Chapter I: Part II: The Pilgrimage 53

Notes 73 THE SIEGE OF BERWICK, a Tragedy: Preface 103 The Siege of Berwick; or the Murdered Hostage 109 Alan of Winton; or the Heiress of Seton 207 Notes 229 The Vision of Hungus 233 Notes 237 The Abbess of St Abb 239 Walter of Congalton 245 The Lost Drave of Dunbar; or the Witch of Keith 247 Notes 265 Account of the Witches of East Lothian 266 A Tale of Garleton 283 The Vicar of Golyn 285 The Gudewife of Tulloshill and the Lord of Lauderdale 297 Young Argyle; or, Stanzas to Lethington Castle 311 Notes 323 The Murder of Sir James Stanfield; in two Fits 327 Fit the First 329 Fit the Second 338 Notes 345 Sonnet, on visiting Barra Church-yard 348 Verses in Memory of Dunbar Collegiate Church 349 Notes 369 Ormiston Yew Tree; with a Lament for the Earl of Hopetoun 373 Notes 378 Sonnet to Dirleton Castle 380 Wreck of the John and Agnes Sloop of Newcastle at Tyne Sands 381 The Shepherd of Lammermoor 385 Dunpender Law 389 To the Moon and the Evening Star 395

SONGS. The False Alarm 397 George the Fourth’s Welcome 399 On laying the Foundation Stone of Lord Hopetoun’s Monument 403 On placing Mr Ferme’s Portrait in the Masonic Lodge at Haddington 405 The Gardener’s Song 407 The Hammerman’s Song 410 The Country Laird’s Courtship 412 My Auld Maiden Aunty 414 To —— 416

SAINT BALDRED OF THE BASS,

A PICTISH LEGEND.

IN TWO PARTS.

SAINT BALDRED.

Saint Baldred, the venerable subject of the following poem, was the disciple of Kentigern or St Mungo, the tutelary saint of Glasgow. According to Boece, he was of Scottish descent; and, during the reign of Brudeus, king of the Picts, held his pastoral charge in East Lothian, which then formed part of the kingdom of Pictland. His instructor in the faith was the reputed son of Thametis, a Pictish princess,[1] who was cousin to the reigning monarch; it is probable, therefore, from this circumstance, that he enjoyed the smiles of royal patronage and favour.

“The Breviary of Aberdeen,” says Dr Jamieson, in his History of the Culdees, “contains some particulars with respect to Baldred, which I have not met with any where else. ‘This suffragan of St Kentigern flourished in Lothian, in virtues and in illustrious miracles. Being eminently devout, he renounced all worldly pomp, and, following the example of John the Divine, resided in solitary places, and betook himself to the islands of the sea. Among these he had recourse to one called _Bass_, where he led a life, without all question, contemplative and strict, in which, for many years, he held up to remembrance the most blessed Kentigern, his instructor, in the constant contemplation of the sanctity of his conduct.’”—_Hist. Culdees_, p. 190.

“In this work,” continues the doctor, “we find a miracle ascribed to the worthy Baldred, that must have rendered him an inestimable acquisition to a people living on a rocky coast.—‘There was a great rock between the said island and the adjacent land, which remained fixed in the middle of the passage, unmoved by all the force of the waves, giving the greatest hinderance to navigation, and often causing shipwrecks. The blessed Baldred, moved by piety, ordered that he should be placed on this rock. This being done, at his nod the rock was immediately lifted up, and, like a ship driven by a favourable breeze, proceeded to the nearest shore, and henceforth remained in the same place, as a memorial of this miracle, and is to this day called St Baldred’s Coble or Cock-boat.”—A small rock, at the mouth of Aldham bay, still bears the name of _Baudron’s_ Boat.

If personal safety merited consideration from the ascetic, who was all but adored in that rude age, and who lived a life of patriarchal innocence and simplicity, we may suppose that he retired to the “strong castle” of the Bass from prudential motives; for, at this period, an exterminating war raged between the Scots and the Picts, at the instigation of Ethelfrid, the pagan prince of Northumberland, who sought his own aggrandisement in the destruction of the contending nations.

While residing in this solitude, Baldred died 6th March 607–8.—See _Boece’s Chron._ and _Keith’s Cat_. He was held in such veneration by the natives, that on his demise, the three neighbouring parishes of Aldham, Tyningham, and Preston, laid claim to his remains. It being impossible to satisfy the multitude without supernatural agency, the enraged embassy were on the point of deciding their right by blows, when a Pictish sage judiciously advised them to spend the night in prayer, that the bishop of the diocese might have an opportunity of settling their dispute in the morning.

