Introductions, and Notes and Illustrations to the Novels, Tales, and Romances of the Author of Waverley Volume 2 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1833 edition. Excerpt: ...in at the window of a ruinous chapel. Sale Of Winds--P. 13,1. 2, (bottom.) The King of Sweden, the same Eric quoted by Mordaunt, "was," says Olaus Magnus, "in his time held second to none in the magical art; and he was so familiar with the evil spirits whom he worshipped, that what sy soever he turned his cap, the wind would presently blow that way. For this he was called Windycap." Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus. Romce 1555. It is well known that the Laplanders drive a profitable trade in selling winds; but it is perhaps less notorious, 'hat within these few years such a commodity might be purchased on British ground, where it was likely to be in great request. At the village of Stromness, on the Orkney main island, called Pomona, lived in 1814, an aged dame, called Bessie Millie, who helped out her subsistence by selling favourable winds to mariners. He was a venturous master of a vessel who left the roadstead of Stromness without paying his offering to propitiate Bessie Millie. Her fee was extremely moderate, being exactly sixpence, for which, as she explained her.df, she boiled her kettle and gave the bark advantage of her prayers, for she disclaimed all unlawful arts. The wind thus petitioned for was sure, she said, to arrive though occasionally the mariners had to wait some time for it. The woman's dwelling and appearance were not unbecoming her pretensions; her house, which was on the brow of the steep hill on which Stromness is founded, was only accessible by a series of dirty and precipitous lanes, and for exposure might have been the abode of Eolus himself, in whose commodities the inhabitant dealt. She herself was, as she told us, nearly one hundred years old, withered and dried up like a mummy. A clay-coloured kerchief, folded...