ARTHUR SEAT— HISTORY AND NOMENCLATURE 343 



pious Queen of Malcolm Canmore, and the beautiful vaulted 

 Gothic canopy under which the waters rise has been trans- 

 ferred hither from the supposed " Eude Well" — the lost 

 spring of the Virgin Saint Triduana at Eestalrig — now hidden 

 under locomotive repairing works. The " Wells o' Wearie," 

 immortalised in song, have been sealed up and are hard to 

 discover in the braeface under "Samson's Ribs." But many 

 wayfarers, following the familiar track taken by the members 

 ^of the Club, still quench their thirst at St. Anthony's Well, 

 mentioned in the moving ballad of " Waly, waly up yon 

 bank," which is supposed by some to record the sorrows of 

 Barbara Erskine, the neglected wife of James, second Marquis 

 of Douglas, the "Jamie Douglas" of another ballad: — 



"Oh! Arthar Seat will be my bed, 

 The sheets will no be pressed by me ; 



St. Anton's Well will be my drink, 

 Since my fause love's forsaken me." 



St. Anthony's Chapel and Hermitage may be said to 

 represent the only authentic trace of permanent habitation 

 to be found on the Hill. There is, indeed, a curious entry 

 in the Edinburgh Courant of 29th October 1728 recording 

 the discovery in the "Cat-nick," the chasm at the highest 

 and almost the only accessible point of the Salisbury Crags, 

 of a shallow pit giving access to "a little snug room or 

 vault, hung with dressed leather, and lighted from the roof, 

 the window covered by a bladder," and "thought to have 

 been the cave of a hermit of ancient times, though now the 

 hiding-place of. a gang of thieves." But of this strange place 

 of refuge, if it ever existed, nothing is left. St. Anthony's 

 Chapel itself, although it must have occupied for many 

 centuries a conspicuous position on the Hill, has left little 

 mark in record. It may with practical certainty be identified 

 with " Sanct Anthonis of the Crag," " Sanct Anthonis Chapel 

 besid Edinburgh," mentioned repeatedly in the "Lord High 

 Treasurer's Accounts" of the fifteenth century, and from 

 the fact that it is included within the later limits of the 

 "Sanctuary of Holyrood," it has been assumed that it was 

 attached to the neighbouring abbey. But as Mr F. I^. 