“When day dawned,” says Holinshed, “there were found three biers with three bodies decently covered with clothes, so like in all resemblance, that no man might perceive any difference. Then by commandment of the bishop, and with great joy of all the people, the said several bodies were carried severally unto the said three several churches, and in the same buried in most solemnwise, where they remain unto this day, in much honour with the common people of the countries near adjoining.”—_Holin. Chron._ vol. i.

The same legend assumes a more warlike attitude in the English Martyrology.

“The people waxing wroth took arms, and each of them sought by force to enjoy the same; and when the matter came to issue, the said sacred body was found all whole in three distinct places of the house where he died: so as the people of each village coming thither, and carrying the same away, placed it in their churches, and kept it with great honour and veneration for the miracles that at each place it pleased God to work.”[2]

In the Breviary of Aberdeen, before quoted, we are informed, that “the inhabitants of the three parishes which were under his charge, as soon as they knew of his death, assembled in three different troops at Aldham, _where he breathed his last_, severally begging his body. But, as they could not agree among themselves, they, by the advice of a certain old man, left the body unburied, and separately betook themselves to prayer. Morning being come (as aforesaid) they found three bodies perfectly alike, and all prepared with equal pomp for interment. Each of the companies, of course, departed well pleased; and each parish erected a monument over that body of the saint which had fallen to their share.”

“Such was the credulity of these times,” concludes the doctor, “that it was believed, that the body of the saint was in all these places; and this, of course, afforded an irrefragable proof of the doctrine of transubstantiation. Camerarius gravely says, that, ‘for the termination of the dispute between these parochial churches, it was at length effected, by the prayers of the saint himself (for nothing is impossible with God) that each of them should enjoy this treasure.’”—Major asserts the doctrine as supported by this fact.—See _Hist. Culdees_, pp. 191, 188.

According to the learned Chalmers, a Saxon monastery of St Baldred was established at Tyningham, at an after period, whose diocese comprehended the whole of East Lothian, and whose lands, says Simeon, the monk of Durham, extended from Lammermoor to Inveresk. “Et tota terra quæ pertinet ad monasterium sancti Balthere, quod vocatur Tyningham a Lambermore usque ad Escemuthe.”

Two elegant Saxon arches, the remains of the old chapel, still ornament the beautiful domain of Tyningham, where the principal scene of the poem is laid.

SAINT BALDRED OF THE BASS.

=Introductory Stanzas.=

I.

The pilgrim views on Lothian’s eastern shore,
(Whose fields are waving far with golden grain,)
Like giant’s fabled tower, sublimely hoar,
The Bass, majestic, rising from the main:
Here ocean’s waves usurp the rural scene,
And the blue waters gird the mountain’s zone,
Where spread of yore the verdant blooming plain,
As sage geologists have deftly shewn,
In times to topographic lore, alas! unknown.

II.

The muse has deem’d this crag, in fancy’s hours,
The prototype of monster huge and tall,
That having left Zahara’s citron bowers,
Dips his proboscis in the Senegal;
While round his rugged sides the waters fall,
His stately form frowns awful o’er the tide,
Gleams on his back the castellated wall,
As erst by Porus led, in Indian pride,
The tower-crown’d elephant, by green Hydaspes side.

III.

The pious Baldred scoop’d his hermit cell
Upon the sunny summit of the rock,
Whence issued forth a fountain’s crystal well
Which o’er the cliffs in showery spangles broke;
The sea gulls, charm’d to tameness, round would flock,
Bringing their finny offerings to his cave;
While as the Pict skimm’d by in light carrock,
He paused, a holy benison to crave,
Then push’d his little skiff undaunted through the wave.

IV.

And oft at dead of night, when howl’d the storm,
The anchorite left his couch his beads to tell;
And press’d the cold bare rock in prayers till morn,
For vessels drifting near the Inch Cape’s bell,
Which rung, between each gust, the seaman’s knell;—
And evermore he closer claspt his hands,
As burst upon his ear the water’s swell,
For the lone wretch who shudd’ring, drowning stands,
Waist-deep, and lock’d in Tyne’s deceitful sinking-sands.

V.

