be found as imaginative as those of Arthur's removal, but they cannot be
recovered; and what is singular enough, circumstances which originally
belonged to the history of this famous bard, said to be the son of the
Demon himself, have been transferred to a later poet, and surely one of
scarce inferior name, Thomas of Erceldoune. The legend was supposed to
be only preserved among the inhabitants of his native valleys, but a
copy as old as the reign of Henry VII. has been recovered. The story is
interesting and beautifully told, and, as one of the oldest fairy
legends, may well be quoted in this place.
Thomas of Erceldoune, in Lauderdale, called the Rhymer, on account of
his producing a poetical romance on the subject of Tristrem and Yseult,
which is curious as the earliest specimen of English verse known to
exist, flourished in the reign of Alexander III. of Scotland. Like other
men of talent of the period, Thomas was suspected of magic. He was said
also to have the gift of prophecy, which was accounted for in the
following peculiar manner, referring entirely to the elfin
superstition:--As True Thomas (we give him the epithet by anticipation)
lay on Huntly Bank, a place on the descent of the Eildon Hills, which
raise their triple crest above the celebrated Monastery of Melrose, he
saw a lady so extremely beautiful that he imagined it must be the Virgin
Mary herself. Her appointments, however, were rather those of an Amazon
or goddess of the woods. Her steed was of the highest beauty and spirit,
and at his mane hung thirty silver bells and nine, which made music to
the wind as she paced along. Her saddle was of _royal bone_ (ivory),
laid over with _orfeverie_--_i.e._, goldsmith's work. Her stirrups, her
dress, all corresponded with her extreme beauty and the magnificence of
her array. The fair huntress had her bow in her hand, and her arrows at
her belt. She led three greyhounds in a leash, and three raches, or
hounds of scent, followed her closely. She rejected and disclaimed the
homage which Thomas desired to pay to her; so that, passing from one
extremity to the other, Thomas became as bold as he had at first been
humble. The lady warns him that he must become her slave if he should
prosecute his suit towards her in the manner he proposes. Before their
interview terminates, the appearance of the beautiful lady is changed
into that of the most hideous hag in existence. One side is blighted and
wasted, as if by palsy; one eye drops from her head; her colour, as
clear as the virgin silver, is now of a dun leaden hue. A witch from the
spital or almshouse would have been a goddess in comparison to the late
beautiful huntress. Hideous as she was, Thomas's irregular desires had
placed him under the control of this hag, and when she bade him take
leave of sun, and of the leaf that grew on tree, he felt himself under
the necessity of obeying her. A cavern received them, in which,
following his frightful guide, he for three days travelled in darkness,
sometimes hearing the booming of a distant ocean, sometimes walking
through rivers of blood, which crossed their subterranean path. At
length they emerged into daylight, in a most beautiful orchard. Thomas,
almost fainting for want of food, stretches out his hand towards the
goodly fruit which hangs around him, but is forbidden by his
conductress, who informs him these are the fatal apples which were the
cause of the fall of man. He perceives also that his guide had no sooner
entered this mysterious ground, and breathed its magic air, than she was
revived in beauty, equipage, and splendour, as fair, or fairer, than he
had first seen her on the mountain. She then commands him to lay his
head upon her knee, and proceeds to explain to him the character of the
country. "Yonder right-hand path," she says, "conveys the spirits of the
blessed to Paradise; yon downward and well-worn way leads sinful souls
to the place of everlasting punishment; the third road, by yonder dark
brake, conducts to the milder place of pain from which prayer and mass
may release offenders. But see you yet a fourth road, sweeping along the
plain to yonder splendid castle? Yonder is the road to Elfland, to which
we are now bound. The lord of the castle is king of the country, and I
am his queen. But, Thomas, I would rather be drawn with wild horses,
than he should know what hath passed between you and me. Therefore, when
we enter yonder castle, observe strict silence, and answer no question
that is asked at you, and I will account for your silence by saying I
took your speech when I brought you from middle earth."
Having thus instructed her lover, they journeyed on to the castle, and
entering by the kitchen, found themselves in the midst of such a festive
scene as might become the mansion of a great feudal lord or prince.
Thirty carcases of deer were lying on the massive kitchen board, under
the hands of numerous cooks, who toiled to cut them up and dress them,
while the gigantic greyhounds which had taken the spoil lay lapping the
blood, and enjoying the sight of the slain game. They came next to the
royal hall, where the king received his loving consort without censure
or suspicion. Knights and ladies, dancing by threes (reels perhaps),
occupied the floor of the hall, and Thomas, the fatigues of his journey
from the Eildon hills forgotten, went forward and joined in the revelry.
After a period, however, which seemed to him a very short one, the queen
spoke with him apart, and bade him prepare to return to his own country.
"Now," said the queen, "how long think you that you have been here?"
"Certes, fair lady," answered Thomas, "not above these seven days." "You
are deceived," answered the queen, "you have been seven _years_ in this
castle; and it is full time you were gone. Know, Thomas, that the fiend
of hell will come to this castle to-morrow to demand his tribute, and so
handsome a man as you will attract his eye. For all the world would I
not suffer you to be betrayed to such a fate; therefore up, and let us
be going." These terrible news reconciled Thomas to his departure from
Elfin land, and the queen was not long in placing him upon Huntly bank,
where the birds were singing. She took a tender leave of him, and to
ensure his reputation, bestowed on him the tongue which _could not lie_.
Thomas in vain objected to this inconvenient and involuntary adhesion to
veracity, which would make him, as he thought, unfit for church or for
market, for king's court or for lady's bower. But all his remonstrances
were disregarded by the lady, and Thomas the Rhymer, whenever the
discourse turned on the future, gained the credit of a prophet whether
he would or not; for he could say nothing but what was sure to come to
pass. It is plain that had Thomas been a legislator instead of a poet,
we have here the story of Numa and Egeria. Thomas remained several years
in his own tower near Erceldoune, and enjoyed the fame of his
predictions, several of which are current among the country people to
this day. At length, as the prophet was entertaining the Earl of March
in his dwelling, a cry of astonishment arose in the village, on the
appearance of a hart and hind,[28] which left the forest and, contrary
to their shy nature, came quietly onward, traversing the village towards
the dwelling of Thomas. The prophet instantly rose from the board; and,
acknowledging the prodigy as the summons of his fate, he accompanied the
hart and hind into the forest, and though occasionally seen by
individuals to whom he has chosen to show himself, has never again mixed
familiarly with mankind.
[Footnote 28: This last circumstance seems imitated from a passage in
the "Life of Merlin," by Jeffrey of Monmouth. See Ellis's "Ancient
Romances," vol. i. p. 73.]
Thomas of Erceldoune, during his retirement, has been supposed, from
time to time, to be levying forces to take the field in some crisis of
his country's fate. The story has often been told of a daring
horse-jockey having sold a black horse to a man of venerable and antique
appearance, who appointed the remarkable hillock upon Eildon hills,
called the Lucken-hare, as the place where, at twelve o'clock at night,
he should receive the price. He came, his money was paid in ancient
coin, and he was invited by his customer to view his residence. The
trader in horses followed his guide in the deepest astonishment through
several long ranges of stalls, in each of which a horse stood
motionless, while an armed warrior lay equally still at the charger's
feet. "All these men," said the wizard in a whisper, "will awaken at the
battle of Sheriffmoor." At the extremity of this extraordinary depot
hung a sword and a horn, which the prophet pointed out to the
horse-dealer as containing the means of dissolving the spell. The man in
confusion took the horn, and attempted to wind it. The horses instantly
started in their stalls, stamped, and shook their bridles, the men arose
and clashed their armour, and the mortal, terrified at the tumult he had
excited, dropped the horn from his hand. A voice like that of a giant,
louder even than the tumult around, pronounced these words:--
"Woe to the coward that ever he was born,
That did not draw the sword before he blew the horn!"
A whirlwind expelled the horse-dealer from the cavern, the entrance to
which he could never again find. A moral might be perhaps extracted from
the legend--namely, that it is best to be armed against danger before
bidding it defiance. But it is a circumstance worth notice, that
although this edition of the tale is limited to the year 1715, by the
very mention of the Sheriffmoor, yet a similar story appears to have
been current during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, which is given by
Reginald Scot. The narrative is edifying as peculiarly illustrative of
the mode of marring a curious tale in telling it, which was one of the
virtues professed by Caius when he hired himself to King Lear. Reginald
Scot, incredulous on the subject of witchcraft, seems to have given some
weight to the belief of those who thought that the spirits of famous men
do, after death, take up some particular habitations near cities, towns,
and countries, and act as tutelary and guardian spirits to the places
which they loved while in the flesh.
