Mr. Hardy on the Wolf hi Scotland. 275 



as the time of William the Lion (1165 — 1214), the Melrose 

 monks practised setting wolf-snares, for the protection of 

 their numerous flocks and herds.* Thus far history throws 

 its scattered light athwart the gloomy shadoMs of the Border 

 forests, and reveals, by shifting glimpses, the depths of the 

 ancient wilderness. 



But there were other parts of the kingdom kept in awe by 

 the lank tyrants of the woods. Where record does not ex- 

 plicitly affirm, allusion suggests the inference. In 1390, after 

 the death of Robert II., Alexander earl of Buchan, his young- 

 est son by Elizabeth More, conducted herself with such cruel 

 and relentless barbarity, that his name has descended to pos- 

 terity as the Wolf of Badenoch.f From this we may infer, 

 the general dread inspired by these implacable animals. 

 About the year 1460, the head of the family of Stewart of 

 Garth, in Perthshire, was not only stripped of his authority 

 by his friends and kindred, but confined for life on account 

 of his ungovernable passions and ferocious disposition. The 

 cell in the castle of Garth in which he was imprisoned, was 

 till lately regarded by the people with a kind of superstitious 

 teiTor. This petty tyrant was surnamed the " i^/erce IFb//y" 

 and if the traditionary stories related of him have any claim 

 to belief, the appellation was both deserved and characteiistic.J 

 The superstition of Lycanthropy, also, existed in Scotland. 

 Men of evil passions, it was supposed, were transformed into 

 wolves, and those thus bestialized, became cannibals. " Ther 

 ben somme that eten chyldren and men, and eteth noon other 

 flesh fro that tyme that thei be a-charmed with mannys flesh; 

 and thei be cleped Avere-wolfes." § The " warwolf " is men- 

 tioned in Sempil's Philotus and in the ballad of Kempion.|| 

 Merlin the Wild, or the Scottish Merlin, is represented as 

 suffering his weird or destiny in the shape of a wild beast in 

 the Prophecies of Waldhave.^ But Scottish history supplies 

 a horrible instance of not inferior savageism perpetrated un- 

 der the human form without any Circsean disguise. It occur- 

 red in the vicinity of Perth, in the reign of David II., about 



* Caledonia li., p. 132. Chart. Mel. 91. 



t Lupus de Badenach. Forduni Scotichronicon, 1. xiv. c. 56. A modern 

 reiver, John Macgregor. long the terror of Strathmore, was known in the low 

 country by the name of the " Red Bull of Badenoch." He was killed in a skir- 

 mish, during a raid about 1707. A. Laing's Wayside Flowers, p. 51, 52. 



I Stewart's Sketches of Highlanders, i. p. 57. 



^S MS. Bodl. 546. 



il Sibbald's Chron. of Scottish Poetry, iii. p. 429, Minstrelsy Scot. Bord. 

 iii. p. 244. Also in Kennedy and Montgomery. 



H Scots Magazine, 1802, p. 6o3. 



Ss 



