Minstrelsy of the Scottish border - National Library of Scotland

THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 203
p. 26. These circumstances would seem to infer a com-
munication betwixt the south-west of Scotland and
Wales, of a nature peculiarly intimate ; for I presume
that Merlin would retain sense enough to chuse, for the
scene of his wanderings, a country having a language
and manners similar to his own.
Be this as it may, the memory of Merlin Sylvester,
or the Wild, was fresh among the Scots during the reign
ofJames V. Waldhave,* under whose name a set of pro-
phecies was published, describes himself as lying upon
Lomond LaAV ; he hears a voice, which bids him stand
to his defence ; he looks around, and beholds a flock of
hares and foxest pursued over the moinitain by a savage
• I do not know whether the person here meant be Waldhai'e, an
abbot of Melrose, who died in the odour of sanctity, about 1160.
-|- The strange occupation, in wliich AValdhave beholds Merlin en-
gaged, derives some illustration from a curious passage in Geoffrey
of Monmouth's life of Merlin, above quoted. The poem, after nar-
rating that the prophet had fled to the forest in a state of distraction,
proceeds to mention, that, looking upon the stars one clear evening,
he discerned, from his astrological knowledge, that his wife, Guendolen,
had resolved, upon the next morning, to take another husband. As
he had presaged to her that this would happen, and had promised her
a nuptial gift (cautioning her, however, to keep the bridegroom out
of his sight,) he now resolved to make good his word. Accordingly,
he collected all the stags and lesser game in his neighbourhood ; and,
having seated himself upon a buck, drove the herd before hira to the
capital of Cumberland, where Guendolen resided. But her lover's
curiosity leading him to inspect too nearly this extraordinary cavalcade.
Merlin's rage was awakened, and he slew him with the stroke of an
antler of the stag. The original runs thus :