NOTES TO CANTO FOURTH.
365
The raven might also challenge his rights by the Book of Saint Albans; for thus says Dame Juliana Berners:—
Slitteth anon
The bely to the side from the corbyn bone;
That is corbins fee, at the death he will be.
The bely to the side from the corbyn bone;
That is corbins fee, at the death he will be.
Jonson, in "The Sad Shepherd," gives a more poetical account of the same ceremony.
Marian.He that undoes him,
Doth cleave the brisket bone upon the spoon,
Of which a little gristle grows―you call it―
Robin Hood. The raven's bone.
MarianNow o'er head sat a raven
On a sere bough, a grown, great bird and hoarse,
Who, all the time the deer was breaking up,
So croaked and cried for it, as all the huntsmen,
Especially old Scathlocke, thought it ominous."
Doth cleave the brisket bone upon the spoon,
Of which a little gristle grows―you call it―
Robin Hood. The raven's bone.
MarianNow o'er head sat a raven
On a sere bough, a grown, great bird and hoarse,
Who, all the time the deer was breaking up,
So croaked and cried for it, as all the huntsmen,
Especially old Scathlocke, thought it ominous."
Note V.
Which spills the foremost foeman's life,
That party conquers in the strife.—St. VI. p. 150.
That party conquers in the strife.—St. VI. p. 150.
Though this be in the text described as the response of the Taghairm, or Oracle of the Hide, it was of itself an augury frequently attended to. The fate of the battle was often anticipated in the imagination of the combatants, by observing which party first shed blood. It is said that the Highlanders under Montrose, were so deeply embued with this notion, that on the morning of the battle of Tippermoor, they murdered a defenceless herdsman, whom they found in the fields, merely to secure an advantage of so much consequence to their party.
