“She crossed him thrice that lady bold:
He rose beneath her hand,
The fairest knight on Scottish mould,
Her brother, Ethert Brand!”
A recent tradition gives a similar story, except in its unfortunate catastrophe, and is thus related by Dr. Patrick Graham in his “Sketches of Perthshire.”
The Rev. Robert Kirk, the first translator of the Psalms into Gaelic verse, had formerly been minister at Balquidder, and died minister of Aberfoyle, in 1688, at the early age of 42. His gravestone, which may be seen near the east end of the church of Aberfoyle, bears the inscription which is given underneath.[479] He was walking, it is said, one evening in his night-gown, upon the little eminence to the west of the present manse, which is still reckoned a Dun-shi’. He fell down dead, as was believed; but this was not his fate:—
“It was between the night and day,
When the fairy king has power,
That he sunk down (but not) in sinful fray,
And, ’twixt life and death, was snatched away,