line 7. ‘The Iol of the heathen Danes (a word still applied to Christmas in Scotland; was solemnized with great festivity. The humour of the Danes at table displayed itself in pelting each other with bones, and Torfaeus tells a long and curious story, in the History of Hrolfe Kraka, of one Hottus, an inmate of the Court of Denmark, who was so generally assailed with these missiles, that he constructed, out of the bones with which he was overwhelmed, a very respectable intrenchment, against those who continued the raillery. The dances of the northern warriors round the great fires of pine-trees, are commemorated by Olaus Magnus, who says, they danced with such fury, holding each other by the hands, that, if the grasp of any failed, he was pitched into the fire with the velocity of a sling. The sufferer, on such occasions, was instantly plucked out, and obliged to quaff off a certain measure of ale, as a penalty for “spoiling the king’s fire.”‘SCOTT.
line 33. Scott, after explaining that in Roman Catholic countries mass is never said at night except on Christmas eve, quotes as illustrative of early celebrations of the festival the names and descriptions of the allegorical characters in Jonson’s ‘Christmas his Masque. ‘The personages are Father Christmas himself and his ten sons and daughters, led in by Cupid. ‘Baby-Cake,’ the youngest child, is misprinted ‘Baby-Cocke in Scott.
line 45. Post and pair, a game at cards, is one of the sons of Father Christmas in Jonson’s Masque. He comes in with ‘a pair-royal of aces in his hat; his garment all done over with pairs and purs; his squire carrying a box, cards, and counters.’
line 55. The reference is to the ancient salt-cellar, which parted superiors from inferiors at table.
line 75. ‘It seems certain that the Mummers of England, who (in Northumberland at least) used to go about in disguise to the neighbouring houses, bearing the then useless ploughshares; and the Guisards of Scotland, not yet in total disuse, present, in some indistinct degree, a shadow of the old mysteries, which were the origin of the English drama. In Scotland, (me ipso teste,) we were wont, during my boyhood, to take the characters of the apostles, at least of Peter, Paul, and Judas Iscariot; the first had the keys, the second carried a sword, and the last the bag, in which the dole of our neighbours’ plum-cake was deposited. One played as a champion, and recited some traditional rhymes; another was:-
These, and many such verses, were repeated, but by rote, and unconnectedly. There were also, occasionally, I believe, a Saint George. In all, there was a confused resemblance of the ancient mysteries, in which the characters of Scripture, the Nine Worthies, and other popular personages, were usually exhibited. It were much to be wished that the Chester Mysteries were published from the MS. in the Museum, with the annotations which a diligent investigator of popular antiquities might still supply. The late acute and valuable antiquary, Mr. Ritson, showed me several memoranda towards such a task, which are probably now dispersed or lost. See, however, his “Remarks on Shakspeare,” 1783, p. 38.
‘Since the first edition of “Marmion” appeared, this subject has received much elucidation from the learned and extensive labours of Mr. Douce; and the Chester Mysteries (edited by J. H. Markland, Esq.) have been printed in a style of great elegance and accuracy (in 1818) by Bensley and Sons, London, for the Roxburghe Club. 1830.’-SCOTT.
line 93. The proverb ‘Blood is warmer than water’ is also common in the form ‘Blood is thicker than water.’
line 96. ‘Mr. Scott of Harden, my kind and affectionate friend, and distant relation, has the original of a poetical invitation, addressed from his grandfather to my relative, from which a few lines in the text are imitated. They are dated, as the epistle in the text, from Mertoun-house, the seat of the Harden family:-
“Mr. Walter Scott, Lessuden”
‘The venerable old gentleman, to whom the lines are addressed was the younger brother of William Scott of Raeburn. Being the cadet of a cadet of the Harden family, he had very little to lose; yet he contrived to lose the small property he had, by engaging in the civil wars and intrigues of the house of Stuart. His veneration for the exiled family was so great, that he swore he would not shave his beard till they were restored: a mark of attachment, which, I suppose, had been common during Cromwell’s usurpation; for, in Cowley’s “Cutter of Coleman Street,” one drunken cavalier upbraids another, that, when he was not able to afford to pay a barber, he affected to “wear a beard for the King.” I sincerely hope this was not absolutely the original reason of my ancestor’s beard; which, as appears from a portrait in the possession of Sir Henry Hay Macdougal, Bart., and another painted for the famous Dr. Pitcairn, was a beard of a most dignified and venerable appearance.’- SCOTT.
line 111. ‘See Introduction to the ‘Minstrelsy,’ vol. iv. p. 59.’-LOCKHART.
lines 117-20. The Tweed winds and loiters around Mertoun and its grounds as if fascinated by their attractiveness. With line. 120 cp. ‘clipped in with the sea,’ I Henry IV, iii. I. 45.
line 126. Cp. 2 Henry IV, iii. 2. 228: ‘We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow!’
line 132. Scott quotes from Congreve’s ‘Old Bachelor,’-’Hannibal was a pretty fellow, sir-a very pretty fellow in his day,’ which is part of a speech by Noll Bluffe, one of the characters.
line 139. With ‘Limbo lost,’ cp. the ‘Limbo large and broad’ of ‘Paradise Lost,’ iii. 495. Limbo is the borders of hell, and also hell itself.