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That is the boatman's version of Scott's theme in "Glenfinlas." Witches played a great part in his narratives. In the boatman's country there is a plain, and on the plain is a knoll, about twice the height of a one-storeyed cottage, and pointed "like a sugar-loaf." The old people remember, or have heard, that this mound was not there when they were young.
"On this event Scott's beautiful ballad of 'Glenfinlas' is said to have been founded." As will be seen presently, Hogg was wrong about 'Glenfinlas'; the boatman was acquainted with a traditional version of that wild legend. I found another at Rannoch. The Highland fairies are very vampirish. The Loch Awe boatman lives at a spot haunted by a shadowy maiden.
The ballad, as well as Glenfinlas, was approved of, and procured Sir Walter many marks of attention and kindness from Duke John of Roxburgh, who gave him the unlimited use of the Roxburgh club library. This work, although not original, may be said to be the superstructure of Sir Walter Scott's fame.
To the left, stretching up between this and other hills, is the valley of Glenfinlas, a very awful region in Scott's poetry and in Highland tradition, as the haunt of spirits and enchantments. It presented a very desolate prospect.
The dread of Anchises a man is not long of life who lies with a Goddess refers to a belief found from Glenfinlas to Samoa and New Caledonia, that the embraces of the spiritual ladies of the woodlands are fatal to men. The legend has been told to me in the Highlands, and to Mr. Stevenson in Samoa, while my cousin, Mr.
If ye are seeking Rob Roy, he's ken'd to be better than half a hunder men strong when he's at the fewest; an if he brings in the Glengyle folk, and the Glenfinlas and Balquhidder lads, he may come to gie you your kail through the reek; and it's my sincere advice, as a king's friend, ye had better tak back again to the Clachan, for thae women at Aberfoil are like the scarts and seamaws at the Cumries there's aye foul weather follows their skirting."
It contained, indeed, not much original verse, though 'Glenfinlas' and 'The Eve, with Leyden's 'Cout of Keeldar, 'Lord Soulis, etc., appeared in it after a fashion which Percy had set and Evans had continued.
It is not merely that, though Scott had a great liking for and much proficiency in 'eights, that metre is never so effective for ballad purposes as eights and sixes; nor that, as Lockhart admits, Glenfinlas exhibits a Germanisation which is at the same time an adulteration; nor even that, well as Scott knew the Perthshire Highlands, they could not appeal to him with the same subtle intimacy of touch as that possessed by the ruined tower where, as a half-paralysed infant, he had been herded with the lambs.
But he did nothing important till after the beginning of the present century, when the starting of the Edinburgh Review and some other things brought him forward; though he showed what he could do by contributing two ballads, "Glenfinlas" and "The Eve of St. John," to a collection of terror-pieces started by Monk Lewis, and added Goethe's Götz von Berlichingen to his translations.
He says: "The ballad called Glenfinlas was, I think, the first original poem which I ventured to compose. After Glenfinlas, I undertook another ballad, called The Eve of St. John. The incidents, except the hints alluded to in the notes, are entirely imaginary; but the scene was that of my early childhood.
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