to frighten her from her resolution. The emotion of eeriness could scarcely be worked up with greater power than by this collocation of the "elritch" appearances which are to test the courage of fair Janet. The work of the ballad-singer here recalls the mixture of dread ingredients in the hell-broth of Macbeth's witches; or, more appropriately, the frightfully suggestive objects which Tam o' Shanter passed on his road from Ayr; or, perhaps more appropriately still, the combination of horrors ranged before his eyes in Alloway Kirk.

"The first company that passes by,

Say na, and let them gae;
The next company that passes by,
Say na, and do right sae;
The third company that passes by,
Then I'll be ane o' thae.

"First let pass the black, Janet,

And syne let pass the brown;
But grip ye to the milk-white steed,
And pu' the rider down.

"For I ride on the milk-white steed,
And aye nearest the town;
Because I was a christened knight,
They gave me that renown.

"My right hand will be gloved, Janet,
My left hand will be bare;
And these the tokens I gie thee,
Nae doubt I will be there.

"They'll turn me in your arms, Janet,
An adder and a snake;

But haud me fast, let me not pass,
Gin ye wad buy me maik.

"They'll turn me in your arms, Janet,
An adder and an ask;

They'll turn me in your arms, Janet,
A bale that burns fast.

"They'll turn me in your arms, Janet,
A red-hot gad o' airn;

But haud me fast, let me not pass,
For I'll do you no harm.

"First dip me in a stand o' milk,
And then in a stand o' water;
But haud me fast, let me not pass—
I'll be your bairn's father.

"And, next, they'll shape me in your arms
A tod, but and an eel;

But haud me fast, nor let me gang,

As you do love me weel.

They'll shape me in your arms, Janet,

A dove, but and a swan;

And last they'll shape me in your arms

A mother-naked man:

Cast your green mantle over me—
I'll be myself again."

Stories are related of others who attempted the achievement of fair Janet, but whose hearts quailed at the first sight of the unearthly procession; so that the whole fairy troop was allowed to pass, and vanish amid shouts of exultant laughter, mingled with the lamentations of

the unrecovered mortal.1 Happily, however, for Tamlane, the courage of his mistress was stout enough to conquer the elfin terrors by which it was assailed.

"

Gloomy, gloomy was the night,
And eery was the way,

As fair Janet, in her green mantle,
To Miles Cross she did gae.

"Betwixt the hours of twelve and one
A north wind tore the bent;

And straight she heard strange elritch sounds
Upon that wind which went.

"About the dead hour o' the night
She heard the bridles ring;
And Janet was as glad o' that.
As any earthly thing.

"Will o' the Wisp before them went,
Sent forth a twinkling light;
And soon she saw the fairy bands
All riding in her sight.

"And first gaed by the black, black steed,
And then gaed by the brown;

But fast she gript the milk-white steed,
And pu'd the rider down.

"She pu'd him frae the milk-white steed,
And loot the bridle fa';

And up there raise an erlish cry—

'He's won amang us a'!'"

1 See "Border Minstrelsy," vol. ii. p. 327. Compare No. 7 of the Notes to "Rob Roy."

Then followed the various terrifying transformations of Tamlane, which the fair Janet had been warned to expect, but during which, undaunted, "she held him fast in every shape."

"They shaped him in her arms at last
A mother-naked man:

She wrapt him in her green mantle,
And sae her true-love wan!"

The fairy troop seemed to be scattered in sheer bewilderment: the voice of the Queen was heard, now in one place, now in another, uttering the bitterness of her chagrin at the successful daring of fair Janet :—

Up then spake the Queen o' Fairies

Out o' a bush o' broom—

'She that has borrowed young Tamlane,
Has gotten a stately groom.'

Up then spake the Queen o' Fairies
Out o' a bush o' rye—

'She's ta'en awa the bonniest knight
In a' my companie.

*

"Had I but had the wit yestreen

That I hae coft the day,

I'd paid my kane seven times to hell

Ere you'd been won away.'

Such is an analysis of the principal legendary ballads of Scotland that have been preserved. It is evident

that these ballads at once evince the existence of a certain class of emotions strongly active in the Scottish mind, and must have been perpetually re-invigorating these emotions. To estimate, therefore, the value of those ballads in the building up of the Scottish character, requires an estimate of the value of these emotions as elements of human life. Now, the emotions which manifest themselves under the form of superstition are merely excesses, or rather misdirections, of the feeling, that the meaning of this universe is not exhausted by the scientific arrangement of natural phenomena, that behind all natural law there is a mystery, which scientific conceptions do not embrace, but the sense of which they cannot banish from the spirit of Until there is a mediation, such as has not yet been accomplished even in advanced minds, between the scientific faith in the invariability of natural law and the religious faith in the existence of a world above natural law, the latter faith will continue to appear in a belief that that world reveals itself in operations which are out of Nature's ordinary course. To the great majority of minds this belief is probably the indispensable nutriment and the irresistible outflow of the higher faith; and there are not wanting minds of high culture, to whom a sympathetic realization in fancy of this belief is the only avenue to a poetical view of Nature. In fact, the belief can be neither of unmitigated evil nor of unmitigated good; and the evil, as well

man.

1 See Collins' "Ode on the Superstitions of the Highlands," especially verses II and 12; Schiller's "Götter Griechenlands," especially verse 2. Compare Allan Cunningham's "Scottish Songs," vol. i. pp. 128–9.