“No human creature, if report ſays true, Edmund, returns from this fatal wood, to tell the deeds of darkneſs acted in it. My attendants, I gueſs, would quit us ere we palled a ſpot whoſe fame is widely diffuſed.”
“What is it of which fame ſpeaks ſo loudly?”
“Know then,” ſaid the king, “long after the light of chriſtianity was ſpread over Scotland, that the Danes, who poſſeſſed the Orcades, practiſed the horrid rites of paganiſm, and reared here alſo their idols, before whom barbarous and bloody rites were practiſed. To thoſe falſe deities, if tradition ſays true, which transmits the tale to theſe later days, was this wood conſecrated; and in its inmoſt gloomy receſs, it is ſtill believed, ſtand the remains of a palace of thoſe pagan kings, where ſtill it is told dwell women who mock at our holy religion, and ſecretly pay homage to an accurſed idol, which is hid by them during the day, obedient to whoſe potent ſpells the unbleſt ſpirits, who it is ſaid walk here their nightly rounds, fly on their miſchievous errands, aſſuming ſuch ſhapes as beſt fit their purpoſe.”
They had left the wood for a conſiderable ſpace behind them, when a light appearing through the fog, which they hoped proceeded from ſome cottage which they had not obſerved, they rode forward in that direction with all the ſpeed their overwearied ſteeds would permit.
The light ſeemed to retreat, and glimmered from the ſame diſtance, as when they firſt remarked it, though now in a different place, for it appeared to the weſt. They ſtood–it vaniſhed, and a low indiſtinct murmur was heard. Again a brighter light ſhot in another direction, through the duſky air.
“Let us,” ſaid Edmund, “proceed.” Which with their eyes fixed on the light that now appeared ſtationary, they did ſome way; but when they imagined it within a ſtone’s throw of them, their horſes, as if obedient to the mandate, refuſed to proceed, though urged by the ſpur, as a voice diſtinctly cried, “Stop.” At the ſame moment the deceitful glimmering vaniſhed. Dazzled by ſo long beholding it through the thick and
