“glen, / of glendarg” (MS III)—Spelled Glendearg in Scottʼs Monastery. Ruskinʼs misspelling may represent a conflation with Glenfarg, tending to confirm his later statement in Praeterita that “I used to read the Abbot at Kinross, and the Monastery in Glen Farg, which I confused with ‘Glendearg’, and thought that the White Lady had as certainly lived by the streamlet in that glen of the Ochils, as the Queen of Scots in the island of Loch Leven” (Ruskin, Works, 35:16). That is, in the 1820s, when the Ruskins traveled to and from the city of Perth to visit Ruskinʼs Aunt Jessie and her family, they passed through Glenfarg, which links Perthshire with Kinross and Loch Leven, where Mary, Queen of Scots, was imprisoned—the historical background of The Abbot, the sequel to The Monastery. Ruskinʼs spelling, Glendarg may point to a willful conflation of Scottʼs fictional glen with the real Glenfarg, rather than a confusion of the two places.

In the introduction to the Magnum Opus edition of The Monastery (1830), Scott denied basing the fictional glen on a real place, although admitting to a superficial resemblance to the Glen of Allan in the neighborhood of Melrose Abbey, on which he loosely based the Monastery of Saint Mary at Kennaquhair—the eponymous monastery of the novel (Scott, Works, Caledonian Edition, 17:xii).

“White lady white lady sing on in the glen, / . . . / of the people of thy race” (MS III)—The race of the White Lady echoes the description in The Monastery of the “capricious race of supernatural beings”, the “Scottish fairies”, “who, though capriciously benevolent, were more frequently adverse to mortals”, and of whom “to speak either good or ill . . . is to provoke their resentment”. In the geography of the novel, the fairies lend “a mysterious terror” to the Red Valley, which leads “from the broad valley of the Tweed, up the little glen [Glendearg] . . . to the fortalice called the the Tower of Glendearg” where abide Elspet Glendinning and her two sons—Halbert, the elder, and Edward, the younger (Scott, The Monastery, ed. Fielding, 37 [vol. 1, chap. 2]).

The opening six lines of Ruskinʼs poem, an invocation of the White Lady to sing but not to harm, is apparently original to Ruskin. The rhetorical disjunction of the apostrophe from the narrative voice, which begins in line 7, perhaps had a precedent for Ruskin in the epigraphs that Scott introduces at the start of each chapter of his novels. The lines also suggest the singing of the White Lady herself, which is in couplets.

“there was a drawbridge over the stream, / . . . / before he let them on their way” (MS III)—In Scottʼs Monastery, the bridge‐warder, Peter of the Brigg, lives in an “insulated fortalice” built on a rock in the middle of the Tweed, from which he controls two drawbridges extending to either side of the stream. For passage across the bridge, he exacts payment, from which the monks of the Monastery of Saint Mary demand various exemptions, causing a dispute with the bridge‐keeper. Consequently, in this scene, Peter ignores the calls by the monastery sacristan, Father Philip, to lower the bridge, and Philip is forced to ford the stream on his mule.

While Scott based his description on a historical record, no ancient bridge was visible near Melrose in the nineteenth century, as the narrator remarks. In the novelʼs “Introductory Epistle from Captain Clutterbuck . . . to the Author of ‘Waverley’”, Clutterbuckʼs landlord knows about “the auld draw‐brig that has been at the bottom of the waeter these twalscore years—I have seen the foundations when we were sticking saumon” (Scott, The Monastery, ed. Fielding, 62–63 [vol. 1, chap. 5], 458 n.; 9 [“Introductory Epistle”]). Bridges interested Ruskin in boyhood, his aunt having presented him with a model of Waterloo Bridge in 1823, six years after the bridge first opened in 1817, on the anniversary of the battle (Burd, ed., Ruskin Family Letters, 127).

“a monk” (MS III)—Father Philip, the monastery sacristan. In lines 57 and 64 (Ruskinʼs numbering), he is erroneously called “the abbot”.

