Melrose Abbey: Choir and North Transept details

“Melrose—“the light of the land, the abode of saints, the grave of monarchs” – is a glorious fragment, more beautiful, perhaps in detail than in general effect, in ornament than in design; and memorable even more for its legendary and literary associations than for its actual history.” (p. 37)

“[...] even more wonderful and beautiful to many eyes is the great Decorated Window of the south transept that lightens the aisle in which, as is fabled, the Wizard Michael sleeps with his magic books beside him. Familiar are the lines in which Sir Walter [Sir Walter Scott], a constant pilgrim to this shrine, chants its praises—of its cloister garth:

“Nor herb, nor floweret, gilstened there,
But was carved in the cloister-arches fair”;

of the vaulted roof, where

“The key-stone tht locked each ribbéd aisle
Seem’d bundles of lances which garlands had bound.” (p. 39)