Page:The Lay of the Last Minstrel - Scott (1805).djvu/258

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NOTES

ON

CANTO III.



When, dancing in the sunny beam,
He marked the crane on the Baron's crest.—St. IV. p. 67.

The crest of the Cranstouns, in allusion to their name, is a crane dormant, holding a stone in his foot, with an emphatic Border motto, Thou shall want ere I want.

Much he marvelled a knight of pride,
Like a book-bosomed priest, should ride.—St. VIII. p. 70.

"At Unthank, two miles N.E. from the church (of Ewes), there are the ruins of a chapple for divine service, in time of popery. There is a tradition, that friars were wont to come from Mellrose, or Jedburgh, to baptize and marry in this parish; and, from being in use to carry the mass-book in their bosomes, they were called by the inhabitants Book-a-bosomes.