And a Haig still owns that ancient CHATEAU on the Tweed,which has a singular set of traditions.Learmont is usually given as the Erceldoune family name;a branch of the family owned Dairsie in Fifeshire,and were a kind of hereditary provosts of St.Andrews.
If Thomas did predict the death of Alexander III.,or rather report it by dint of clairvoyance,he must have lived till 1285.The date of the poem on the Fairy Queen,attributed to Thomas,is uncertain,the story itself is a variant of "Ogier the Dane."The scene is Huntly Bank,under Eildon Hill,and was part of the lands acquired,at fantastic prices,by Sir Walter Scott.His passion for land was really part of his passion for collecting antiquities.The theory of Fairyland here (as in many other Scottish legends and witch trials)is borrowed from the Pre-Christian Hades,and the Fairy Queen is a late refraction from Persephone.Not to eat,in the realm of the dead,is a regular precept of savage belief,all the world over.Mr.Robert Kirk's SECRET COMMONWEALTH OF ELVES,FAUNS,AND FAIRIES may be consulted,or the Editor's PERRAULT,p.xxxv.
(Oxford,1888).Of the later legends about Thomas,Scott gives plenty,in THE BORDER MINSTRELSY.The long ancient romantic poem on the subject is probably the source of the ballad,though a local ballad may have preceded the long poem.Scott named the glen through which the Bogle Burn flows to Chiefswood,"The Rhymer's Glen."
SIR HUGH
The date of the Martyrdom of Hugh is attributed by Matthew Paris to 1225.Chaucer puts a version in the mouth of his Prioress.No doubt the story must have been a mere excuse for Jew-baiting.In America the Jew becomes "The Duke"in a version picked up by Mr.
Newells,from the recitation of a street boy in New York.The daughter of a Jew is not more likely than the daughter of a duke to have been concerned in the cruel and blasphemous imitation of the horrors attributed by Horace to the witch Canidia.But some such survivals of pagan sorcery did exist in the Middle Ages,under the influence of "Satanism."
SON DAVIE
Motherwell's version.One of many ballads on fratricide,instigated by the mother:or inquired into by her,as the case may be."Edward"is another example of this gloomy situation.
THE WIFE OF USHER'S WELL
Here "The cock doth craw,the day doth daw,"
having a middle rhyme,can scarcely be of extreme antiquity.
Probably,in the original poem,the dead return to rebuke the extreme grief of the Mother,but the poem is perhaps really more affecting in the absence of a didactic motive.Scott obtained it from an old woman in West Lothian.Probably the reading "fashes,"
(troubles),"in the flood"is correct,not "fishes,"or "freshes."
The mother desires that the sea may never cease to be troubled till her sons return (verse 4,line 2).The peculiar doom of women dead in child-bearing occurs even in Aztec mythology.
THE TWA CORBIES
From the third volume of BORDER MINSTRELSY,derived by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe from a traditional version.The English version,"Three Ravens,"was published in MELISMATA,by T.
Ravensworth (1611).In Scots,the lady "has ta'en another mate"
his hawk and hound have deserted the dead knight.In the English song,the hounds watch by him,the hawks keep off carrion birds,as for the lady-"She buried him before the prime,She was dead herselfe ere evensong time."
Probably the English is the earlier version.
THE BONNIE EARL OF MURRAY
Huntly had a commission to apprehend the Earl,who was in the disgrace of James VI.Huntly,as an ally of Bothwell,asked him to surrender at Donibristle,in Fife;he would not yield to his private enemy,the house was burned,and Murray was slain,Huntly gashing his face."You have spoiled a better face than your own,"
said the dying Earl (1592).James Melville mentions contemporary ballads on the murder.Ramsay published the ballad in his TEATABLE MISCELLANY,and it is often sung to this day.
CLERK SAUNDERS
First known as published in BORDER MINSTRELSY (1802).The apparition of the lover is borrowed from "Sweet Willie's Ghost."
The evasions practised by the lady,and the austerities vowed by her have many Norse,French,and Spanish parallels in folk-poetry.
Scott's version is "made up"from several sources,but is,in any case,verse most satisfactory as poetry.
WALY,WALY
From Ramsay's TEA TABLE MISCELLANY,a curiously composite gathering of verses.There is a verse,obviously a variant,in a sixteenth century song,cited by Leyden.St.Anthon's Well is on a hill slope of Arthur's Seat,near Holyrood.Here Jeanie Deans trysted with her sister's seducer,in THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN.The Cairn of Nichol Mushat,the wife-murderer,is not far off.The ruins of Anthony's Chapel are still extant.
LOVE GREGOR
There are French and Romaic variants of this ballad."Lochroyal,"
where the ballad is localized,is in Wigtownshire,but the localization varies.The "tokens"are as old as the Return of Odysseus,in the ODYSSEY,his token is the singular construction of his bridal bed,attached by him to a living tree-trunk.A similar legend occurs in Chinese.See Gerland's ALT-GIECHISCHE MARCHEN.
THE QUEEN'S MARIE-MARY HAMILTON