Glen Collection of printed music > Printed music > Scots musical museum > Volume 5

384- CCCCXXXVJII.— THE SOUTERS O' SELKIRK.
loyalty, was created a knight-banneret by that prince. They
fought gallantly, and most of them were cut off. A few who
escaped, found, on their return, in the forest of Ladywood
edge, the wife of one of their brethren lying dead, and her
child sucking her breast. Thence the town of Selkirk ob-
tained for their arms, a woman sitting upon a sarcophagus,
holding a child in her arms ; in the back ground a wood ;
and on the sarcophagus the arms of Scotland."
" For all this fine story (says Ritson, in his Historical Es-
say on Scottish Song, p. 34.) there is probably no foundation
whatever. That the souters of Selkirk should, in 1513,
amount to fourscore fighting men, is a circumstance utterly
incredible. It is scarcely to be supposed, that all the shoe-
makers in Scotland could have produced such an army, at a
period when shoes must have been less worn than they are at
present."" He then proceeds to acquaint us, that Dr John-
son was told at Aberdeen, that the people learned the art of
making shoes from Cromweirs soldiers ; that tall boys run
without shoes in the streets ; and, in the islands, even the
sons of gentlemen pass several of their first years with naked
feet. " Away then (says Ritson) with the fable of The
Souters of Selkirk T
It is matter of deep regret to observe, that some men of
•education, and even of very superior abilities, are occasionally
betrayed into error and inconsistency, by allowing their minds
to get entangled in the mazes of national and unmanly preju-
dice. Several instances of this fact, Avith regard to Scotland,
disfigure the writings of Dr Johnson and Mr Joseph Ritson.
In other respects their literary labours are exceedingly meri-
torious and valuable. These erudite and very ingenious au-
thors have not scrupled to affirm, that the natives of North
Britain are more prone to believe in absurd and extravagant
traditions than any other nation whatever ; that the Scots
had no shoes until Cromweirs soldiers taught the people to
make them ; and that all Scotland could scarcely have mus-
tered an army of eighty shoemakers at the battle of Flodden,