UNIV. OF .METRICAL LEGENDS OF Northumberland : CONTAINING THE TRADITIONS OF DUNSTANBOROUGH CASTLE, And other Poetical Romances. WITH NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. BY JAMES SERVICE. "Ah! happy he who thus, in magic themes, CRABBE. ALNWICK: TO BE HAD OF ALL BOOKSELLERS. 1834. PREFACE. THE metrical Legends recording the martial deeds and the traditionary remains of our forefathers, have ever imparted a powerful charm to readers of taste and sentiment. Even the ideal illusions and the popular superstitions that characterize those ruder ages, whose mythology of fiction has descended to our own times, indicate an era pre-eminent for intensity of imagination, poetic feeling, and generous enthusiasm. The forsaken and solitary ruins of Dunstanborough Castle have furnished the theme of the metrical effusions of four writers, whose productions, in their isolated state, passed the ordeal of criticism, and received the approbation of the lovers of imaginative story. To these Legends, which are now for the first time presented in a connected form, are appended some other productions containing memorials of Northumberland in former days. The design of the present publication being to preserve, and to heighten by poetical embellishment, the memory of 456040 events either unnoticed or but slightly sketched by the older chroniclers; to revive a taste for the provincial poetry of our local legends; and to rescue from oblivion some of the traditionary and venerable associations of our father-land ;-for "Time hath a wallet at his back, The Editor has attempted to make a nosegay of a few of the poetic flowers that Fancy has strewed in the romantic land of Northumbria; and, though he has brought "little of his own but the thread that ties them," he entertains a confident hope that these Legends of Northumberland" will be received with indulgence. Chatton, March, 1831. J. S. CONTENTS. 27 45 57 75 141 |