Child's, The English And Scottish Ballads

Volume 3 of 8 from 1860 edition -online book

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EAEL EICHABD.                               7
" Leave aff your douking on the day, "
And douk upon the night; And where that sackless knight lies slain,
The candles will burn bright."—
" 0 there's a bird within this bower,
That sings baith sad and sweet;                 so
0 there's a bird within your bower, Keeps me frae my night's sleep."
They left the douking on the day,
And douk'd upon the night; And where that sackless knight lay slain, &>
The candles burned bright.
The deepest pot in a' the linn, They fand Erl Richard in ;
86.  These are unquestionably the corpse-lights, called in Wales Canhwyllan Cyrph, which are sometimes seen to illu­minate the spot where a dead body is concealed. The Editor is informed, that, some years ago, the corpse of a man, drowned in the Ettrick, below Selkirk, was discovered by means of these candles. Such lights are common in churchyards, and are probably of a phosphoric nature. But rustic superstition derives them from supernatural agency, and supposes, that, as soon as life has departed, a pale flame appears at the win­dow of the house, in which the person had died, and glides towards the churchyard, tracing through every winding the route of the future funeral, and pausing where the bier is to rest. This and other opinions, relating to the " tomb-fires' livid gleam," seem to be of Eunio extraction. Scott.
87.  The deep holes, scooped in the rock by the eddies of a river, are called pois; the motion of the water having there