Readers of Sir Walter Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel may perhaps recall the Dwarf in the poem, and ‘how much he marvelled’ to find that the wounded opponent of Lord Cranstoun,
Like a book-bosomed priest should ride.’
And the context reveals that he
‘thought not to search or staunch the wound
Until the secret he had found.'
Ignoring the fact that ‘the mighty book’ in this instance was none other than a magic book of spells by Sir Walter's medieval namesake Michael, and attending to the simile alone, we learn from the poet's own explanatory but confusing note, that ‘The book-a-bosom priests were those who went to a distance to baptize or marry with the Mass-book in their breasts'. Without any pedantic head-shaking in the direction of Abbotsford we may pass from the wounded knight to a more familiar modern figure, that of the travelling cleric, not book-bosomed perhaps, so much as book-pocketed or book-brief-cased.