Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 2.djvu/509

Rh not go. The other called him coward, and prickt on towards the armies; from one of which an horseman came forth, fought with him, and cut off his head. At which sight the other fled, and told the newes the next morning. A great confluence of people searching for the body, found it in one place, the head in another, but neither could discern the footing of horse or man; onely the print of birds feet, and those in myrie places, &c." 's "Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels," p. 554, 5–1635.

"The most singular tale of the kind," says Sir Walter Scott, "is contained in an extract communicated to me by my friend Mr. Surtees of Mainsforth, in the Bishopric, who copied it from a MS. note in a copy of Burthogge 'On the nature of Spirits,' 8vo. 1694, which had been the property of the late Mr. Gill, attorney-general to Egerton, Bishop of Durham."—Notes to. This extract is in Latin; as it is certainly very curious I annex a translation.

"It will not be tedious if I relate, upon the faith of a very worthy and noble person, a wonderful thing of this kind, which happened in our times. Ralph Bulmer, leaving the camp (at that time pitched near Norham) for the sake of recreation, and pursuing the farther bank of the Tweed with his