NOTES
ON
GLENFINLAS.
Well can the Saxon widows tell.—P. [306]. v. 2.
The term Sassenach, or Saxon, is applied by the Highlanders to their low-country neighbours.
How blazed Lord Ronald's beltane-tree.—P. [306]. v. 3.
The fires lighted by the Highlanders on the first of May, in compliance with a custom derived from the Pagan times, are termed, The Beltane-Tree. It is a festival celebrated with various superstitious rites, both in the north of Scotland and in Wales.
The seer's prophetic spirit found, &c.—P. [307]. v. 1.
I can only describe the second sight, by adopting Dr Johnson's definition, who calls it "An impression, either by the mind upon the eye, or by the eye upon the mind, by which things distant and future are perceived and seen as if they were present." To which I would only add, that the spectral appearances, thus presented, usually presage misfortune; that the faculty is painful to those who suppose they possess it; and that they usually acquire it, while themselves under the pressure of melancholy.
Will good St Oran's rule prevail.—P. [310]. v. 1.
St Oran was a friend and follower of St Columba, and was buried in Icolmkill. His pretensions to be a saint were rather dubious. According to the legend, he consented to be buried alive, in order to propitiate certain dæmons of the soil, who obstructed the attempts of Columba to build a chapel. Columba caused the body of his friend to be dug up, after three days had elapsed; when Oran, to the horror and scandal of the assistants, declared, that there was neither a God, a judgment, nor a future state! He had no time to make further discoveries, for Columba caused the earth once more to be shovelled over him with the utmost dispatch. The chapel, however, and the cemetery, was called Reilig Ouran; and, in memory of his rigid celibacy, no female was permitted to pay her devotions, or be buried, in that place. This is the rule alluded to in the poem.