Page:The Lay of the Last Minstrel - Scott (1805).djvu/222

 only apprehend his shadow. In the latter case, the person of the sage never after throws any shade; and those, who have thus lost their shadow, always prove the best magicians.

The Scottish vulgar, without having any very defined notion of their attributes, believe in the existence of an intermediate class of spirits residing in the air, or in the waters; to whose agency they ascribe floods, storms, and all such phenomena as their own philosophy cannot readily explain. They are supposed to interfere in the affairs of mortals, sometimes with a malevolent purpose, and sometimes with milder views. It is said, for example, that a gallant Baron, having returned from the Holy Land to his castle of Drummelziar, found his fair lady nursing a healthy child, whose birth did not by any means correspond to the date of his departure. Such an occurrence, to the credit of the dames of the crusaders be it spoken, was so rare, as to require a miraculous solution. The lady therefore was believed, when she averred confidently, that the Spirit of the Tweed had issued from the river while she was walking upon its bank, and had compelled her to submit to his embraces; and the name of Tweedie was bestowed upon the child, who afterwards became Baron of Drummelziar, and chief of a powerful clan. To those spirits were also ascribed, in Scotland, the

When the workmen were engaged in erecting the ancient