Dr. \\ ilson on Linton and its Legends. 31 



everywhere in contemporary documents, shows that it was closely 

 peopled. There could be here no near refuge for the monstrous 

 or the terrible, thou<^h the credulity of the people would still easily 

 accept whatever prodigy reached them, when half intercepted, and 

 wholly distorted, through the haze of distance of time or space. 

 Accordingly, we find no such notices recorded by those monk- 

 ish chroniclers who resided within the district, and who were not 

 unfrequently the minute observers of events occurring around 

 them. The 'Chronica de Mailros,' though, previously to 1140, 

 probably merely a compilation from already existing histories, 

 seems after that date to be the production of individuals who were 

 contemporary, or nearly so, with the events they register ; and 

 their work has thus all the credibihty which belongs to the cir- 

 cumstances of its time and the peculiar situation of its authors. 

 Yet, though the reign of William affords them opportunities 

 of recording that "tonitruum horribile mugiit xvii kalendas 

 Septembris ;'' or that (in 1173), " tussis qujedam mala et inau- 

 dita omnes fere longe lateque occupavit, in qua vel ex qua peste 

 multi mortui sunt*;" or that (in 1182), '' multi piscatores cum 

 navibus suis mense Septembri in mari inter Hertelpol et Vitebi 

 nocte miserabiliter perieruntf ;" we nowhere find that the greater 

 event of a public calamity warded off, or a public enemy de- 

 stroyed, in whatever literal sense the circumstance was to be 

 regarded, has been noticed as having occurred near the same 

 period in their own vicinity, though the alleged champion was of 

 a family who were afterwards liberal benefactors of their mo- 

 nastery, and one of whom at least {Williehnus de Sumerville, 

 1242 J) was interred within its walls. Besides, instead of Linton 

 having been really a direct grant from the Crown to the Somer- 

 villes, there is reason to believe that they held it merely as a 

 sub-fief from the Cumyns ; otherwise, why the necessity of the 

 ''charter of new infeftment" which was obtained in 1500 by the 

 then Lord Somerville, " for holding of the barronies of Carnwath 

 and Lintoune blenches which formerly held black waird of the 

 croune § ? " When we add, that it was by no means necessary for 

 a Norman baron to perform any peculiar exploit, in order to ob- 

 tain a settlement and liberal grants in this country in the time 

 of David and his immediate successors ; and that, when he mixed 

 with the Anglo-Danish population which was then predominant 

 in Northumbria and the south of Scotland, and whose Dano- 

 Saxon dialect || remains easily distinguishable from the milder 

 Anglo- Saxon of the south, he found himself amid a closely con- 

 generous race, from whom he received a ready welcome, and with 



♦ Chronica de Mailros, p. 86. t Ibid. p. 92. X Ibid. fol. 45. 



§ The Memorie of the Somervills, vol. i. p. 304. 

 II Rask, Angelsaksisk Sprogltere, Fortale^ p. 30. 



