APPENDIX I. 



THE TURNBULL LEGEND. 



" Between red ezlar banks that frightful scowl, 

 Fringed with grey hazel, roars the mining Eoull ; 

 Where Turnbulls once, a race no power could awe, 

 Lined the rough skirts of stormy Rubertslaw. 

 Bold was the chief from whom their line they drew, 

 Whose nervous arm the furious bison slew : 

 The bison, fiercest race of Scotia's breed, 

 Whose bounding course outstripped the red deer's speed. 

 By hunters chafed encircling on the plain, 

 He frowning shook his yellow lion-mane, 

 Spurned with black hoof, in bursting rage, the ground, 

 And fiercely tossed his moony horns around ; 

 On Scotia's lord he rushed with lightning speed, 

 Bent his strong neck to toss the startled steed ; 

 His arms robust the hardy hunter Hung 

 Around his bending horns, and upward wrung 

 With writhing force his neck retorted round, 

 And rolled the panting monster on the ground, 

 Crushed with enormous strength his bony skull, 

 And courtiers hailed the man who turned the bull." 



Leyden's " Scenes of Infancy." 



Before concluding this work, I propose to consider the story 

 connected with King Robert Bruce which Boethius relates, as 

 has been already stated, and which must have occurred between 

 the battle of Bannockburn in the year 1314 (when the Bruce 

 established himself on the throne), and the king's death in 1329. 

 This attack upon the king by the wild bull is, I believe, the 

 earliest incident in Scottish history in which this animal figures as 

 an actor. It took place at least five centuries and a half since — two 

 centuries before Boethius wrote — and it is a pretty strong proof that 

 when it occurred the wild bull was more abundant than in his time. 

 Yet even then the great Caledonian Wood must have been much 