When rosy-finger’d Flora from her urn
Strew’d earth with flowers, and pearl’d the azure deep,
While the red sun in Leo fierce did burn,
At depth of noon, the saint his limbs would steep
In the transparent waves, where breezes creep
O’er Fidrey’s sacred isle; meanwhile, the fry
Sported around in shoals, as glad to keep
Their summer sabbath:—the sea-calf roll’d by,
Forsook her briny pool, and lick’d the patriarch dry.

VI.

He was a star in reason’s dawning day,
That led the savage hordes of human kind,
Ere Learning pour’d her intellectual ray
Like light from heav’n upon the vacant mind:
Then God was heard in thunder or the wind,
While meteor forms did aerial conflict wage;
As tattoo’d groups upon the shore reclin’d,
Listen’d the mystic lore of Runic sage,
Cull’d from the Scandinavian’s darkest pagan page.

VII.

He travell’d paths untrod, o’er mountains bare,
To preach the gifted creed to barbarous men;
His food alone the jetty juniper
That blossom’d on the steeps of Lammer’s glen;
He dragg’d the savage from his gloomy den,
In silken chains his wayward passions bound,
While Hope’s bright rainbow glitter’d o’er the fen,
And Mercy scatter’d pearls upon the ground,
Where erst dark Odin’s chiefs in blood-stain’d garments frown’d.

VIII.

Yet deem not that the lonely orison
Was life’s sole business; for he also taught
To rear the rustic dome, which, form’d of stone,
Fair Architecture to perfection brought;
The oaken wall—the roof ingenious wrought,
Pictur’d the Gothic arch with willow wand,
In embryo modelling those shrines of thought;
Such as by Doric Tweed do sculptured stand,
Whose cloisters seem as carved by Nature’s sylvan hand.

IX.

And, oh! if e’er he felt that gentle flame,
Which, born in heav’n, on earth like vapour dies,
’Twas sigh’d in secret (and was he to blame?)
For pious Breda,—beautiful as wise,
Who left the pomp of gilded canopies
In regal lands, for the lone convent’s cell.—
And, fair, her house of prayer was seen to rise,
Where the Cistertian sisters loved to dwell
Beneath the mighty shade of Lothian’s Alpine hill.

X.

Of Baldred’s lineage little we may learn,
Whether of princess born or lowly swain,—
Suffice, that he was bred by Kentigern
What time St Colme to Iona came;
And cleans’d the church from her Pelagian stain,
And royal Brudeus to the faith subdu’d;
Who, haply, left the world’s tumultuous scene
To meditate in sentimental mood,
And hold high converse in the Bass’s solitude.

XI.

Methinks oft gazing o’er Bodotria’s tide,
King Brude and Baldred sat in cavern’d shade,
The prince’s robes the leopard’s spotted hide,
Thrown o’er his brawny shoulders, which display’d,
Deep painted in his skin, in fierce parade,
The milk-white buffalo and the tusked boar;
And evermore the saint some truth convey’d;
Anon he shook his beard all silver’d o’er,
And talk’d of pilgrimage on Judah’s distant shore.

XII.

The prince, wrapt in astonishment, would ask
Of foreign climes, their manners and array;
Now burn’d to crush the Persian basilisk,
Reserved for the crusades of latter day—
Now sought to know if the world’s barriers lay
Where Alps lie pillow’d till they prop the skies!
And much he long’d to pierce the milky-way,
Even as an eagle; while, before his eyes
Fair pictured in the sand, the zodiac’s splendour lies.

XIII.

Philosophizing thus, the hours were lost,
Till war’s horn blew, and Brudeus graspt the spear;
For valiant Arthur’s Bacchanalian host
Have left their Christmas-pie for rougher cheer;
The Scot and Pict invading warfare bear,
And drive the Table-knights to Humber’s flood;—
Their monarch slain, the Britons yield through fear,
While the sun shone at noon array’d in blood,
And York’s esculent herbs gleam’d crimson from the bud.

XIV.

Too soon to these leagued warriors omens told
Of broken friendship, desolating woe;
For the Northumbrian prince with treacherous gold
Seduced the Pict to hold the Scot his foe;
Grief for their strife brought saintly Baldred low;
Upon the Bass he pined away, and died,—
When o’er a rainbow-bridge, in robes of snow,
Upborne by angels, he was seen to glide;
As erst St Idan rose from Leader’s pastoral side.

SAINT BALDRED OF THE BASS.