ngth, and in poetry of no common merit.

Carterhaugh is a plain, at the conflux of the Ettrick and Yarrow, in
Selkirkshire, about a mile above Selkirk, and two miles below Newark
Castle; a romantic ruin, which overhangs the Yarrow, and which is said
to have been the habitation of our heroine's father, though others place
his residence in the tower of Oakwood. The peasants point out, upon the
plain, those electrical rings, which vulgar credulity supposes to be
traces of the Fairy revels. Here, they say, were placed the stands of
milk, and of water, in which _Tamlane_ was dipped, in order to effect
the disenchantment; and upon these spots, according to their mode of
expressing themselves, the grass will never grow. Miles Cross (perhaps a
corruption of Mary's Cross), where fair Janet waited the arrival of the
Fairy train, is said to have stood near the duke of Buccleuch's seat of
Bowhill, about half a mile from Carterhaugh. In no part of Scotland,
indeed, has the belief in Fairies maintained its ground with more
pertinacity than in Selkirkshire. The most sceptical among the lower
ranks only venture to assert, that their appearances, and mischievous
exploits, have ceased, or at least become infrequent, since the light of
the Gospel was diffused in its purity. One of their frolics is said to
have happened late in the last century. The victim of elfin sport was a
poor man, who, being employed in pulling heather upon Peatlaw, a hill
not far from Carterhaugh, had tired of his labour, and laid him down
to sleep upon a Fairy ring.--When he awakened, he was amazed to find
himself in the midst of a populous city, to which, as well as to the
means of his transportation, he was an utter stranger. His coat was left
upon the Peatlaw; and his bonnet, which had fallen off in the course of
his aerial journey, was afterwards found hanging upon the steeple of
the church of Lanark. The distress of the poor man was, in some degree,
relieved, by meeting a carrier, whom he had formerly known, and who
conducted him back to Selkirk, by a slower conveyance than had whirled
him to Glasgow.--That he had been carried off by the Fairies, was
implicitly believed by all, who did not reflect, that a man may have
private reasons for leaving his own country, and for disguising his
having intentionally done so.

THE YOUNG TAMLANE

O I forbid ye, maidens a',
That wear gowd on your hair,
To come or gae by Carterhaugh;
For young Tamlane i