Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read, Ilk man and mother's son take heed: Whene'er to drink you are inclined, Or cutty sarks run in your mind, Think ye may buy the joys o'er dear, Remember Tam o' Shanter's mare."
Sir Walter Scott, the "Great Unknown"--His belief in Superstition--How his Tales of Fiction are composed--A Town-Clerk frightened by an Apparition--A Ghost that did not understand Erse, but could communicate in Latin--Lovel and Edie Ochiltree--Discovery of Hidden Treasure by Occult Science--"Rob Roy"--Fairies' Caverns--Supposed Apparition in the Trossachs--Elfin People at the Firth of Forth--A Minister taken away by Fairies--Dame Glendinning's Tale--Lines from "Marmion"--A Fairy Knight--Mysterious Steed.
Sir Walter Scott, the "Great Unknown," was sensibly affected by his country's tales of witches, fairies, and ghosts. Whether the fear he entertained proceeded from early impressions, or whether an awe imperceptibly crept over him, through his frequent communings with old people (when he was in more advanced life) who had no doubt of the existence of witches and spirits, good and bad, visiting the earth, and performing acts of benevolence or malevolence, according to the inclination or caprice of the uncanny or unearthly agent, we cannot say; but of one thing there can be no doubt, that even in years of maturity he believed there were spirits that appeared to men, and assisted them to perform actions they could not have done without superhuman aid, and that by such beings future events were made known. Were it not for the dash of superstition he threw here and there into his tales, they would be comparatively of a commonplace description. Like other writers of fiction, or authors whose writings rest on a slender foundation of truth, Sir Walter Scott often brings forward a witch, wizard, gipsy, fairy, ghost, and other spirits. A haunted castle, a fortune-teller, and a good or evil genius are as indispensable in a good story as a cruel parent, a rich uncle, and a disappointed lover. None knew better than the great Scottish novelist how to work on his readers' feelings; and hence his success.
Sir Walter tells, in the _Antiquary_, a story of Rab Tull, the town-clerk, being in an old house searching for important documents, but who was obliged to go to bed without finding them. The bodie had got such a custom of tippling and tippling with his drunken cronies, that he could not sleep without his punch, and as usual he took his glass that evening. In the middle watches of night he had a fearful wakening--he was never himself after it--and was stricken with the dead palsy that very day four years. He thought he heard the bed curtains move, and out he looked. Before him appeared an old gentleman in a queer-fashioned dress. Rab, greatly frightened, asked the apparition (for it was a spirit that stood before him) what it wanted. The spirit answered in an unknown tongue. Rab replied in Erse, but the spirit did not seem to understand this language. In his strait, the clerk bethought him of two or three words of Latin he used in making out the town's deeds; and no sooner had he tried the strange object before him with these, than out came such a blatter of Latin, that Rab Tull--who with all his pretensions was no great scholar--was overwhelmed. It then made a sign to Rab to follow it. He followed up-stairs and down-stairs to a tower in a corner of the house. There the ghost pointed out a cabinet, and suddenly disappeared. In a drawer of that repository the missing deed was found.