"But more particularly to illustrate this conjecture," says he, "I could
name a person who hath lately appeared thrice since his decease, at
least some ghostly being or other that calls itself by the name of such
a person who was dead above a hundred years ago, and was in his lifetime
accounted as a prophet or predicter by the assistance of sublunary
spirits; and now, at his appearance, did also give strange predictions
respecting famine and plenty, war and bloodshed, and the end of the
world. By the information of the person that had communication with him,
the last of his appearances was in the following manner:--"I had been,"
said he, "to sell a horse at the next market town, but not attaining my
price, as I returned home by the way I met this man, who began to be
familiar with me, asking what news, and how affairs moved through the
country. I answered as I thought fit; withal, I told him of my horse,
whom he began to cheapen, and proceeded with me so far that the price
was agreed upon. So he turned back with me, and told me that if I would
go along with him I should receive my money. On our way we went, I upon
my horse, and he on another milk-white beast After much travel I asked
him where he dwelt and what his name was. He told me that his dwelling
was a mile off, at a place called _Farran_, of which place I had never
heard, though I knew all the country round about.[29] He also told me
that he himself was that person of the family of Learmonths[30] so much
spoken of as a prophet. At which I began to be somewhat fearful,
perceiving we were on a road which I never had been on before, which
increased my fear and amazement more. Well, on we went till he brought
me under ground, I knew not how, into the presence of a beautiful woman,
who paid the money without a word speaking. He conducted me out again
through a large and long entry, where I saw above six hundred men in
armour laid prostrate on the ground as if asleep. At last I found myself
in the open field by the help of the moonlight, in the very place where
I first met him, and made a shift to get home by three in the morning.
But the money I had received was just double of what I esteemed it when
the woman paid me, of which at this instant I have several pieces to
show, consisting of ninepennies, thirteen pence-halfpennies," &c.[31]
[Footnote 29: In this the author is in the same ignorance as his
namesake Reginald, though having at least as many opportunities of
information.]
[Footnote 30: In popular tradition, the name of Thomas the Rhymer was
always averred to be Learmonth. though he neither uses it himself, nor
is described by his son other than Le Rymour. The Learmonths of Dairsie,
in Fife, claimed descent from the prophet.]
[Footnote 31: "Discourse of Devils and Spirits appended to the Discovery
of Witchcraft," by Reginald Scot, Esq., book ii. chap. 3, sec. 10.]
It is a great pity that this horse-dealer, having specimens of the fairy
coin, of a quality more permanent than usual, had not favoured us with
an account of an impress so valuable to medalists. It is not the less
edifying, as we are deprived of the more picturesque parts of the story,
to learn that Thomas's payment was as faithful as his prophecies. The
beautiful lady who bore the purse must have been undoubtedly the Fairy
Queen, whose affection, though, like that of his own heroine Yseult, we
cannot term it altogether laudable, seems yet to have borne a faithful
and firm character.
I have dwelt at some length on the story of Thomas the Rhymer, as the
oldest tradition of the kind which has reached us in detail, and as
pretending to show the fate of the first Scottish poet, whose existence,
and its date, are established both by history and records; and who, if
we consider him as writing in the Anglo-Norman language, was certainly
one among the earliest of its versifiers. But the legend is still more
curious, from its being the first and most distinguished instance of a
man alleged to have obtained supernatural knowledge by means of the
fairies.
Whence or how this singular community derived their more common popular
name, we may say has not as yet been very clearly established. It is the
opinion of the learned that the Persian word Peri, expressing an
unearthly being, of a species very similar, will afford the best
derivation, if we suppose it to have reached Europe through the medium
of the Arabians, in whose alphabet the letter P does not exist, so that
they pronounce the word Feri instead of Peri. Still there is something
uncertain in this etymology. We hesitate to ascribe either to the
Persians or the Arabians the distinguishing name of an ideal
commonwealth, the notion of which they certainly did not contribute to
us. Some are, therefore, tempted to suppose that the elves may have
obtained their most frequent name from their being _par excellence_ a
_fair_ or _comely_ people, a quality which they affected on all
occasions; while the superstition of the Scottish was likely enough to
give them a name which might propitiate the vanity for which they deemed
the race remarkable; just as, in other instances, they called the fays
"men of peace," "good neighbours," and by other titles of the like
import. It must be owned, at the same time, that the words _fay_ and
_fairy_ may have been mere adoptions of the French _fee_ and _feerie_,
though these terms, on the other side of the Channel, have reference to
a class of spirits corresponding, not to our fairies, but with the far
different Fata of the Italians. But this is a question which we
willingly leave for the decision of better etymologists than ourselves.
LETTER V.
Those who dealt in fortune-telling, mystical cures by charms, and
the like, often claimed an intercourse with Fairyland--Hudhart or
Hudikin--Pitcairn's "Scottish Criminal Trials"--Story of Bessie
Dunlop and her Adviser--Her Practice of Medicine--And of Discovery
of Theft--Account of her Familiar, Thome Reid--Trial of Alison
Pearson--Account of her Familiar, William Sympson--Trial of the Lady
Fowlis, and of Hector Munro, her Stepson--Extraordinary species of
Charm used by the latter--Confession of John Stewart, a Juggler, of
his Intercourse with the Fairies--Trial and Confession of Isobel
Gowdie--Use of Elf-arrow Heads--Parish of Aberfoyle--Mr. Kirke, the
Minister of Aberfoyle's Work on Fairy Superstitions--He is himself
taken to Fairyland--Dr. Grahame's interesting Work, and his
Information on Fairy Superstitions--Story of a Female in East
Lothian carried off by the Fairies--Another instance from Pennant.
To return to Thomas the Rhymer, with an account of whose legend I
concluded last letter, it would seem that the example which it afforded
of obtaining the gift of prescience, and other supernatural powers, by
means of the fairy people, became the common apology of those who
attempted to cure diseases, to tell fortunes, to revenge injuries, or to
engage in traffic with the invisible world, for the purpose of
satisfying their own wishes, curiosity, or revenge, or those of others.
Those who practised the petty arts of deception in such mystic cases,
being naturally desirous to screen their own impostures, were willing to
be supposed to derive from the fairies, or from mortals transported to
fairyland the power necessary to effect the displays of art which they
pretended to exhibit. A confession of direct communication and league
with Satan, though the accused were too frequently compelled by torture
to admit and avow such horrors, might, the poor wretches hoped, be
avoided by the avowal of a less disgusting intercourse with sublunary
spirits, a race which might be described by negatives, being neither
angels, devils, nor the souls of deceased men; nor would it, they might
flatter themselves, be considered as any criminal alliance, that they
held communion with a race not properly hostile to man, and willing, on
certain conditions, to be useful and friendly to him. Such an
intercourse was certainly far short of the witch's renouncing her
salvation, delivering herself personally to the devil, and at once
ensuring condemnation in this world, together with the like doom in the
next.
Accordingly, the credulous, who, in search of health, knowledge,
greatness, or moved by any of the numberless causes for which men seek
to look into futurity, were anxious to obtain superhuman assistance, as
well as the numbers who had it in view to dupe such willing clients,
became both cheated and cheaters, alike anxious to establish the
possibility of a harmless process of research into futurity, for
laudable, or at least innocent objects, as healing diseases and the
like; in short, of the existence of white magic, as it was called, in
opposition to that black art exclusively and directly derived from
intercourse with Satan. Some endeavoured to predict a man's fortune in
marriage or his success in life by the aspect of the stars; others
pretended to possess spells, by which they could reduce and compel an
elementary spirit to enter within a stone, a looking-glass, or some
other local place of abode, and confine her there by the power of an
especial charm, conjuring her to abide and answer the questions of her
master. Of these we shall afterwards say something; but the species of
evasion now under our investigation is that of the fanatics or impostors
who pretended to draw information from the equivocal spirits called
fairies; and the number of instances before us is so great as induces us
to believe that the pretence of communicating with Elfland, and not with
the actual demon, was the manner in which the persons accused of
witchcraft most frequently endeavoured to excuse themselves, or at least
to alleviate the charges brought against them of practising sorcery. But
the Scottish law did not acquit those who accomplished even praiseworthy
actions, such as remarkable cures by mysterious remedies; and the
proprietor of a patent medicine who should in those days have attested
his having wrought such miracles as we see sometimes advertised, might
perhaps have forfeited his life before he established the reputation of
his drop, elixir, or pill.
Sometimes the soothsayers, who pretended to act on this information from
sublunary spirits, soared to higher matters than the practice of physic,
and interfered in the fate of nations. When James I. was murdered at
Perth in 1437, a Highland woman prophesied the course and purpose of the
conspiracy, and had she been listened to, it might have been
disconcerted. Being asked her source of knowledge, she answered Hudhart
had told her; which might either be the same with Hudkin, a Dutch spirit
somewhat similar to Friar Rush or Robin Goodfellow,[32] or with the
red-capped demon so powerful in the case of Lord Soulis, and other
wizards, to whom the Scots assigned rather more serious influence.
[Footnote 32: Hudkin is a very familiar devil, who will do nobody hurt,
except he receive injury; but he cannot abide that, nor yet be mocked.
He talketh with men friendly, sometimes visibly, sometimes invisibly.
There go as many tales upon this Hudkin in some parts of Germany as
there did in England on Robin Goodfellow.--"Discourse concerning
Devils," annexed to "The Discovery of Witchcraft," by Reginald Scot,
book i. chap. 21.]
The most special account which I have found of the intercourse between
Fairyland and a female professing to have some influence in that court,
combined with a strong desire to be useful to the distressed of both
sexes, occurs in the early part of a work to which I have been
exceedingly obliged in the present and other publications.[33] The
details of the evidence, which consists chiefly of the unfortunate
woman's own confession, are more full than usual, and comprehend some
curious particulars. To spare technical repetitions, I must endeavour to
select the principal facts in evidence in detail, so far as they bear
upon the present subject.
[Footnote 33: The curious collection of trials, from "The Criminal
Records of Scotland," now in the course of publication, by Robert
Pitcairn, Esq., affords so singular a picture of the manners and habits
of our ancestors, while yet a semibarbarous people, that it is equally
worth the attention of the historian, the antiquary, the philosopher,
and the poet.]