rs, were all amply sufficient to impress the
minds of the vulgar with awe and terror. "Accordingly," says Sir Walter
Scott, in his Notes on the Lay of the Last Minstrel, "the memory of Sir
Michael Scott survives in many a legend, and in the south of Scotland
any work of great labour and antiquity is ascribed either to the agency
of Auld Michael, of Sir William Wallace, or of the devil." Some of the
most current of these traditions are so happily described by the
above-mentioned writer, that we cannot refrain from quoting the passage.
"Michael was chosen," it is said, "to go upon an embassy to obtain from
the King of France satisfaction for certain piracies committed by his
subjects upon those of Scotland. Instead of preparing a new equipage and
splendid retinue, the ambassador retreated to his study, and evoked a
fiend, in the shape of a huge black horse, mounted upon his back, and
forced him to fly through the air towards France. As they crossed the
sea, the devil insidiously asked his rider what it was that the old
women of Scotland muttered at bedtime. A less experienced wizard might
have answered, that it was the Pater Noster, which would have licensed
the devil to precipitate him from his back. But Michael sternly replied,
'What is that to thee? Mount, Diabolus, and fly!' When he arrived at
Paris, he tied his horse to the gate of the palace, entered, and boldly
delivered his message. An ambassador with so little of the pomp and
circumstance of diplomacy, was not received with much respect, and the
king was about to return a contemptuous refusal to his demand, when
Michael besought him to suspend his resolution till he had seen his
horse stamp three times. The first stamp shook every steeple in Paris,
and caused all the bells to ring, the second threw down three towers of
the palace, and the infernal steed had lifted his foot to give the third
stamp, when the king rather chose to dismiss Michael with the most ample
concessions, than to stand the probable consequences. Another time, it
is said, when residing at the tower of Oakwood, upon the Ettrick, about
three miles above Selkirk, he heard of the fame of a sorceress, called
the witch of Falsehope, on the opposite side of the river. Michael went
one morning to put her skill to the test, but was disappointed, by her
denying positively any knowledge of the necromantic art. In his
discourse with her, he laid his wand inadvertently on the table, which
the hag observing, s