Betraydarum_, “the land of betraying, from _Dar_, _Badi_, _Badi_, _Badi_, ‘deceitful, wicked’;” and as _Dara_ implies _Dar_-man, or a _deceitful man_, therefore we get the etymology of the words _Odin_ and _Odysseus_, the father and _Ulysses_ of the _Odyssey_. [24] Odin, the father of the gods, was a chief of very great empire, who sent a warlike troop of a thousand men, by the name of _Sleipnir_, to fight with giants, and as the latter were all of them drowned, and his own troops were all destroyed, he then caused the earth to sink and bury his whole army; which he did from an anxiety lest men should make reprisals for the [Illustration: DRAWING A.BAGG.DE MORGAN _S. LANGDALE’S SCOTTISH POETS_] [Illustration: ~Grimalkin.~] There’s a grimbal[A] kin to the cat, Whose a’ways at the door he sits, He’s a gread auld-warld body, And lang o’ the breed o’ that; His name is Sir Bevis, But he’s o’er the hills awa’; In ae place and ae place ither, The knight he keeps the wa’. _Low-country Minstrelsy_. [A] The grimalkin.--T. Burnet. The last line of this charming fragment of metrical romance, written by Burnet in the year 1762, illustrates the Scottish use of _wa’_ or _weel_. The allusion is to the traditionary exploits of the knight Sir Bevis, and the expression means simply ‘He lives somewhere,’ or ‘is not dead.’ “Bevis of Southampton had some connection with a district in Norfolk, where Sir Bevis is mentioned in a number of old documents, and where this old knight was doubtless frequently visited.” The legend is one of the tales which have survived in popular memory throughout Europe since the middle of the fifteenth century. Sir Bevis, with a bodyguard of one hundred and one knights, one dwarf and one fool, pursued the giant King Anguish, who fell into the sea near Bosham, and as he did so the waves washed away the knight and his party and all their horses but the dwarf and the fool, who were carried by the tide into a cave, in which they were left to drown. But they took heart of grace, and by singing-- O Lord have mercy on our soul! accomplished their deliverance. It is said that as they reached the shore, Sir Bevis and the dwarf were picked up by a boat, and the fool in like manner by a passing vessel, so that the whole were preserved. The giant being drowned, Sir Bevis became, as Burnet says, “a great warld-body.” He and the dwarf are supposed to dwell in a cave near Chichester, while the fool wanders all over the country and lives at large, and all day long on the hill on which Chichester Cathedral is built. When any one meets the fool he must Give him a groat, and run for your life. He has all the power of making himself invisible, and he is always welcome to a meal at a rich man’s table, “for whaever sees Bevis gives him a groat.” He is much given to drinking of ale, and, as he is in great awe of Sir Bevis, is in the habit of saying to those who invite him, when the knight is at home, “that he canna venture to gang in the tap till Bevis has eaten his porridge;” and if he is asked why, he says, “his master is sae great a man that he would kill him.” This invulnerable warrior being ready to come to an engagement with all manner of giants and monsters, and to go hunting all over the world, while at the same time he could go on all-fours, or, like a cat, sit on the roof, and thus go over the hill, was so much talked of that the people of Chichester imagined that they heard a horse moving, and thought he was still alive. Thus the tradition came down from age to age. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER IX. ALEXANDER AND THE KNIGHT-ERRANT. [Illustration] Such is the history, as it has come down to us from ancient time, of Alexander, who performed all manner of marvellous exploits; and hence he is now, by common consent, styled _Saint_ Alexander; so that we may be very certain the appellation was given him in his lifetime, and not long after his death. That he was a Scotchman, the very name of Alexander is, we may observe, peculiar to our nation; and moreover he may have belonged to the south-west of Scotland, his first master being the prince and conqueror of England. There are several circumstances in his history which agree with the tradition that he was originally of Pictish blood. He is said to have been a native of Annandale, and this would agree with the old Celtic tradition that the Picts were born in the island of Manann, or Mona; and from hence the island was called after them, _Pictavia_. That he was born in the West, in the reign of Henry the Second, and in the province of Ulster, is well-known; that his family came from the highlands of Aberdeen or Aberdeen-shire is more questionable; but at least that his forefathers were Scottish by extraction, which may be supposed from the ancient Gaelic names he used. His mother was said to be a princess, and we know he had a brother David, who, with his wife and daughter, visited him in his captivity in Ireland; the brother is said to have been a valiant and skilful swordsman; and some have imagined him to be the original of the Dalmatic. Many of the family of Alexander had the name of _Bane_, the Gaelic for the same word as the English _Bane_, which is the name of the spirit in the great majority of the tales of our ancestors, who used to appear to them and give advice in various practical affairs. According to these notions, the name may have been given to Alexander from his having had two children called _Dalmatic_, one of whom lived; but we can hardly presume this, though indeed he may have died in a _natural_ way, as children often do. Alexander was a great _boast_ of his ancestry; but he also seems to have been singularly addicted to a _boasting kind of society_. His friends, some say, boasted the more boldly from his lack of courage and modesty, and called him a coward; upon which he, in a fit of passion, drew his sword, and cut off the hand of one of them, saying he would show the world who was the coward. We may believe that he did this out of bravado, and to vindicate his character; but if his temper was soured by a long and bitter captivity, nothing is more common in his history than to boast and be abused; for he seems to have been often ill-used in the course of his life. He may be said to have been in captivity to the English from the year 1214 to the year 1217. On his return home, as he found himself in want of money, he went into a deep ravine in Perthshire, at a place called Loch Doon. There he met with a band of twenty Scots, who were all but naked and starving. They had no means to procure the means of life but by committing robbery; and as Alexander found them well qualified for this undertaking, he made a partnership with them, and thus went through two years of hardships together. After this adventure he accompanied them in many other depredations; for, like all who come to want, he was always a great stealer of other men’s things. From these circumstances arose the report that he had been a robber in his youth; but he has several times told us that his first depredations were on the French: for his original design was only to make love and be made love to by the female-kind; but as soon as he heard that he had an opportunity to lay a