Tradition bears that it was inhabited by an aged lady at the beginning of the last century, and several old people still alive remember of the joists and window-frames being entire. A more interesting legend exists, of which the purport is, that there was once a human skull within this tower, possessed of the miraculous faculty of self-motion to such a degree, that, if taken away to any distance, it was always sure to have found its way back to its post by the next morning.[74] This may perhaps remind the reader of the strange journeys performed by the “black volume” in the Monastery, whose rambling disposition was such a source of terror and amazement to the monks of St. Mary’s. FOOTNOTES: [69] _Girth_ signifies a Sanctuary or place of refuge. [70] Broken mountain ground, without vegetation. [71] These are found in several fantastic shapes, such as guns, cradles, boots, etc., and are justly supposed to be the petrifactions of some mineral spring hard by. [72] Smailholm Tower. [73] The entrance of Avenel was also from the west. [74] This story is told in the _Border Antiquities_. Since we copied it, information has been communicated, deriving the report from a ridiculous and most unromantic incident. The skull was moved from its place in the castle by a rat, which had found a lodgment in its cavity, and contrived to take it back to a particular apartment on finding it removed to any other. CHAPTER XI. =The Romances.= MATCH OF ARCHERY AT ASHBY. “IVANHOE.” The match in which the yeoman Locksley overcomes all the antagonists whom Prince John brings up against him, finds a parallel, and indeed we may say foundation, in the ballad of “Adam Bell, Clym o’ the Cleugh, and William of Cloudeslea.” The story of the ballad bears, that these three “perilous outlaws,” having wrought great devastation among the “foresters of the fee” and liege burghers of Carlisle, while in the act of rescuing one of their companions from prison, “fure up to London Town” to crave of their Sovereign a charter of peace. This, by the intercession of the Queen, he grants them; but no sooner is the royal word passed for their pardon, than messengers arrive from the “North Countrye,” with the tidings of the deadly havoc. The King happens to be quietly engaged in eating his dinner at the time, and is completely thunderstruck at the intelligence, so that,— “Take up the table,” then said he, “For I can eat no mo’.” He straightway assures the three offenders, that if they do not prevail over every one of his own bowmen, their lives shall be forfeited. “Then they all bent their good yew bows, _Looked that their strings were rownd_, And twice or thrice they shot their shafts Full deftly in that stound. “Then out spoke William of Cloudeslea, ‘By him that for me died, I hold him not a good archer That shoots at butt so wide.’