Hart's collection of prophecies was frequently reprinted during the last century, probably to favor the pretensions of the unfortunate family of Stuart. For the prophetic renown of Gildas and Bede, see Fordun, lib. iii. Before leaving the subject of Thomas's predictions, it may be noticed, that sundry rhymes, passing for his prophetic effusions, are still current among the vulgar. Thus, he is said to have prophesied of the very ancient family of Haig of Bemerside, "Betide, betide, whate'er betide, Haig shall be Haig of Bemerside." The grandfather of the present proprietor of Bemerside had twelve daughters, before his lady brought him a male heir. The common people trembled for the credit of their favorite soothsayer. The late Mr. Haig was at length born, and their belief in the prophecy confirmed beyond a shadow of doubt. Another memorable prophecy bore, that the Old Kirk at Kelso, constructed out of the ruins of the Abbey, should "fall when at the fullest." At a very crowded sermon, about thirty years ago, a piece of lime fell from the roof of the church. The alarm, for the fulfilment of the words of the seer, became universal; and happy were they who were nearest the door of the predestined edifice. The church was in consequence deserted, and has never since had an opportunity of tumbling upon a full congregation. I hope, for the sake of a beautiful specimen of Saxo-Gothic architecture, that the accomplishment of this prophecy is far distant. Another prediction, ascribed to the Rhymer, seems to have been founded on that sort of insight into futurity, possessed by most men of a sound and combining judgment. It runs thus: "At Eldon Tree if you shall be, A brigg ower Tweed you there may see." The spot in question commands an extensive prospect of the course of the river; and it was easy to foresee, that when the country should become in the least degree improved, a bridge would be somewhere thrown over the stream. In fact, you now see no less than three bridges from that elevated situation. Corspatrick (Comes Patrick), Earl of March, but more commonly taking his title from his castle of Dunbar, acted a noted part during the wars of Edward I. in Scotland. As Thomas of Ercildoune 19 said to have delivered to him his famous proph 1 An exact reprint of these prophecies, from the edition of Waldegrave, in 1603, collated with Hart's, of 1615, from the copy in the Abbotsford Library, was completed for the Ban ecy of King Alexander's death, the Editor has chosen to introduce him into the following ballad All the prophetic verses are selected from Hart's publication.' Thomas the Rhymer. PART SECOND. WHEN Seven years were come and gane, The sun blink'd fair on pool and stream; And Thomas lay on Huntlie bank, Like one awaken'd from a dream. He heard the trampling of a steed, Come riding down by the Eildon-tree. He was a stalwart knight, and strong; Says "Well met, well met, true Thomas! “Light down, light down, Corspatrick brave! And I will show thee curses three, Shall gar fair Scotland greet and grane, And change the green to the black livery. "A storm shall roar this very hour, From Ross's hills to Solway sea."— "Ye lied, ye lied, ye warlock hoar! For the sun shines sweet on fauld and lee.”— He put his hand on the Earlie's head; He show'd him a rock beside the sea, Where a king lay stiff beneath his steed, And steel-dight nobles wiped their ee. "The neist curse lights on Branxton hills: By Flodden's high and heathery side, Shall wave a banner red as blude, And chieftains throng wi' meikle pride "A Scottish King shall come full keen, The ruddy lion beareth he; natyne Club, under the care of the learned antiquary, M. David Laing of Edinburgh.—Ep. 1833. 2 King Alexander, killed by a fall from his horse, neat Kinghorn, A feather'd arrow sharp, I ween, *When he is bloody, and all to bledde, Thus to his men he still shall say'For God's sake, turn ye back again, And give yon southern folk a fray! Why should I lose, the right is mine? My doom is not to die this day." "Yet turn ye to the eastern hand, And woe and wonder ye sall see; How forty thousand spearmen stand, Where yon rank river meets the sea. "There shall the lion lose the gylte, And the libbards bear it clean away; At Pinkyn Cleuch there shall be spilt Much gentil bluid that day."— "Enough, enough, of curse and ban; Some blessings show thou now to me, Or, by the faith o' my bodie," Corspatrick said, "Ye shall rue the day ye e'er saw me!" "The first of blessings I shall thee show, Is by a burn, that's call'd of bread ;2 Where Saxon men shall tine the bow, And find their arrows lack the head. "Beside that brigg, out ower that burn, Where the water bickereth bright and sheen, Shall many a fallen courser spurn, And knights shall die in battle keen. "Beside a headless cross of stone, The libbards there shall lose the gree; The raven shall come, the erne shall go, And drink the Saxon bluid sae free. The cross of stone they shall not know, So thick the corses there shall be." "But tell me now," said brave Dunbar, "True Thomas, tell now unto me, What man shall rule the isle Britain, Even from the north to the southern sea?" "A French Queen shall bear the son, "The waters worship shall his race; Likewise the waves of the farthest sea; For they shall ride over ocean wide, With hempen bridles, and horse of tree." 1 The uncertainty which long prevailed in Scotland concerning the fate of James IV., is well known. 2 One of Thomas's rhymes, preserved by tradition, runs thus Thomas the Rhymer. PART THIRD.