AND ANGLING SONGS. 337 



description abound on the Fife coast. They are nearly all con- 

 nected with historical traditions. One near Wemyss, termed 

 the King's Cave, was the scene of an adventure met with by 

 James iv. Another, of considerable amplitude, and chiselled 

 over with rude hieroglyphics, is said to have been used as a 

 temporary place of encampment for his army by one of our 

 earlier Scottish kings. Robbers, smugglers, the Danes and other 

 Northmen, in their invasions, are all mixed up with the history 

 of these subterraneous recesses. I recollect, when a boy, being 

 incited, by some relation of the defeat of a Danish force by 

 Banquo, one of Macbeth's comrades-in-arms, A.D. 1040, to dig 

 in the sand, not far from a choked-up hollow belonging to the 

 series, at a spot supposed to have been a centre- point in the 

 struggle, and turning up, along with human bones, pieces of 

 metal, which I had reason to conjecture were the remains of 

 armour or iron harness belonging to the discomfited invaders. 

 Another of these caves, lying to the eastward of Kinghorn, is 

 associated in my personal recollections with the death of a seal, 

 which, when wandering in quest of sea-fowl, I came suddenly 

 upon, basking at full spread on the rocks at low-tide. I was 

 armed on the occasion with an old musket, the contents of which 

 were unceremoniously discharged at the head of the poor animal 

 before it was actually aware of my presence. 



Reverting to the sea-caves at Kincraig, it was almost imme- 

 diately facing them, and stretching west towards a bay famed 

 equally in song and in story, that I prosecuted my summer's 

 sport. Who is there among the lovers of Scottish song but has 

 listened with delight to that winning melody, ' Weel may the 

 Boatie row,' and treasures up those simple words 



' We cast our lines in Largo Bay, 



An' fishes we caught nine ; 

 There 's three to fry, and. three to boil, 

 An' three to bait the line.' 



