Minstrelsy of the Scottish border - National Library of Scotland

THE SCOTTISH BOKDEH. l63
" of good fashion there, and a most splendid and magnificent
" table, flirnished with all the varieties of delicate meats,
" where they are all served by spirits. At dinner, they de-
" bated upon the excellency of being attended by spirits ; and,
" after dinner, they proposed to 1dm to assume him into their
" society, and make him participant of their happy life ; but,
" among the other conditions and qualifications requisite, this
" was one, that they demanded his abstracting his spirit from
" all materiahty, and renouncing his baptismal engagements.
" Being amazed at this proposal, he fails a praying ; whereat
" they all disappear, and leave him alone. Then he began to
" forethink what would become of him, if he were left to pay
" that vast reckoning ; not ha\dng as much on him as would
" defray it. He calls the boy, and asks, what was become of
" these gentlemen, and what was to pay ? He answered, there
" was nothing to pay, for they had done it, and were gone
" about their affairs in the city." Fountainhall's Deci-
sions, vol. I. p. 15. With great deference to the learned re-
porter, this story has all the appearance of a joke upon the
poor schoolmaster, calculated at once to operate upon his credu-
hty, and upon his fears of being left in pawn for the reckoning.
Or that the gypsies glamow'd gang, S^c.—P. 160. v. 4.
Besides the prophetic powers ascribed to the gypsies in most
European countries, the Scottish peasants believe them pos-
sessed of the power of throwing upon by-standers a spell, to
fascinate their eyes, and cause them to see the thing that is
not. Thus, in the old ballad of Johnie Faa, the elopement of
the Countess of Cassillis, with a gypsey leader, is imputed to
fascination :
—
As sune as they saw her weel-far'd face.
They cast the glamour ower her.
Saxo Grammaticus mentions a particular sect of Mathemati-
cians, as he is pleased to call them, who " per summam ludi-
"Jtcandorum oculorum peritiam, proprios alienosqiie vuUus,