-MODERN. BY WALTER SCOTT. THOMAS THE RHYMER was renowned among his contemporaries, as the author of the celebrated romance of Sir Tristrem. Of this once-admired poem only one copy is now known to exist, which is in the Advocates' Library The Editor, in 1804, published a small edition of this curious work; which, if it does not revive the reputation of the bard of Ercildoune, is at least the earliest specimen of Scottish poetry hitherto published. Some. account of this romance has already been given to the world in Mr. ELLIS's Specimens of Ancient Poetry, vol. i. p. 165, iii. p. 410; a work to which our predecessors and our posterity are alike obliged; the former, for the preservation of the bestselected examples of their poetical taste; and the latter, for a history of the English language, which will only cease to be interesting with the existence of our mother-tongue, and all that genius and learning have recorded in it. It is sufficient here to mention, that so great was the reputation of the romance of Sir Tristrem, that few were thought capable of reciting it after the manner of the author-a circumstance alluded to by Robert, de Brunne, the annalist : "I see in song, in sedgeyng tale, Of Erceldoun, and of Kendale, Now thame says as they thame wroght, If men it said as made Thomas," &c. It appears, from a very curious MS. of the thirteenth century, penes Mr. Douce of London, containing a French metrical romance of Sir Tristrem, that the work of our Thomas the Rhymer was known, and referred to, by the minstrels of Normandy and Bretagne. Having arrived at a part of the romance where reciters were wont to differ in the mode of telling the story, the French bard expressly cites the authority of the poet of Ercildoune : "Plusurs de nos granter ne volent, "The burn of breid Shall run fow reid." Bannock-burn is the brook here meant. The Scots give the name of bannock to a thick round cake of unleavened bread E entusché par grant engin, Qu' ico ne put pas esteer," &c. The tale of Sir Tristrem, as narrated in the Edinburgh MS., is totally different from the volu minous romance in prose, originally compiled on the same subject by Rusticien de Puise, and analyzed by M. de Tressan; but agrees in every essential particular with the metrical performance just quoted, which is a work of much higher antiquity. The following attempt to commemorate the Rhymer's poetical fame, and the traditional account of his marvellous return to Fairy Land, being entirely modern, would have been placed with greater propriety among the class of Modern Ballads, had it not been for its immediate connection with the first and second parts of the same story. The feast was spread in Ercildoune, In Learmont's high and ancient hall: And there were knights of great renown, And ladies, laced in pall. Nor lacked they, while they sat at dine, True Thomas rose, with harp in hand, When as the feast was done: (In minstrel strife, in Fairy Land, The elfin harp he won.) Hush'd were the throng, both limb and tongue, And armed lords lean'd on their swords, In numbers high, the witching tale Yet fragments of the lofty strain He sung King Arthur's Table Round: How courteous Gawaine met the wound," And bled for ladies' sake. But chief, in gentle Tristrem's praise, The notes melodious swell; Was none excell'd in Arthur's days, The knight of Lionelle. For Marke, his cowardly uncle's right, No art the poison might withstand; No medicine could be found, Till lovely Isolde's lily hand Had probed the rankling wound. 4 Torwoodlee and Caddenhead are places in Selkirkshire; both the property of Mr. Pringle of Torwoodlee. • Quaighs-Wooden cups, composed of staves hooped together. • See Introduction to this ballad. 7 This stanza was quoted by the Edinburgh Reviewer, of 1804, as a noble contrast to the ordinary humility of the gen uine ballad diction.-ED. See, in the Fabliaur of Monsieur le Grand, elegantly translated by the late Gregory Way. Esq., the tale of the Knight and the Sword. [Vol. ii. p. 3.] NOTE A.-P. 574. APPENDIX. From the Chartulary of the Trinity House of Soltra. OMNIBUS has literas visuris vel audituris Thomas de Ercildoun filius et heres Thomæ Rymour de Ercildoun salutem in Domino. Noveritis me per fustem et baculum in pleno judicio resignasse ac per presentes quietem clamasse pro me et heredibus meis Magistro domus Sanctæ Trinitatis de Soltre et fratribus ejusdem domus totam terram meam cum omnibus pertinentibus suis quam in tenemento de Ercildoun hereditarie tenui renunciando de toto pro me et heredibus meis omni jure et clameo quæ ego sen antecessores mei in eadem terra alioque tempore de perpetuo habuimus sive de futuro habere possumus. In cujus rei testimonio presentibus his sigillum meum apposui data apud Ercildoun die Martis proximo post festum Sanctorum Apostolorum Symonis et Jude Anno Domini Millesimo cc. Nonagesimo Nono. NOTE B.-P. 576. The reader is here presented, from an old, and unfortunately an imperfect MS, with the undoubted original of Thomas the Rhymer's intrigue with the Queen of Faery. It will afford great amusement to those who would study the nature of traditional poetry, and the changes effected by oral tradition, to compare this ancient romance with the foregoing ballad. The same incidents are narrated, even the expression is often the same; yet the poems are as different in appearance, as if the older tale had been regularly and systematically modernized by a poet of the present day. Incipit Prophesia Thome de Erseldoun. In a lande as I was lent, In the gryking of the day, Ay alone as I went, In Huntle bankys me for to play; I saw the throstyl, and the jay, Undir nethe a dern tre, I was war of a lady gay, It beth neuyer discryuyd for me. A while she blew, a while she sang, Sadyll and brydil war - - ; On euery syde forsothe hang bells thr A semly syzt Crop and patyrel In every joynt She led thre grew houndes in a leash, In the bankes of He sayd Yonder is Mary of Might, That bar the child that died for me, Certes bot I may speke with that lady brigh Myd my hert will breke in three; I schal me hye with all my might, |