Ancient Scottish ballads, recovered from tradition, and never before ...

Ancient Scottish ballads, recovered from tradition, and never before ... Ancient Scottish ballads, recovered from tradition, and never before ...

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216 Then for their life ye sair shall dree, Ye sail be hangit on a tree, Or thrown into the poison'd lake, To feed the toads and rattle-snake."

NOTES DUKE OF PERTH'S THREE DAUGHTERS. Or thrown into the poison'd lake, Tofeed the toads and rattlesnake p. 216, v. 18. Those readers who are versant in tales of knight-er- rantry, will here be reminded of knights, who, in search of perilous enterprises, had often to cross nox- ious lakes teeming with pestilential vapours, and swarming with serpents, and other venomous reptiles, that opposed their baneful and offensive influence to im- pede or destroy these bold adventurers. Though the " poisoned lake" seems the fiction of romance, yet his- tory in her record of human cruelty, shows that the use of venomous animals to inflict a lingering and painful death, was not unknown in Britain. The Saxon Chronicle, in detailing the cruelties exercised by the Normans upon the Anglo-Saxons, during the

NOTES<br />

DUKE OF PERTH'S THREE<br />

DAUGHTERS.<br />

Or thrown into the poison'd lake,<br />

Tofeed the toads <strong>and</strong> rattlesnake p. 216, v. 18.<br />

Those readers who are versant in tales of knight-er-<br />

rantry, will here be reminded of knights, who, in<br />

search of perilous enterprises, had often to cross nox-<br />

ious lakes teeming with pestilential vapours, <strong>and</strong><br />

swarming with serpents, <strong>and</strong> other venomous reptiles,<br />

that opposed their baneful <strong>and</strong> offensive influence to im-<br />

pede or destroy these bold adventurers. Though the<br />

" poisoned lake" seems the fiction of romance, yet his-<br />

tory in her record of human cruelty, shows that the<br />

use of venomous animals to inflict a lingering <strong>and</strong><br />

painful death, was not unknown in Britain. The<br />

Saxon Chronicle, in detailing the cruelties exercised<br />

by the Normans upon the Anglo-Saxons, during the

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