ot unlikely,
too (cf. ll. 12-13), that the ash-tree dell at Stowey, which he had
already used for a scene of supernatural terror in "Osorio," bears some
part in his avowed dream of Xanadu.

45, 3--*Alph, the sacred river.* This name seems to be of Coleridge's
own invention; at least it has not been pointed out where he found it.

16--*demon-lover.* The demon-lover (or more often, with sexes
reversed, the fairy mistress) is a favorite theme of romance, taken from
folk-lore, where it appears in many forms. Cf. the ballads of "Thomas
Rymer," "Tam Lin," and "The Demon Lover," in Child's "English and
Scottish Popular Ballads," and Scott's "William and Helen" (a
translation of Burger's "Lenore").

46, 39, 41--*Abyssinian maid, Mount Abora.* See introductory note
above.

53--*honey-dew.* A sweet sticky substance found on plants, deposited
there by the aphis or plant-louse. It was supposed to be the food of
fairies. Not improbably Coleridge was thinking of manna, a saccharine
exudation found upon certain plants in the East. Mandeville describes it
as found in "the Land of Job:" "This Manna is clept Bread of Angels. And
it is a white Thing that is full sweet and right delicious, and more
sweet than Honey or Sugar. And it Cometh of the Dew of Heaven that
falleth upon the Herbs in that Country. And it congealeth and becometh
all white and sweet. And Men put it in Medicines."

53-4--*For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.*
Professor Cooper, in the article cited in the introductory note above,
points out that this part of the poem contains perhaps reminiscences of
the stories told of the Old Man of the Mountain. This was the title
popularly given to the head of a fanatical sect of Mohammedans in Syria
in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, whose method of getting rid of
their enemies has given us the word _assassin_. To quote from
Mandeville's "Travels," which has the essentials of the story, though
the chief is here called Gatholonabes, and his domain is not in Syria
but in the island Mistorak, "in the Lordship of Prester John:"

"He had a full fair Castle and a strong in a Mountain, so strong and so
noble, that no Man could devise a fairer or a stronger. And he had made
wall all the Mountain about with a strong Wall and a fair. And within
those Walls he had the fairest Garden that any Man might behold....

"And he had also in that Place, the fairest Damsels that might be found,
under the Age of fifte