’And many an age, when slept that Saint in death,
      Passing his isle by night the sailor heard
      Saint Cuthbert’s hammer clinking on the rock.’

The recognised name of these shells is still ’St. Cuthbert’s beads.”

Stanza xvii. line 316.  ’Ceolwolf, or Colwulf, King of Northumberland, flourished in the eighth century.  He was a man of some learning; for the venerable Bede dedicates to him his “Ecclesiastical History.”  He abdicated the throne about 738, and retired to Holy Island, where he died in the odour of sanctity.  Saint as Colwulf was, however, I fear the foundation of the penance-vault does not correspond with his character; for it is recorded among his memorabilia, that, finding the air of the island raw and cold, he indulged the monks, whose rule had hitherto confined them to milk or water, with the comfortable privilege of using wine or ale.  If any rigid antiquary insists on this objection, he is welcome to suppose the penance-vault was intended by the founder for the more genial purposes of a cellar.

’These penitential vaults were the Geissel-gewolbe of German convents.  In the earlier and more rigid times of monastic discipline, they were sometimes used as a cemetery for the lay benefactor of the convent, whose unsanctified corpses were then seldom permitted to pollute the choir.  They also served as places of meeting for the chapter, when measures of uncommon severity were to be adopted.  But their most frequent use, as implied by the name, was as places for performing penances, or undergoing punishment.’—­ Scott.

Stanza xviii. line 350.  ’Antique chandelier.’—­Scott.

Stanza xix. line 371.  ’That there was an ancient priory at Tynemouth is certain.  Its ruins are situated on a high rocky point; and, doubtless, many a vow was made to the shrine by the distressed mariners, who drove towards the iron-bound coast of Northumberland in stormy weather.  It was anciently a nunnery; for Virca, abbess of Tynemouth, presented St. Cuthbert (yet alive) with a rare winding-sheet, in emulation of a holy lady called Tuda, who had sent him a coffin:  but, as in the case of Whitby, and of Holy Island, the introduction of nuns at Tynemouth, in the reign of Henry VIII, is an anachronism.  The nunnery of Holy Island is altogether fictitious.  Indeed, St. Cuthbert was unlikely to permit such an establishment; for, notwithstanding his accepting the mortuary gifts above mentioned, and his carrying on a visiting acquaintance with the abbess of Coldingham, he certainly hated the whole female sex; and, in revenge of a slippery trick played to him by an Irish princess, he, after death, inflicted severe penances on such as presumed to approach within a certain distance of his shrine.’—­Scott.

line 376. ruth (A.  S. hreow, pity) in Early and Middle English was used both for ‘disaster’ and ‘pity.’  These two shades of meaning are illustrated by Spenser in F. Q., Bk. ii.  I. Introd. to Canto where Falsehood beguiles the Red Cross Knight, and ’workes him woefull ruth,’ and in F. Q. I. v. 9: