Another medieval writer, Joannes de Sacrobosco (Halywoode), born in Galloway, learned, we are told by several authorities, his literas humaniores among the monks of Candida Casa and Dryburgh. He was the author of several astronomical and arithmetical works, particularly the De Sphæra Mundi, for long a text-book in the Scottish universities in the medieval period. He is said to have died in 1240, in the time of Alexander II.

But it was chiefly in poetry that the early Border faculty showed itself, from about the time of the War of Independence. There are still extant romances, and fragments of others, which seem to point to the southern Lowlands as their scene, to Borderers as their authors, and to the language prevailing there as that in which they were composed.

The best-known name, and that with which a definite work is associated, is that of Thomas of Erceldoune, or Thomas the Rhymour of Erceldoune, or simply Thomas the Rhymour. The historical facts about him are few, and they are mostly given by Sir Walter Scott in his notice of him in the Minstrelsy.

Some time in the thirteenth century there lived in a tower to the west of the village of Erceldoune, now Earlston, on the Leader, about two miles from its junction with the Tweed, a personage known as Thomas of Erceldoune. To the east of the village stood a tower or castle of the great Earl of Dunbar-the friend of Thomas, and probably his feudal lord. Erceldoune was then a hamlet in the forest, and the earl's castle a hunting-seat, used sometimes by the kings, for royal charters were occasionally dated there. In what year Thomas was born, or

when exactly he died, we can only conjecture. But he was witness to an undated charter of Petrus de Haga of Bemersyde, and we may refer it to somewhere between 1260 and 1270.1 Therein he is named " Thomas Rymor de Ercildune." Then his son and heir (“ filius et hæres Thomæ Rymour de Ercildoun"), in 1294 or 1299, conveys to the Trinity House of Soltra "all the lands which he held by inheritance (hereditarie tenui) in the village of Ercildoun." The father was therefore probably dead by this time, and he is thus supposed to have lived from 1219 to 1299. This latter date is that printed in the charter as quoted by Sir Walter Scott. Dr Murray gives it from the Cartulary of the Trinity House of Soltra in the Advocates' Library as 1294. He thinks, moreover, that the charter of the lands in Erceldoune to Soltra does not imply that the Rhymour himself was already dead, or that these were given by his son. The son and heir of Thomas the Rhymour, mentioned in the charter, might, he conceives, be the Rhymour himself, who possibly now retired from the world to the privacy of a religious life. This supposition is, on the whole, gratuitous. The designation, "son and heir of Thomas Rhymour of Ercildoun," is very specific; and had it been the Rhymour himself who in his lifetime was divesting himself of his property, for such a purpose, there would almost unquestionably have been an express reference to the purpose in the deed. Then, why should the Rhymour have given his lands to the House of Soltra, when his design was, as is supposed consistently with the narrative of Harry the Minstrel, to retire to the House of Faile, near Ayr? But the desig

1 See John Russell, The Haigs of Bemersyde, 71 et seq.

nation of the granter, " Thomas de Ercildoun," as opposed to "Thomas Rymour de Ercildoun," is very significant, and points, apart from rebutting evidence, to the son of the Rhymour.

Thomas of Erceldoune was reputed prophet and bard. Even in his lifetime he was regarded as a seer and foreteller of the future. Witness his current prophecy of the death of Alexander III. We have no certain record of any prediction of the Rhymour's in his own words, or in a form that can be referred precisely to his own time. But a MS. of the early part of the fourteenth century— probably before 1320-contains what was said to be one of his predictions, and thus takes us back to a period within thirty years of his death :

La Countesse de Dunbar demanda a Thomas de Essedoune quant la guere descoce prendreit fyn, e yl la repoundy e dyt"

"When man as mad a kyng of a capped man;

When mon is leuere1othermones thyng then is owen;

When loudyonys forest, ant forest ys felde;

When hares kendles 2 othe herston ;3

When Wyt and Wille werres togedere;

When mon makes stables of kyrkes, and steles castles with styes;

When Rokesbourh nys no burgh ant market is at Forwyleye;

When the alde is gan ant the newe is com that don nocht;

When Bambourne is donged with dedemen;

When men ledes men in ropes to buyen & to sellen;

When a quarter of whaty whete is chaunged for a colt of ten markes; When prude prikes & pees is leyd in prisoun;

5

6

When a Scot ne may hym hude ase hare in forme that the Englysshe ne sal hym fynde;

1 Comparative of lief, willing—i.e., prefers other men's things to his own. 2 Litter.

5 Pride rides on horseback.

3 Hearthstone.

6 Peace.

4

Place, set.

7 Hide.

When rycht ant Wrong ascenteth to gedere;

When laddes 1 weddeth louedis ; 2

When Scottes flen so faste, that for faute of ship, hy drowneth hem selue;

Whenne shall this be? Nouther in thine time ne in myne;

Ah comen & gon with inne twenty wynter ant on.”

The Bambourne of these lines is probably Bannockburn ; the Countess of Dunbar is no doubt the wife of the earl to whom the Rhymour predicted the death of Alexander. These circumstances would take the verses back to very early in the fourteenth century. Like the majority of the most ancient Scottish records in prose or verse, they are in a southern form of English. firmation of the popular tradition regarding the almost universal sweep of Scottish manuscripts made by Edward I.? We have several undoubted southern transcriptions of northern originals. How otherwise were these origi

nals carried southwards?

Is this not a con

In his threefold character of poet, prophet, and visitant of a supernatural realm, "another cuntree," known afterwards as the land of Faërie, Thomas appears in that ancient and interesting poem, or series of poems, preserved for us in its best form in the Thornton MS. in the library of Lincoln Cathedral. This was transcribed, we are told, by Robert Thornton of East Newton, Yorkshire, about 1430-40.3 Fytte I. represents the ancient tradition of his communings with the Queen of Faërie, and his visit to her mysterious land. Fyttes II. and III. record the prophetic utterances which he learnt from the

1 Youthful male servants.

2 Ladies, daughters of the laird or baron.
3 See Murray, Thomas of Erceldoune, p. lvi.

queen. The poems show a pretty frequent exchange of the third and first persons in the course of the narrative. The transitions from the one to the other are generally very abrupt. This circumstance may very readily be explained by supposing that we have an original poem, probably by the Rhymour himself, made the basis of subsequent elaborations. This view is confirmed by the fact that the version preserved by the Thornton MS. is a southern one, with obvious signs of being a transmutation of an earlier northern original.

The prophecies attributed to Thomas are "in figures," dark (derne), and obscure, as is the fashion with the oracular. They have also a strange feeling of gloom about them, and are strongly marked by a foreboding of danger, violence, and bloodshed. This comes out especially in the later ones with which he is credited :"At Threeburn Grange,1 in an after day, There shall be a lang and bloody fray;

Where a three thumbed knight by the reins shall hald
Three Kings' horses, baith stout and bauld,

And the Three Burns three days shall rin

Wi' the blude o' the slain that fa' therein."

Again :

"Atween Craik Cross and Eildon-tree,
Is a' the safety there shall be."

:

The oldest have in many cases a quite distinct Arthurian tinge and cast. They are, indeed, exactly what was to be expected from one who lived in the period of the Rhymour, who was a strong patriotic Scot, who survived. the death of Alexander, and was shrewd enough to discern the grasping ambition of the English king, and

1 Probably grains, branches of a burn towards the head.