Читать книгу Notes and Queries, Number 72, March 15, 1851 - Various - Страница 5

Among the aerial migrations of the chapel of Loretto, it is possible that our own country may hereafter be favoured by a visit of that celebrated structure. In the mean time, as I am not aware that the contributions of our countrymen to its history have been hitherto commemorated, the following extract from a note, made by me on the spot some years ago, may not be unsuitable for publication in "Notes and Queries." As I had neither the time nor the patience which the pious, but rather prolix, Scotchman bestowed upon his composition, I found it necessary to content myself with a mere abstract of the larger portion.

The story of the holy House of Loretto is engraved on brass in several languages upon the walls of the church at Loretto. Among others, there are two tablets with the story in English, headed "The wondrus flittinge of the kirk of our blest Lady of Laureto." It commences by stating that this kirk is the chamber of the house of the Blessed Virgin, in Nazareth, where our Saviour was born; that after the Ascension the Apostles hallowed and made it a kirk, and "S. Luke framed a pictur to har vary liknes thair zit to be seine;" that it was "haunted with muckle devotione by the folke of the land whar it stud, till the people went after the errour of Mahomet," when angels took it to Slavonia, near a place called Flumen: here it was not honoured as it ought to be, and they took it to a wood near Recanati, belonging to a lady named Laureto, whence it took its name. On account of the thieveries here committed, it was again taken up and placed near, on a spot belonging to two brothers, who quarrelled about the possession of the oblations offered there; and again it was removed to the roadside, near where it now stands. It is further stated that it stands without foundations, and that sixteen persons being sent from Recanati to measure the foundations still remaining at Nazareth, they were found exactly to agree:

"And from that tim fourth it has beine surly ken'd that this kirk was the Cammber of the B. V. whereto Christian begun thare and has ever efter had muckle devotione, for that in it daily she hes dun and dus many and many mirakels. Ane Frier Paule, of Sylva, an eremit of muckle godliness who wond in a cell neir, by this kirk, whar daily he went to mattins, seid that for ten zeirs, one the eighth of September, tweye hours before day, he saw a light descende from heaven upon it, whelk he seyd was the B. V. wha their shawed harselfe one the feest of her birthe."