Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft

'Mal? nubent Maia.'

[14]

A similar bearing has been ascribed, for the same reason, to those of the name of Fantome, who carried of old a goblin, or phantom, in a shroud sable passant, on a field azure. Both bearings are founded on what is called canting heraldry, a species of art disowned by the writers on the science, yet universally made use of by those who practice the art of blazonry.

[15]

Eyrbiggia Saga, in 'Northern Antiquities.' 

[16]

It may be worth while to notice that the word Haxa is still used in Scotland in its sense of a druidess, or chief priestess, to distinguish the places where such females exercised their ritual. There is a species of small intrenchment on the western descent of the Eildon hills, which Mr. Milne, in his account of the parish of Melrose, drawn up about eighty years ago, says, was denominated Bourjo, a word of unknown derivation, by which the place is still known. Here an universal and subsisting tradition bore that human sacrifices were of yore offered, while the people assisting could behold the ceremony from the elevation of the glacis which slopes inward. With this place of sacrifice communicated a path, still discernible, called the Haxell- gate, leading to a small glen or narrow valley called the Haxellcleuch—both which words are probably derived from the Haxa or chief priestess of the pagans.

[17]

'De causis contempt? necis,' lib. i. cap 6.

[18]

'?neid,' lib. x. line 773.

[19]

See Saxo Grammaticus, 'Hist. Dan.,' lib. v.

[20]

Eyrbiggia Saga. See 'Northern Antiquities.' 

[21]

The weapon is often mentioned in Mr. MacPherson's paraphrases; but the Irish ballad, which gives a spirited account of the debate between the champion and the armourer, is nowhere introduced.

[22]

Another altar of elegant form and perfectly preserved, was, within these few weeks, dug up near the junction of the Leader and the Tweed, in the neighbourhood of the village of Newstead, to the east of Melrose. It was inscribed by Carrius Domitianus, the prefect of the twentieth legion, to the god Sylvanus, forming another instance how much the wild and silvan character of the country disposed the feelings of the Romans to acknowledge the presence of the rural deities. The altar is preserved at Drygrange, the seat of Mr. Tod.

[23]

See the essay on the Fairy Superstition, in the 'Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,' of which many of the materials were contributed by Dr. Leyden, and the whole brought into its present form by the author.

[24]

Footnote 24: See an abstract, by the late learned Henry Weber, of 'A Lay on this subject of King Laurin,' complied by Henry of Osterdingen. 'Northern Antiquities,' Edinburgh, 1814.

[25]

'Sadducismus Triumphatus,' by Joseph Glanville, p. 131. Edinburgh, 1790.

[26]

See 'Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy.'