“avenel haunt” (MS III)—The family of Avenel, described in The Monastery as “a very ancient Border family” in a state of decline, but still possessing a baronial estate between the land belonging to the Monastery at Kennaquhair and the vale of Glendearg, and on the same side of the Tweed as the vale and the Glendinningsʼ tower. In the novelʼs chronology, the last baron, Walter Avenel, recently fell in a skirmish with English soldiers who occupied the Borders in the aftermath of the Battle of Pinkie. That conflict—which cost the lives of both patriarchs, Avenel and Simon Glendinning, the husband of Elspet Glendinning of the Tower of Glendearg—establishes the historical setting of the novel. See “The Monastery” Apparatus: The Historical Context of Scottʼs Novel.

“black volume” (MS III)—Lady Avenelʼs bible, “‘rendered into the vulgar tongue, and therefore, by the order of the Holy Catholic Church, unfit to be in the hands of any lay person’”, Father Philip explains to Elspet Glendinning (Scott, The Monastery, ed. Fielding, 60 [vol. 1, chap. 5]). For the historical basis of Scottʼs vague treatment of the heresy of Scripturalism in sixteenth‐century Scotland, see Fielding, “Historical Note”, 436.

“the first words he uttered then / were the maidens song when in the glen” (MS III)—Still bewildered and terrified, Father Philip is brought into the presence of Abbot Boniface, unable to speak except to sing snatches of the White Ladyʼs song, which she chanted while they were crossing the river (not “when in the glen”) (Scott, The Monastery, ed. Fielding, 73 [vol. 1, chap. 7]; and see 65–66 [chap. 5]).

“the abbot” (MS III)—Abbot Boniface.

“lest open wide mouthed tattling fame: / should spread these curious news abroad, / and for the people pave the road, / to superstitions house to go” (MS III)—Ruskin substitutes a more decorous explanation than what Abbot Boniface and Sub‐Prior Eustace suspect in the novel—that it was the millerʼs “buxom daughter” whom Father Philip carried across the river on his mule, not a spirit, and that it is “scandal”, not superstition, that the superiors must suppress lest “the heretics catch hold” of the “flying report”, and use it to the monasteryʼs disadvantage. Eustace does resolve to visit Glendearg to “‘see if any spectre or white woman of the wild will venture to interrupt my journey’”, but he is alarmed more about the possible existence of a copy of a vernacular bible in the halidome than about either Philipʼs daliance with the millerʼs daughter or his haunting by an actual spirit. Abbot Boniface does believe Philip has fallen victim to a spell (Scott, The Monastery, ed. Fielding, 75–77 [vol. 1, chap. 7]).

“battle of pinkie where, / the scotch fled like the frigtened hare” (MS III)—See “The Monastery” Apparatus: The Historical Context of Scottʼs Novel.

“the name of this baron was great avenel, / for the good of his country in battle he fell: / . . . / and the widow of avenel the baron did go, / away to this farmers for fear of the foe. / but shortly she staid there for soon came a band, / of english barbarians that plunder the land: / and they robbed the poor farmer of cow and of sheep, / and hardly would leave him poor shagram to keep” (MS III)—Ruskin telescopes several conflicts, which confusingly overlap owing in part to his condensation of the text, and in part to his reversal of contents from Scottʼs chapters two and three, which play out events more logically. Walter Avenel was not killed in the Battle of Pinkie, as one might infer from Ruskinʼs version, but afterward. As Scott explains: “When Scotland began to recover from the dreadful shock she had sustained after the battle of Pinkie Cleuch, Avenel was one of the first who, assembling a small force, set a example in these bloody and unsparing skirmishes, which shewed that a nation, though conquered and overrun by invaders, may yet wage against them such a war of detail as shall in the end become fatal to the foreigners. In one of these, . . . Walter Avenel fell”. Shortly after receiving this distressing news, Lady Avenel flees Avenel Castle with attendants on learning “that a party of Englishmen were coming to plunder the house and lands of [Avenelʼs] widow, in order by this act of terror to prevent others from following the example of the deceased”. Whether or not this rumored party is identical to the force commanded by Stawarth Bolton, which has already visited the Tower of Glendearg in Scottʼs chapter two, all these raids issue from the English occupation following the victory at Pinkie; and the ongoing harrying by “English foragers” touches the Tacket farm, where Lady Avenel is concealed, costing “the few sheep which had escaped the first researches of their avarice”. With no livestock for support, and surrounded by danger, Martin suggests they seek refuge at Glendearg Tower, since he has learned that Dame Glendinning “has had assurance from the Southron loons”—the episode that Ruskin transposes to this point in the narrative (Scott, The Monastery, ed. Fielding, 43–44 [vol. 1, chap. 3]).

