E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Ra’venswood (Allan, Lord of).
A decayed Scotch nobleman of the Royalist party.
1
Master Edgar Ravenswood. His son, who falls in love with Lucy Ashton, daughter of Sir William Ashton, Lord-Keeper of Scotland. The lovers plight their troth at the Mermaid’s Fountain, but Lucy is compelled to marry Frank Hayston, laird of Bucklaw. The bride, in a fit of insanity, attempts to murder the bridegroom and dies in convulsions. Bucklaw recovers, and goes abroad. Colonel Ashton, seeing Edgar at the funeral of Lucy, appoints a hostile meeting; and Edgar, on his way to the place appointed, is lost in the quicksands of Kelpies-flow. (Sir Walter Scott: Bride of Lammermoor.)
2
In Donizetti’s opera of Lucia di Lammermoor, Bucklaw dies of the wound inflicted by the bride, and Edgar, heartbroken, comes on the stage and kills himself, that “his marriage with Lucy, forbidden on earth, may be consummated in heaven.”
