591. =Knight of Snowdoun, James Fitz-James.= As appears later in the poem, these were not his true name and title, though he was entitled to bear them. 622. =a harp unseen.= In modern Scotland the bagpipe has altogether taken the place of the harp. A writer of the sixteenth century says: "They (the Highlanders) take great delight to deck their harps with silver and precious stones; the poor ones that cannot attain thereunto deck them with crystal. They sing verses prettily compounded (i.e., composed) containing for the most part praises of valiant men." 638. =pibroch.= (Pronounced pee-brock.) A wild tumultuous tune played on the bagpipes in the onset of battle. 642. =bittern.= A wading bird, allied to the heron. 657. =reveille.= As the rhyme shows, this word is pronounced _reh-vail'yah_ here. The common pronunciation in the United States is _rev-a-lee'_. It is the drum-beat or bugle-call at dawn to arouse soldiers. CANTO SECOND 1. =blackcock.= See note to I, 440. 7. =minstrel grey.= Until well on in the eighteenth century it was customary for Highland chieftains to keep in their service a bard, whose chief duty it was to sing the exploits of the ancestors of the line. 69. =Lead forth his fleet.= What kind of figure is contained in the word _fleet_ as applied to the flock of ducks? 131. =harp, which erst Saint Modan swayed.= St. Modan was not a harper, as Scott elsewhere ingenuously confesses, adding, however, that "Saint Dunstan certainly did play upon that instrument." 141. =Wailed loud through Bothwell's bannered hall.= The minstrel tries to account for the strange way in which his harp gives back mournful sounds instead of the joyous ones he is trying to evoke, by calling to Ellen's mind two other occasions when it behaved similarly. One of these was when it foreboded the death of Ellen's mother; the other when it foreboded the exile of the Douglasses during the minority of James V. For particulars, see the introduction on the historical setting of the poem. Bothwell Castle is on the Clyde, a few miles from Glasgow. 159. =From Tweed to Spey.= The Tweed is in the extreme southern part, the Spey in the northern part, of Scotland. 200. =Lady of the Bleeding Heart.= The minstrel calls Ellen so because a bleeding heart was the heraldic emblem of the Douglas family. 206. =strathspey.= A dance, named from the district of Strath Spey, in the north of Scotland. It resembled the reel, but was slower. 213. =Clan-Alpine's pride.= Clan Alpine was the collective name of the followers of Roderick Dhu, who figures later in the poem as Ellen's rejected suitor and the enemy of the mysterious "Knight of Snowdoun" who has just taken his departure from the island. 216. =Lennox foray.= Lennox is the district south of Menteith, in the Lowlands. It was the scene of innumerable forays and "cattle-drives."