An eerie poem by the Scottish author Walter Scott (1771–1832), “Glenfinlas” recounted the legend of an ill-fated hunting trip that led to the horrific demise of a lustful Highland chieftain named Lord Ronald. The setting of the poem was a desolate valley called Glen Finglas, where Ronald and another chieftain called Moy tarried in a rustic cabin after several days of hunting. Lamenting the absence of “a fair woman’s yielding kiss,” Ronald left the cabin with his hunting dogs for a tryst with a local lady named Mary. Warned of danger by his gift of second sight, Moy remained behind. When a strange woman in green arrived at the cabin later that night, Moy’s insight penetrated her disguise and he rebuffed her with prayer, for this maiden was in fact a predatory succubus. As the final stanzas of the poem made clear, in Ronald’s pursuit of a female companion in that lonely glen, the hunter became the hunted.
“E’en now, to meet me in yon dell,
My Mary’s buskins brush the dew.”—
He spoke, nor bade the chief farewell
But call’d his dogs, and gay withdrew.
Within an hour returned each hound;
In rushed the rousers of the deer;
They howl’d in melancholy sound,
Then closely couch’d beside the Seer.
No Ronald yet; though midnight came,
And sad were Moy’s prophetic dreams,
As, bending o’er the dying flame,
He fed the watch-fire’s quivering gleams.
Sudden the hounds erect their ears,
And sudden cease their moaning howl;
Close press’d to Moy, they mark their fears
By shiv’ring limbs, and stifled growl.
Untouch’d, the harp began to ring,
As softly, slowly, oped the door;
And shook, responsive, ev’ry string,
As light a footstep press’d the floor.
And by the watch-fire’s glimmering light,
Close by the Minstrel’s side was seen
An huntress maid, in beauty bright,
All dropping wet her robes of green.
All dropping wet her garments seem;
Chill’d was her cheek, her bosom bare,
As, bending o’er the dying gleam,
She wrung the moisture from her hair.
With maiden blush she softly said,
“O gentle huntsman, hast thou seen,
In deep Glenfinlas’ moonlight glade,
A lovely maid in vest of green:
“With her a chief in Highland pride;
His shoulders bear the hunter’s bow,
The mountain-dirk adorns his side,
Far on the wind his tartans flow?”
“And who art thou? and who are they?”
All ghastly gazing, Moy replied;
“And why, beneath the moon’s pale ray,
Dare ye thus roam Glenfinlas’ side?”
“Where wild Loch-Katrine pours her tide,
Blue, dark, and deep, round many an isle,
Our fathers’ towers o’erhang her side
The castle of the bold Glengyle.
“To chase the dun Glenfinlas deer,
Our woodland course this morn we bore,
And haply met, while wandering here,
The son of great Macgillianore.
“O aid me, then, to seek the pair
Whom, loitering in the woods, I lost;
Alone, I dare not venture there,
Where walks, they say, the shrieking ghost.”
“Yes, many a shrieking ghost walks there;
Then, first, my own sad vow to keep,
Here will I pour my midnight prayer,
Which still must rise when mortals sleep.”
“O first, for pity’s gentle sake,
Guide a lone wanderer on her way!
For I must cross the haunted brake,
And reach my father’s towers ere day.”
“First, three times tell each Ave bead,
And thrice a Pater-noster say;
Then kiss with me the holy reed;
So shall we safely wend our way.”
“O shame to knighthood, strange and foul!
Go, doff the bonnet from thy brow,
And shroud thee in the monkish cowl,
Which best befits thy sullen vow.
“Not so, by high Dunlathmon’s fire,
Thy heart was froze to love and joy,
When gaily rung thy raptured lyre,
To wanton Morna’s melting eye.”
Wild stared the minstrel’s eyes of flame,
And high his sable locks arose,
And quick his color went and came,
As fear and rage alternate rose.
“And thou! when by the blazing oak,
I lay, to her and love resigned,
Say, rode ye on the eddying smoke,
Or sail’d ye on the midnight wind!
“Not thine a race of mortal blood,
Nor old Glengyle’s pretended line;
Thy dame, the Lady of the Flood,
Thy sire, the Monarch of the Mine.”
He muttered thrice St. Oran’s rhyme,
And thrice St. Fillan’s powerful prayer;
Then turned him to the eastern clime,
And sternly shook his coal-black hair.
And, bending o’er his harp, he flung
His wildest witch-notes on the wind;
And loud, and high, and strange, they rung.
As many a magic change they find.
Tall wax’d the Spirit’s altering form,
Till to the roof her stature grew;
Then, mingling with the rising storm,
With one wild yell away she flew.
Rain beats, hail rattles, whirlwinds tear;
The slender but in fragments flew;
But not a lock of Moy’s loose hair
Was waved by wind, or wet by dew.
Wild mingling with the howling gale,
Loud bursts of ghastly laughter rise;
High o’er the minstrel’s head they sail,
And die amid the northern skies.
The voice of thunder shook the wood,
As ceased the more than mortal yell;
And, spattering foul, a shower of blood
Upon the hissing firebrands fell.
Next, dropped from high a mangled arm;
The fingers strain’d a half-drawn blade:
And last, the life-blood streaming warm,
Torn from the trunk, a gasping head.
Oft o’er that head, in battling field,
Streamed the proud crest of high Benmore,
That arm the broad claymore could wield,
Which dyed the Teith with Saxon gore.
Wo to Moneira’s sullen rills!
Wo to Glenfinlas’ dreary glen!
There never son of Albin’s hills
Shall draw the hunter’s shaft agen!
E’en the tired pilgrim’s burning feet
At noon shall shun that shelt’ring den,
Lest, journeying in their rage, he meet
The wayward Ladies of the Glen.
And we—behind the chieftain’s shield,
No more shall we in safety dwell;
None leads the people to the field—
And we the loud lament must swell.
O hone a rie’! o hone a rie’!
The pride of Albin’s line is o’er!
And fall’n Glenartney’s stateliest tree;
We ne’er shall see Lord Ronald more!