and has no bell (as others have) to call him to his devotion, but only his conscience, as he told me."—Martin's Description of the Western Islands, p. 82.
Note III.
Of Brian's birth strange tales were told.—St. V. p. 102.
The legend which follows is not of the author's invention. It is possible he may differ from modern critics, in supposing that the records of human superstition, if peculiar to, and characteristic of, the country in which the scene is laid, are a legitimate subject of poetry. He gives, however, a ready assent to the narrower proposition, which condemns all attempts of an irregular and disordered fancy to excite terror, by accumulating a train of fantastic and incoherent horrors, whether borrowed from all countries, and patched upon a narrative belonging to one which knew them not, or derived from the author's own imagination.
In the present case, therefore, I appeal to the record which I have transcribed, with the variation of a very few words, from the geographical collections made by the laird of Macfarlane. I know not whether it be necessary to remark, that the miscellaneous concourse of youths and maidens on the night, and on the spot where the miracle is said to have taken place, might, in an incredulous age, have somewhat diminished the wonder which accompanied the conception of Gilli-Doir-Magrevollich.
"There is bot two myles from Inverloghie, the church of
