Ancient and Modern Britons; A Retrospect Volume 3

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1884 edition. ... ANCIENT AND MODERN BRITONS. CHAPTER I. Tf it is not yet too late in the day to look up the antecedents of the famous Galloway Pict, "Billy Marshall," the results obtained from such a research would almost certainly repay the trouble of obtaining them. He is introduced by several modern writers, though he was really of " the antique world." Not only because of his way of living, but literally so on account of his great age. For, although he lived on almost to the close of last century, his birth is placed as far back as the year 1671. This fact, therefore, gives him a great value; for if, like other true "gypsies," he clung tenaciously to all the customs of his forefathers--as far as the times would let him -- then, in Billy Marshall, we have a representative of the Galloway Pict of the seventeenth century. Without attempting anything that can be dignified by the name of "research," let us see what some of these modern writers say of him. Of these, none has a better right to the first word than and this is what he tells us* of the Galloway "Meg Merrilics is in Galloway considered as having had her origin in the traditions concerning the celebrated Flora Marshal, one of the royal consorts of Willie Marshal, more commonly called the Caird [Tinker] of Barullion, King of the Gipsies of the Western Lowlands. * Tn his "Additional Note" (o "Guy Mannering." That potentate was himself deserving of notice, from the following peculiarities. He was born in the parish of Kirkmichael, about the year 1671 ; and as he died at Kirkcudbright, 23rd November, 1792, he must then have been in the one hundred and twentieth year of his age. It cannot be said that this unusually long lease of existence was noted by any peculiar excellence of...