Thomas of Erceldoune: The Prophet and the Prophesied
[Proofed once; footnotes moved to the end]
Thomas of Erceldoune: The Prophet and the Prophesied
by E. B. Lyle
Folklore, Vol. 79, No. 2 (Summer, 1968), pp. 111-121
Thomas of Erceldoune: the Prophet and the Prophesied
by E. B. LYLE
THOMAS OF ERCELDOUNE, who lived in the latter part of the thirteenth century and held land at Earlston in Berwickshire, has a place in oral culture through the ballad concerning him, Child's No. 37, Thomas Rymer, but this article explores a different aspect of the Thomas tradition, his double role both as the sleeping warrior and as the prophet who foretells his coming. There is evidence that Thomas was known as a prophet in the early fourteenth century, and it is quite likely that he did compose prophetic verses and that some of the more than fifty oral prophecies ascribed to him contain reminiscences of his compositions.
A number of the fragmentary traditional prophecies, which are mainly brief rhymes, can be brought into a pattern familiar in the Middle Ages. Several are concerned with 'tokens' of cataclysm. Medieval Welsh prophecies provide a list of fifteen signs that will precede the day of judgement, [1] and the first of these, the 'rising of the sea as a wall', may be compared with the Gaelic prophecy ascribed to Thomas: Thig a mhuir deas air a mhuir tuath (The south sea will come upon the north sea). [2] The seventh of the Welsh signs is 'falling of buildings', an idea that may be present in the rhyme:
When Finhaven Castle rins to sand,
The warld's end is near at hand! [3]
The earliest records of prophecies attributed to Thomas have this formula of the tokens. In Harleian MS. 2253, [4] which is dated not later than 1310, when the Countess of Dunbar asks Thomas when the Scottish wars will end, his reply includes these lines:
When hares kendles o e herston / ....
When bambourne is donged wy dedemen / ....
When laddes weddep louedis....
which recur in Arundel MS. 57, [5] dated c. 1340, in a prophecy of Thomas that foretells that Edward II ssal woldenp e out ydlis ylc an:
hwan banockesbourneis y det myd mannisb onis
hwan hares kendlep in hertp stanes
hwan laddes weuddep leuedes ....
The contemporary reference to the battle of Bannockburn in 1314, in hwan banockesbournies y det myd mannis bonis is paralleled in the traditional couplet:
The burn of breid
Sall run fow reid. [6]
where the bannock is replaced by the riddling breid. Two of the tokens are recalled in The Whole Prophesie, printed in 1603: [7]
This is a true talking that Thomas of tells,
that the Hare shal hirpil on the hard stone,....
I shal give you a token that Thomas of tells,
When a lad with a Ladie shal goe ouer the fields, ....
Then shal be wasted there cheife landes ....
The idea of the hare having her young on the hearth-stone, expressed in the Harleian MS. prophecy: When hares kendles ope herston is retained in a later oral rhyme, which has linked the desolation with the home of Thomas himself:
The hare sall kittle on my hearth stane,
And there will never be a Laird Learmont again."
There is a version of the prophecy that yomen will wed ladies in the fourteenth-century romance-prophecy Thomas of Erceldoune: [9]
[I wepe] for ladyes, faire & fre,
when lordes bene deade, without leasynge,
shall wedd yomen of poore degre.
he shall have steades in stabull fedd;
a hawke to bare vpon his hand;
a lovly lady to his bedd;
his elders before him had no land!
A couplet on the same theme in Additional MS. 670210 has the elliptical quality found in some of the oral rhymes, and may mark a transition stage:
Thees laddes shall bayre hawkes one their handes,
whose fathers before them [never] hadd landes.
As well as dealing with tokens, the prophecies are concerned with naming and describing the battles that will take place. Amongst those predicted in Thomas of Erceldoune are Gladsmoor (11. 560-76), Sandyford (11. 623-31), and one between Seton and the sea (11. 525-6). Margaret E. Griffiths notes (p. 211) that 'in all subsequent English prophecy these three battles play an important part'. Gladsmoor is foretold in The Whole Prophesie (p. 45):
When the Goate with the gilden horne is chosen to the sea,
The next yeare there after Gladsmoore shal be
but the figurative token is atypical of the traditional prophecies, and an oral rhyme gives an example of the 'falling of buildings' as a sign of the same battle:
When Turring's Towr falls to the land,
Gladsmoor then is near at hand:
When Turring's Towr falls to the sea,
Gladsmoor the next year shall bell
The Gladsmoor prophecy was thought to be fulfilled at the battle of Prestonpans in 1745, [12] and the Seton rhyme:
Betwene Seton & thes ey,
Many a man shall dye that dey,
at the battle of Pinkie in 1547. [13]
There is no oral rhyme about Sandyford, but it seems likely that it was one of the several Sandyford prophecies ascribed to Thomas [14] that was thought to have been fulfilled at the battle of Culblean in Aberdeenshire in 1335, for the opposing armies samyn met / Richt in pefurd. The detailed account of the battle in Wyntoun's Original Chronicle concludes: [15]
Offt hisf eychtq whilums pak Thomas
Off Erssiltone, pat said in derne,
Par suldem ets talwart, [stark] ands terne.
He said it in his prophecy;
But how he wist it was ferly.
As well as tokens and battles, Thomas was also held in the fourteenth century to have prophesied the reign of a great king. This prophecy is connected with Edward II in the Arundel MS. quoted above, and with his Scottish a dversary in Barbour's Bruce. [16] When the bishop of St Andrews heard that Robert the Bruce had killed Sir John Comyn, he expressed the hope that Bruce was the prophesied king:
I hop[ that] Thomas prophecy
Off Hersildounsea ll [verray] be
In him; for, swa our lord help me!