“serjeant of the troop” (MS IA, MS III)—Stawarth Bolton is a captain, not a serjeant, in the English army. Bolton does appoint Serjeant Brittson to stay at Glendearg Tower to enforce the familyʼs assurances against a raid.

“red cross” (MS III)—The Cross of Saint George.

“halbert was silent and would not stir, / more than the lofty towering fir: / . . . / and even so was proud halberts mind” (MS III)—The simile of the fir tree is Ruskinʼs addition to Scottʼs scene.

“because the cross is the sign of our lord / and not only that but his blessed word / . . . / well good bye said old stawarth but theres the cross / if you lose it twill be a very great loss” (MS III)—In Scott, Edward retrieves the St. Georgeʼs cross, which Halbert has contemptuously cast into the brook as the token of “a southern saint”, because, Edward explains, “‘the priest says it is the common sign of salvation to all good Christians’”. Ruskin perhaps tips the scale of this ecumenical touch toward a Protestant emphasis, by appending reverence for “his blessed word” to Edwardʼs explanation, recalling the monksʼ alarm over the heretical vernacular bible possessed by Lady Avenel. Ruskin also assigns words out of character to the English captain, whose parting exhortation is not to take care of the St. Georgeʼs cross he has given the Glendinnings, but to “teach” the combative Halbert “‘to spare women and children, for the sake of Stawarth Bolton’” (Scott, The Monastery, ed. Fielding, 40, 42 [vol. 1, chap. 2]).

“the bow / window of his cottage sweet” (MS III)—Ruskin prettifies the “miserable cottage” of the Tackets as described by Scott, its “coarse sustenance . . . gladly shared” with the Avenels by Martin and Tibb, but even that bare subsistence reduced to nothing by the English foragers. Tibb nonetheless cavils at “seeking quarters wiʼ a Kirk‐vassalʼs widow!” (Scott, The Monastery, ed. Fielding, 43, 44 [vol. 1, chap. 3]).

“come on good horse and let us see / whether thou wilt obey thy master me” (MS IA, MS III)—In the novel, “Martin, selecting what he thought the safest path, began himself to lead forward Shagram, in order to afford greater security to the child”—Mary Avenel, who rides Shagram. At the start of the journey, Tibb leads Shagram by the bridle, while Lady Avenel walks close by the horseʼs side, ready to catch Mary in case the animal stumbles in the bog (Scott, The Monastery, ed. Fielding, 46 [vol. 1, chap. 3]).

“As if he encountered a great bears jaws” (MS IA, MS III)—The simile is Ruskinʼs original addition to Scottʼs text, as is Martinʼs tempting Shagram with the promise of a safe stable and hay (lines 38–39).

“And her haunt was near this part / Where oft the very slender hart / Had drank at this place but was near / Frightened by her very fair / Form appearing like a fog” (MS IA, MS III)—In the novel, where Mary Avenel sees a “bonny ladie”, the others see only “a wreath of rising mist, which fancy might form into a human figure, but which afforded to Martin only the sorrowful conviction, that the danger of their situation was about to be increased by a heavy fog”. While Martin and Tibb do whisper the brief exchange that Ruskin paraphrases twenty lines later, about the danger of talking aloud about fairies, especially on this day of All‐Hallowʼs Eve, Tibb does not allude to the White Lady in this episode, as Ruskin indicates. Rather, Ruskin appears to draw on a passage at the end of chapter 4, following the childrenʼs report of the supposed ghost of Walter Avenel, an episode that Ruskin mainly reserves for his book 4. Even in that passage in the novel, Tibb does not mention the location of the White Ladyʼs haunt, but explains to Elspet Glendinning that “‘great ancient families’” like the Avenels “‘canna be just served wiʼ the ordinary saunts, (praise to them) like Saunt Anthony, Saunt Cuthbert, and the like, that come and gang at every sinnerʼs bidding, but they hae a sort of saunts or angels, or what not, to themsels; and as for the White Maiden of Avenel, she is kenʼd ower the haill country’”. At the end of volume 1, Halbert Glendinning climbs to the fountain of a spring in the hills above Glendearg to summon the White Lady: “A huge rock rose in front, from a cleft of which grew a wild holly‐tree [the emblem of the Avenels], whose dark green branches rustled over the spring which arose beneath. The banks on either hand rose so high, and approached each other so closely, that it was only when the sun was in its meridian height, and during the summer solstice, that its rays could reach the bottom of the chasm in which he now stood” (Scott, The Monastery, ed. Fielding, 47 [vol. 1, chap. 3], 56 [vol. 1, chap. 4], 111–12 [vol. 1, chap. 11]). The image of a hart drinking at the spring and being startled by a mist in human form is Ruskinʼs own contribution.

