Crime & punishment > Peveril of the Peak > Volume 2

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PEVEKIL OF THE PEAK.
also one of those singular towers, so common in
Ireland as to have proved the favourite theme of
her antiquaries; but of which the real use and
meaning seems yet to be hidden in the mist of
ages. This of Holm-Peel had been converted to
the purpose of a watch-tower. There were, be¬
sides, Runic monuments , of which the legends
could not be decyphered; and later inscriptions
to the memory of champions, of whom the names
only were preserved from oblivion. But tradi¬
tion aud superstitious eld , still most busy where
real history is silent, had filled up the long blank
of accurate information with tales of Sea-kings
and Pirates, Hebridean Chiefs and Norwegian
Resolutes, who had formerly warred against, and
in defence of, this famous caslie. Superstition,
too, had her tales of fairies, ghosts, and spectres
—her legends ofsaints and demons, of fairies and
of familiar spirits, which in no corner of the Bri¬
tish empire are told and received with more abso¬
lute credulity than in the Isle of Man.
Amidst all these ruins of an older time arose
the Castle itself,—now ruinous — but in Charles
II.’s reign well gasrisoned, and, in a military
point of view, kept in complete order. It was a
venerable and very ancient building, containing
several apartments of sufficient size and height to
be termed noble. But in the surrender of the
island by Christian, the furniture had been, in a
great measure, plundered or destroyed by the re¬
publican soldiers 5 so that, as we have before hint-