2«>« S. VI. 132., July 10. '58.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



26 



ABMS OF SELKIRK, SCOTLAND. 



In Chambers's Picture of Scotland may be read 

 the following traditiou regarding the origin of the 

 arms of the burgh of Selkirk : — 



"A band of Selkirk burgesses, eighty in number, be- 

 haved with great gallantry at Flodden, from which they 

 brought home a pennon, said to have belonged to one of 

 the Percy family, which is still preserved bj' the deacon 

 of the Corporation of Weavers. William Brydone, the 

 Town-Clerk, who headed this bar.d, was knighted bj' the 

 King, on the tield of battle, in consideration of his emi- 

 nent bravery. As the party was returning, the}- found, 

 by the side of Ladywood Edge, the bodj- of a female, the 

 ■wife of one of their number, who had fallen : she had 

 come forth, in the hope of meeting her husband, but, 

 spent witli cold and hunger, had died by the way, and 

 her child was still endeavouring to draw sustenance from 

 her breast. In memory of this touching incident, the 

 town still bears for its arms the figure of a lady with a 

 child in her arms, seated on a sarcophagus decorated 

 with the Scottish lion, a wood in the background." 



When at Selkirk, a few years ago, I observed 

 on some of the public buildings the arms as de- 

 scribed in this notice, and I felt satisfied that they 

 were of an older date than that ascribed to them, 

 being of a mediaeval ecclesiastical character, evi- 

 dently a representation of the Virgin and Infant 

 Christ : I therefore, when in Edinburgh shortly 

 afterwards, asked Mr. Henry Laing to supply 

 me, from his very rich collection of ancient 

 Scottish seals, with a cast of the earliest one he 

 had of Selkirk. He gave me one (the original of 

 which is appended to an indenture of the year 

 1426) exactly corresponding to the above de- 

 scription and the sculpture at Selkirk, and being 

 of a date of (at least) eighty-seven years prior to 

 the battle of Flodden. It proves that the arms 

 were not taken on that occasion, though the anec- 

 dote connected with that event may in course of 

 time have been applied to the arms. A descrip- 

 tion of the seal may be found in Laing's valuable 

 Catalogue of Antient Scottish Seals, p. 215., No. 

 1187. W. C. Tkeveltan. 



8BC0ND-8IGHT AND SCPERNATUEAL WARNINGS. 



All ghost Stories have a strange fascination 

 about them ; and the various corroborations which 

 certain well-known tales of this class have re- 

 ceived in the pages of " N. & Q.," suggest to me a 

 kindred topic, respecting a belief which is said to 

 be peculiar to the inhabitants of mountainous 

 countries. I allude to what is called second-sight ; 

 connected with which are certain supernatural 

 warnings with reference to approaching death, to 

 which it is difKcult to assign a defined name. The 

 county of Pembroke is rife with tales of this class ; 

 many of them depending upon such trustworthy 

 evidence, as to com[)el the mind to refuse to dis- 

 miss them altogether as unworthy of credit ; and 

 yet, at the same time, it is difficult to understand 



the object of such interferences with the ordinary 

 course of events. I might easily, were I so dis- 

 posed, fill an entire number of this periodical with 

 authentic records (as far as the evidence of the 

 senses may be relied on), which can scarcely be 

 referred to the ordinary theory of coincidences. 

 From the many stories of the class which I have 

 indicated, I may perhaps be allowed to select a 

 few ; for the authenticity of which I can vouch, 

 either from having heard them from the parties 

 to whom they actually occurred, or from having 

 been myself an actor in the scene. Many years 

 ago, seven or eight members of the family of my 

 paternal grandfather were seated at the door of 

 his house on a fine summer evening, between the 

 hours of eigiit and nine o'clock. The parish church 

 and its yard are only separated from the spot by 

 a brook and a couple of meadows. The family 

 happened to be looking in the direction of the 

 churchyard, when they were amazed by witness- 

 ing the advent of a funeral procession. They saw 

 the crowd, and the coffin borne on men's shoulders 

 come down the pathway towards the church, but 

 the distance was too great to enable them to re- 

 cognise the face of any of the actors in the scene. 

 As the funeral cortege neared the church porch, 

 they distinctly saw the clergyman, with whom they 

 were personally acquainted, come out in his surplice 

 to meet the mourners, and saw him precede them 

 into the church. In a short time they came out, 

 and my relatives saw them go to a particular part 

 of the yard, where they remained for a time long 

 enough to allow the remainder of the supposed 

 funeral rites to be performed. Greatly amazed at 

 what he beheld, my grandfather sent over to the 

 church to inquire who had been buried at that 

 unusual hour. The messenger returned with the 

 intelligence that no person had been buried during 

 that day, nor for several days before. A short 

 time after this, a neighbour died, and was buried 

 in the precise spot where the phantom interment 

 was seen. My mother's father lived on the banks 

 of one of the many creeks or pills with which the 

 beautiful harbour of Milford Haven is indented. 

 In front of the house is a large court, built on a 

 quay wall to protect it from the rising tide. In 

 this court my mother was walking one fine evening, 

 rather more than sixty years ago, enjoying the 

 moonlight, and the balmy summer breeze. The 

 tide was out, so that the creek was empty. Sud- 

 denly my mother's attention was aroused by hear- 

 ing the sound of a boat coming up the pill. The 

 measured dip of the oars in the water, and the 

 noise of their revolution in the rowlocks, were 

 distinctly audible. Presently she heard the keel 

 of the boat grate on the gravelly beach by the side 

 of the quay wall. Greatly alarmed, as nothing was 

 visible, she ran into the house, and related what 

 she had heard. A few days afterwards, the mate 

 of an East Indiaman, which had put into Milford 