“One night when all the winds combined / . . . / Well on this night of spirits power / Thats greatest at the midnight hour” (MS III)—Scott sets this episode on All‐Hallowʼs Eve, which is also Mary Avenelʼs birthday, three years after the All‐Hallowʼs Eve when the Avenels and the Tackets cross the bog to the Tower of Glendearg, guided by the White Lady (Scott, The Monastery, ed. Fielding, 45, 47 [vol. 1, chap. 3]). In the first fourteen lines of book 4, Ruskin introduces the episode with a catalogue of creatures from Scottish folk lore, which has no counterpart in Scottʼs chapter. In these lines, Ruskin does not distinguish between the spiritsʼ respective attributes vividly, except to mark the kelpie as a water spirit. For sources of fairy lore on which Ruskin might have drawn, see Tales about Fairies and Other Spirits.

“Dame elspeth pulling the thread sate / From her distaff near her mate” (MS III)—That is, Elspeth, pulling the thread from her distaff, sat near her mate. Her mate is Alice Avenel.

“a man like like he of the clinthill / Was in the spence” (MS III)—Christie of Clinthill, a retainer of Julian Avenel, the brother of the late Sir Walter Avenel. Julian has cheated his sister‐in‐law, Alice, and his niece, Mary, out of their rights and taken control of Avenel Castle. To be like Christie would mean rough and serviceably, not splendidly, armed in gear that is dull with use (see, e.g., the description of Christie in vol. 1, chap. 9 [Scott, The Monastery, ed. Fielding, 87]). In the novel, the boys report sighting only “an armed man”, while it is Martin who supposes the man must be Christie, upsetting Lady Avenel, who fears more of Christieʼs bullying on behalf of his master. But the apparition that Mary later reports is not like Christie: she describes “‘a gentleman with a bright breast‐plate. . . . Black‐haired, black‐eyed, with a peaked black beard . . . and many a fold of pearling round his neck”; and perched on his hand, “a beautiful hawk, with silver bells . . . and a crimson silk hood upon its head”. Tibb explains to Elspet that “‘the lassie has seen her father!’” (Scott, The Monastery, ed. Fielding, 52 [vol. 1, chap. 4]).

While Ruskin accurately conveys the alarm following the report of the armed man—Halbert arming himself with sword; Edward securing Lady Avenelʼs bible; Lady Avenel panicking over the whereabouts of Mary; and their collective rush to the spence, which turns out to be empty—he omits the crucial detail that they find Mary standing unperturbed at the door of the spence. In the novel, when asked where Christie has gone, she replies, “‘I do not know . . . I never saw him’”. Instead, Ruskin proceeds to Elspethʼs scolding the boys; and in his final lines—with which he abandoned the project, at least on the evidence of extant text—he takes from Scott that Halbert “bent his eyes on the ground” while Edward “began to weep”. In the novel, immediately following the boysʼ reaction to the scolding, Mary takes responsibility for the report, describing what she has seen. Ruskinʼs text falls just short of Maryʼs vision of the father (Scott, The Monastery, ed. Fielding, 52 [vol. 1, chap. 4]).

The spence is defined by Scott as “a sort of interior apartment in which the family eat their victuals in the summer season” (Scott, The Monastery, ed. Fielding, 51 [vol. 1, chap. 4]).