Some of the most current of these traditions are so happily described by the above-mentioned writer, that we cannot refrain from quoting the passage.  “Michael was chosen,” it is said, “to go upon an embassy to obtain from the King of France satisfaction for certain piracies committed by his subjects upon those of Scotland.  Instead of preparing a new equipage and splendid retinue, the ambassador retreated to his study, and evoked a fiend, in the shape of a huge black horse, mounted upon his back, and forced him to fly through the air towards France.  As they crossed the sea, the devil insidiously asked his rider what it was that the old women of Scotland muttered at bedtime.  A less experienced wizard might have answered, that it was the Pater Noster, which would have licensed the devil to precipitate him from his back.  But Michael sternly replied, ‘What is that to thee?  Mount, Diabolus, and fly!’ When he arrived at Paris, he tied his horse to the gate of the palace, entered, and boldly delivered his message.  An ambassador with so little of the pomp and circumstance of diplomacy, was not received with much respect, and the king was about to return a contemptuous refusal to his demand, when Michael besought him to suspend his resolution till he had seen his horse stamp three times.  The first stamp shook every steeple in Paris, and caused all the bells to ring, the second threw down three towers of the palace, and the infernal steed had lifted his foot to give the third stamp, when the king rather chose to dismiss Michael with the most ample concessions, than to stand the probable consequences.  Another time, it is said, when residing at the tower of Oakwood, upon the Ettrick, about three miles above Selkirk, he heard of the fame of a sorceress, called the witch of Falsehope, on the opposite side of the river.  Michael went one morning to put her skill to the test, but was disappointed, by her denying positively any knowledge of the necromantic art.  In his discourse with her, he laid his wand inadvertently on the table, which the hag observing, suddenly snatched it up, and struck him with it.  Feeling the force of the charm, he rushed out of the house; but as it had conferred on him the external appearance of a hare, his servant, who waited without, halloo’d upon the discomfited Wizard his own hounds, and pursued him so close, that in order to obtain a moment’s breathing to reverse the charm, Michael, after a very fatiguing course, was fain to take refuge in his own jaw-hole, Anglice, common sewer.  In order to revenge himself of the witch of Falsehope, Michael, one morning in the ensuing harvest, went to the hill above the house with his dogs, and sent down his servant to ask a bit of bread from the goodwife for his greyhounds, with instructions what to do if he met with a denial.  Accordingly, when the witch had refused the boon with contumely, the servant, as his master had directed, laid above the door a paper which he had given him, containing, amongst many cabalistical words, the well-known rhyme,