Even dragons had their lairs in Scotland, where the behavior of these monsters seems to have been the same as that noticed in their kind all over the world. Their appetites, for example, showed a similar eagerness for plump maidens. The Japanese and Korean stories of these creatures, which are conceived of as cosmic forces—an encyclopædia of all the powers of offence and destruction with which nature has furnished animals—intimate that their digestion was much improved by a diet of lovely girls. Now at Kinnoul Hill, not far from Dundee, in the face of the precipice, is a small cave popularly called “The Dragon’s Hole.” Here in early times—dragons always lived in ancient times only—dwelt a scaly monster, who kept the country in continual terror, because neither fish nor cattle, nor old women, nor indigestible males, but only tender virgins suited his alimentary canal. It was when they were young and pretty that the damsels were particularly desirable and digestible. Dragging them off to his den, the monster enjoyed his meals with the leisure of a gentleman. Yet, however pure and spiritually minded, the young women themselves could not break the spell of the destroyer. Only holy monks had such desirable power. One shaveling monk made a specialty of prayer and charms, and after a terrible conflict slew the dragon—much to the relief of parents who had charming daughters.
In another place I saw an artificial ruin, constructed about a century ago, but now so completely overgrown with ivy that ages seemed to have passed over it, so that one might imagine that romance must linger in its stones. When first seeing this hoary pile, I was tempted to unfold the pinions of fancy and imagination for a long flight; when, suddenly, I remembered the poem by Eugene Field. He tells us, in his mellifluous verse, how when in Amsterdam of the Netherlands, he saw an imposing piece of furniture which fired his imagination. It was a bedstead, of remarkably feudalistic and baronial suggestion. Field pictured to himself the ancient castle in which that bedstead, “seat of rapture, seat of pain,” had stood. He saw in perspective of fancy the richly robed lords and ladies, that had sought repose upon it. The dreams that they dreamed, in the days of falconry and cavalcades, of tournaments and cloth of gold, must have been as brilliant as his own. Yet, before paying the purchase price, the western poet glanced at the back of the headboard and read the words, “Made in Grand Rapids, Michigan.” “One touch of nature,” etc.
CHAPTER IX
THE GLAMOUR OF MACBETH
What a delightful thing it is to be first enthralled with a drama, romance, or poem, and then to enjoy a topographical appendix, in the form of a ramble over the ground—where it never happened!
In Scotland there was once a Macbeth MacFinleigh, King of Scotland for seventeen years, stout fighter, patron of the Culdees, and pilgrim to Rome. He appears to have had all the accomplishments of royalty, piety, belligerency, and whatever seemed necessary for an eleventh-century man in power. In a word, he was in harmony with his age and environment and did what was expected of him.
Not much is known of this Macbeth, but details of reality are never necessary to literary immortality. Did not our own Irving, out of three lines and a half of record, which concerned only one passing incident, construct the colossal figure of Anthony van Corlear, the trumpeter? And are not Anthony’s Nose, and Spuyten Duyvil, on the Hudson, monumental evidences, in rock and water, of the personality of the handsome fellow who broke the hearts of both Dutch and Yankee maidens?
Our old Dundee friend, Hector Boece (1465–1536), of King’s College, Aberdeen, who wrote that lovely work of fiction, entitled the “History of Scotland,” incorporated in his twelfth book what the old chronicler, John of Fordun, of the century before, had written; but with liberal decorations and embroideries. Boece, in turn, was utilized by that charming rambler through the past, Raphael Holinshed, whose illustrated volumes, as they fell from the press, were devoured by Shakespeare. Boece’s twelfth book, rich in fables, inventions, and delightfully baseless anecdotes, contains the very much expanded story of Macbeth. Except the murder of Duncan and the probable character of Lady Macbeth, Shakespeare’s drama scarcely touches history at more than two or three points. Yet all that a genius, like the bard of Avon, needs, is a small base-line of fact, whence to describe meridians of the immensities and infinities from airy nothings. There are realities of truth independent of place or time, and this Shakespeare knew.
Yet as, a half-century before the battle of Gettysburg, a visiting British officer saw the possibilities of the site, and exclaimed, “What a place for a battlefield,” so, fifty years or more before Shakespeare put “Macbeth” upon the boards, Buchanan had already pointed out the fitness of the legend for the stage.
After studying, lecturing upon, seeing “Macbeth” played by great actors, and meeting all sorts of cranks who theorized upon it, it was delightful, with some lively young folks, to visit Glamis, only a few miles from Dundee and now one of the finest baronial castles in Scotland. Such an imposing mass of towers, turrets, domes, and battlements! Glamis of old was a thanedom and a thane was an hereditary tenant of the king; that is, a feudal ruler. Macbeth, the thane of Glamis, held rank as earl. Not satisfied with even so high an honor, this vassal, Macbeth, murdered King Duncan and usurped his throne.
Why? Well, the chronicler says, “but specialie his wife lay sore upon him to attempt the thing as she that was verie ambitious, burning in an unquenchable desire to beare the name of a queen.” Unwilling to trust to the strength of the feudal stronghold of Glamis, this picturesque murderer of kings and of sleep, after the ruin wrought, went westward and built a fortress at Dunsinane Hill. He knew that his enemies, old and new, would soon rise up against him.