GLOOMY BELIEFS 113 



carries off in triumph the precious treasure.* 

 Beliefs like these have often given a partial pro- 

 tection to the raven in countries where he most 

 needed it. The Highlanders, for instance, who are 

 quite willing that others should kill the raven, are 

 not often willing to kill one themselves. Others, 

 who would, on no account, shoot a raven, are willing 

 to put down a strychnined egg for him, leaving him, 

 as they flatter themselves, to be the agent of his 

 own destruction. " Wickedness proceedeth from 

 the wicked, but my hand shall not be upon thee." 

 To this day, in England, the prosperity of many 

 a great family is supposed to depend upon the 

 safety of the raven which has deigned to make 

 his domicile under its protection. If he meets a 

 violent death, a member of the family is sure to 

 die within the year. No one who has read the 

 Bride of Lammermoor, the most weird and tragical 

 of all Scott's novels, and has watched the storm 

 gathering fast over the ill-fated lovers, can have 

 forgotten the scene, terrible in its grandeur, when, 

 just as Edgar Ravenswood and Lucy Ashton 

 were leaving the haunted well, which had been the 

 witness of their engagement, the raven, the sacred 



* For some of these details see Provincial Names of British 

 Birds, by Rev, Charles Swainson, p. 91. 



H 



