Stories of the Border Marches | ||
SEWINGSHIELDS CASTLE, AND THE SUNKEN TREASURE OF BROOMLEE LOUGH
The old castle of Sewingshields is one of which there are many legends. If local tradition might be accepted as a guide, we should find that Arthur the King lived there once on a time. But surely another Arthur than him of whom Tennyson sang. One,
From spur to plume a star of tournament,
Shot through the lists at Camelot, and charged
Before the eyes of ladies and of kings,"
but a being even more mythical than that Arthur to whom, with his knights, legend assigns so many last resting-places--in that vast hall beneath the triple peak of Eildon, here in a cavern below the rocks at Sewingshields, and in many a spot besides. This Arthur of Sewingshields in his feats was indeed more akin to the old Norse gods and heroes. And it is told that, as he talked with his Queen one day when they sat on those great rocks to the north of the castle, which still bear as names the King's and the Queen's Crag, Guinevere chanced to let fall a remark
Local tradition tells also how once on a time there came to Sewingshields, to visit Arthur, a great chieftain from the wild north, one named Cumin. And when Cumin departed from the castle to go back to his own land, he bore with him a certain gold cup that Arthur, in token of friendship, had given to him. But sundry of the King's retainers, having learned that the Scot was bearing away with him this cup, greatly desired that they might themselves possess it, and they pursued Cumin, and slew him ere he had gone many miles. Wherefore Arthur caused a cross to be erected there on the spot where the slain man fell; and the place is called Cumming's Cross to this day.
Of the building of the castle of Sewingshields,
Their skill could call the moon from heaven;
So fair their forms and so high their fame,
That seven proud kings for their suitors came.
Unshorn was their hair, and unpruned were their nails;
From Strath-Clywd came Ewain, and Ewain was lame,
And the red-bearded Donald from Galloway came.
Dunmail of Cumbria had never a tooth;
But Adolph of Bambrough, Northumberland's heir;
Was gay and was gallant, was young and was fair.
For husband King Adolph, the gallant and brave;
And envy bred hate, and hate urged them to blows,
When the firm earth was cleft, and the Arch-fiend arose!
They swore to the foe they would work by his will,
A spindle and distaff to each hath he given,
'Now hearken my spell,' said the Outcast of Heaven.
And for every spindle shall rise a tower,
Where the right shall be feeble, the wrong shall have power,
And there shall ye dwell with your paramour.'
And the rhymes which they chaunted must never be told;
And as the black wool from the distaff they sped,
With blood from their bosom they moisten'd the thread.
The castle arose like the birth of a dream--
The seven towers ascended like mist from the ground,
Seven portals defend them, seven ditches surround.
But six of the seven ere the morning lay dead;
With their eyes all on fire, and their daggers all red,
Seven damsels surround the Northumbrian's bed.
Six gallant kingdoms King Adolf hath won;
Six lovely brides all his pleasure to do,
Or the bed of the seventh shall be husbandless too.'
Had confessed and had sain'd him ere boune to his bed;
He sprung from the couch, and his broadsword he drew,
And there the seven daughters of Urien he slew.
And hung o'er each arch-stone a crown and a shield;
To the cells of St. Dunstan then wended his way,
And died in his cloister an anchorite grey.
The foul fiends brood o'er them like raven and toad.
Whoever shall questen these chambers within,
From curfew to matins, that treasure shall win.
There lives not in Britain a champion so bold,
So dauntless of heart, and so prudent of brain,
As to dare the adventure that treasure to gain.
Before the rude Scots shall Northumberland fly,
And the flint cliffs of Bambro' shall melt in the sun
Before that adventure be perill'd and won."
Long afterwards, when Harold the Dauntless entered the castle, the seven shields still hung where Adolf had placed them, each blazoned with its coat of arms:
And Rhys of Powis-land a couchant stag;
Strath Clwyd's strange emblem was a stranded boat;
Donald of Galloway's a trotting nag;
A corn-sheaf gilt was fertile Lodon's brag;
A dudgeon-dagger was by Dunmail worn;
Northumbrian Adolf gave a sea-beat crag;
Surmounted by a cross,--such signs were borne
Upon these antique shields, all wasted now and worn."
And within the castle, in that chamber where Adolf repelled the embarrassing advances of that most unmaidenly band of sisters, and did "a slaughter grim and great":
Still in the posture as to death when dight;
For this lay prone, by one blow slain outright;
And that, as one who struggles long in dying;
One bony hand held knife, as if to smite;
One bent on fleshless knees, as mercy crying;
One lay across the floor, as kill'd in act of flying."
Perhaps it is part of the wealth of those "seven monarchs" that now lies sunken in Broomlee Lough. Did some one, greatly daring, "adventure that treasure to win," and succeed in his attempt? Tradition tells that a dweller in Sewingshields Castle, long ago, being compelled to flee the
Long centuries the treasure remained unsought; yet all men might know exactly where lay the chest beneath the waves, for it mattered not how fierce blew the gale, above the gold the surface of the water was ever unbroken. At last there came one who heard the tradition, and set about the task of recovering the sunken chest. The twin horses, twin oxen, and twin lads he procured readily enough, but to find a smith of kind was not so easy--"a smith of kind" being a blacksmith whose ancestors for six generations have been smiths, he himself being the seventh generation. But this, too, at length was found, and the smith forged the necessary length of chain. Then, taking advantage of a favourable day, when breeze sufficient blew to reveal the tell-tale spot of calm water, the treasure-hunter started in his boat, leaving one end of the chain on shore and paying out fathom after fathom as his boat swept round the calm and again reached shore. Now hitching the yauds to one end and the oxen to the other, the animals were cautiously started
And Sewingshields Castle is now no longer a castle; its very vaults and its walls have disappeared.
On the wild heath, but those that Fancy builds,
And save a fosse that tracks the moor with green,
Is nought remains to tell of what may there have been."
Stories of the Border Marches | ||