A Queer Book (1832) is a collections of 26 poems, mostly short narratives, by James Hogg, all but two of which had been previously published, more than half of them in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.
Although Hogg left the final choice of poems to his nephew Robert and William Blackwood he gave fairly detailed guidance.
By The Ettrick Shepherd, published by William Blackwood in Edinburgh and T[homas] Cadell in London, appeared at the end of April or beginning of May 1832.
An old man lamenting his lack of riches to dispense to the needy is taken by a lady on an amphibious palfrey to collect royal booty from a sunken ship.
Marley Reed tells Marjory Laing of her callous treatment when she asks a captain to release her Covenanting bridegroom James on the road, and when she attempts to save him in Edinburgh by giving gold to a duke, only to be confronted with his head on a pole.
After lamenting Janet's loss of her Covenanting husband, a lady reveals to her that she found him among the wounded at Bothwell Bridge, and that she has nursed him back to health.
The Laird of Lonne arrives at Landale and attempts to woo a wealthy maiden, Mariote, but she feigns poverty and dismisses his pretensions.
Following her instructions, Lonne is soundly defeated by a beggar who turns out to be Lord Home, and is duly accepted by Mariote.
May recalls the unsettling effect of Robyn's interpretation of a lark's love song which has a force that she finds impossible to resist.
A celebrated archer, Johne of Littledeane, cunningly shoots the reiver dead and the rest of the band are hanged.
In a dialogue, two spirits charged with the oversight of virgins and youths respectively explore the virtuous expression of earthly love.
A dominie passes on to Marjorie a warning by a fearsome spirit, but she is confident in her own virtue and sets out to meet her lover.
The shepherd narrator tells, with wondering comments, how a knight met and fell in love with a supernatural maiden.
Detaching itself from a migrating flock in Switzerland, the last stork to visit Britain is shot by a bishop and dies lamenting national public standards.
First published in The Bijou for 1829, with an earlier manifestation as 'The Gyre Caryl' in Hogg's Poetical Works', 1822), originally 'The Harper's Song' in Mador of the Moor', 1816)):[4] Superstition, in the form of an old man and a band of fairies, bids farewell to the baby Grace as it withdraws from the land.
In Thessaly a youth and maiden of matchless beauty tell each other their exchanged stories: he has been transported from Scotland by an old man, she from the east by elves.
Colin and Kate meet on Sunday morning, professedly on the way to church, but they are late and opt instead to spend the time on the mountain side in theological discussion and prayer, with some exchange of amorous sentiments.
Hearing that a May (maiden) of Moril Glen has powers of enchantment over young men, the King of Scots decides to investigate, suspecting witchcraft, but he is himself smitten.
This occasions much murdering of wives, including the Queen, prompting the shocked May to leave the country on a mysterious ship.