdote that—
“when Sir Walter was in Italy he happened to remark to Mr. Cheney that it was mortifying to think how Dante thought none worth sending to hell except Italians, on which Mr. C. remarked that he of all men had no right to make this complaint, as his ancestor Michael is introduced in the ‘Inferno.’ This seemed to delight Scott.”