THE RAVEN. 243 



neighbourhood of Cranshaws. A popular rhyme referring to 

 a superstition connected with the last named locality runs — 



It 's no weel mow'd ! It 's no weel mow'd ! 



Then it 's ne'er be naow'd by me again, 



I '11 scatter it owre the Eaven's Stane, 

 And they '11 hae some wark e'er its mowed again ! ^ 



A " Corbie messenger" is one who either does not return at 

 all, or returns too late. 



Then corby messinger, quoth he, with sorrow now sings. 



Holland's Houlat, about 1453. 



He send furth Corby Messingeir 



Into the air for to espy 



Gif he saw ony mountains dry, 



Sum sayis the Rauin did furth remane 



And come not to the ark agane. 



Lindsay's Warkis, 1592. 



A Scottish proverb, referring to those of the same profession 

 and the like, says : " Ae Corbie will no pyke out anither's 

 een ;" and in Berwickshire, Mr. Hardy says, " Fell on me like 

 a Eaven " used to be a common expression, when allusion 

 was made to any savage attack. 



Although this species does not now breed on the sea- 

 coast of Berwickshire, and is but seldom seen in the county, 

 it appears to have been comparatively common long ago; 

 its chief resort being the precipitous cliffs in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Fast Castle and St. Abb's Head, where in some 

 crevice of the rock, at a vast height above the boiling surge 

 below, it placed its nest and reared its young. 



1 In old time Cranshaws was the liabitation of an industrious Brotmiie, in so 

 much that the barn-man's ofBce became a perfect sinecure. This Brownie both 

 inned the corn and thrashed it, and that for several successive seasons. It at 

 length happened, one harvest, that after he had brought the whole victual into 

 the barn, some one remarked that he had not moioed it very well — that is, not 

 piled it up neatly at the end of the barn ; wLereat the spirit took such offence 

 that he threw the whole of it next night over the Raven Craig, a precipice two 

 miles off, and the people of the farm had almost the trouble of a second harvest 

 in gathering it up again. — Robert Chambers. 