I haiff gret hop he sall be king,
And haiff this land all in leding.
The traditional rhymes ascribed to Thomas tend to emphasise the time of battle and disaster, but one prophesies the coming of the king:
On thew ater-fa' and the water-shed,
When i s seent he nest of the ringle-tail egdled,
The lands of the north sall a' be free,
And ae king rule owre kingdoms three. [17]
The deliverer whose appearance precipitates terrible battles but who finally establishes a rule of peace is sometimes said to be Thomas himself. His name is attached to the sleeping warrior legend (Aa. Th. 766) in three places in Scotland, Dumbuck near Dumbarton, Tom-na-hurich near Inverness, and the Eildon Hills near Melrose. Fionn is also said to sleep under Tom-na-hurich, and Arthur under the Eildons. J. G. Campbell in Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland [18] tells the Thomas legend: The Highland tradition is, that Thomas is in Dunbuck hill (Dun buic) near Dunbarton. The last person that entered that hill found him resting on his elbow, with his hand below his head. He asked, 'Is it time?' and the man fled. In the outer Hebrides he is said to be in Tomna-heurich hill, near Inverness. Hence MacCodrum, the Uist bard, says:
Dar thigedh sluagh Tom na h-iubhraich,
Co dh' eireadh air ti"s ach Thomas?
When the hosts of Tomnaheurich come
Who should rise first but Thomas ? [19]
He attends every market on the look-out for suitable horses, as the Fairies in the north of Ireland attend to steal linen and other goods exposed for sale. [I.e. he attends invisible.] It is only horses with certain characteristics that he will take. At present he wants but two, some say only one, a yellow foal with a white forehead (searrachb lhrb uidhe). The other is to be a white horse that has got 'three March, three May, and three August months of its mother's milk' (tri Mhirt, tri Mtigh, agus tri luchara 'bhainnem haithar)a; nd in Mull they say, one of the horses is to be from the meadow of Kengharair in that island. When his complement is made up he will become visible and a great battle will be fought on the Clyde.
Nuair thig Thomas le chuid each,
Bi latha nan creach air Cluaidh,
Millear naoi mile fear maith,
'S theid righ bg air a chrbn.
When Thomas comes with his horses,
The day of spoils will be on the Clyde,
Nine thousand good men will be slain,
And a new king will be set on the throne. [20]
You may walk across the Clyde, the prophecy goes on to relate, on men's bodies, and the miller of Partick Mill (Muilionn Phearaig), who is to be a man with seven fingers, will grind for two hours with blood instead of water. After that, sixteen ladies will follow after one lame tailor (Bi sia baintighearnudni ag as deigha n aon thilleirc hri-baich.)... A stone in the Clyde was pointed out as one, on which a bird (bigein) would perch and drink its full of blood without bending its head, but the River Trustees have blasted it out of the way that the prophecy may not come true.
A comparable prediction, without reference to Thomas, is ascribed to the Brahan Seer, [21] and similar material appears in medieval Welsh manuscripts, as, for example, in this prophecy of Rhys Fras quoted by Margaret E. Griffiths (p. 178): The poem Gwyr Mon a glwant yar un pen bryn, in describing the battle of Cwminod, tells that the slaughter will be so great that the mills will grind with streams of blood: yna y mal melineu kyminot or frydieu o waet, and how an eagle will drink its fill: yna y seif Eryr ar vaen melin ar ddolgyminoat cy hyfy wala o waetg wyr a meirch.
An Irish tradition says that Earl Gerald (Georoidh larla) will rise with his warriors when 'the miller's son that's to be born with six fingers on each hand will blow his trumpet'. [22] It is clear that there is a common body of Celtic material which may have been reworked by Thomas in the thirteenth century. The following two rhymes [23] traditionally ascribed to him speak of the period of disaster in terms similar to those associated in J. G. Campbell's account with his own return:
At Threeburn Grange on an afterd ay,
There sall be a lang and bludy fray;
Where a three-thumbed wight by the reins sal hald
Three kings horse baith stout and bauld,
And the Three burns, three days will rin
Wi' the blude o' the slain that fa' therin.
At two full times, and three half times,
Or threescore years and ten,
The ravens shall sit on the Stanes o' St. Brandon,
And drink o' the blood o' the slain!
An early nineteenth-century mention of the association of Thomas with Dumbuck is that of Mrs Mary Ann Hughes, who recorded in her diary on 14 May, 1824: [24] As we proceeded up the river the steward of the boat pointed out the hill of Dumbuck on which he said 'ancient superstition had fixed as the spot on which Thomas the Rhymer would appear on his return from Fairyland'.
When she visited Dumbarton the next day, 'a dirty looking man ... pointed out Dumbuck and repeated the steward's legend.' J. F. Campbell [25] in 1893 referred to a common saying current in Islay: [True Thomas] is supposed to be still living, enchanted in Dumbuck (Dun-a-bhuic, the buck's hill), near Dumbarton (Dun-breaton, Mount Breaton); and he appears occasionally in search of horses of a peculiar kind and colour. He pays for them when they are brought to the hill; and the vendor sees enchanted steeds and armed men within the rock.
There is a seventeenth century English version [26] of the experiences of a man who sells a horse to Thomas: By the affirmation of the person that had Communication with him, the last of [the Prophet's] Appearances was on this 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 aforesaid who began to be familiar with me, asking what news, and how affairs moved throughout the Country; I answered as I thought fit; with all I told him of my Horse who'n 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 discourse I askt him where he dwelt, and what his name was; he told me, Thath is dwelling was about a mile off, at a place called Farran; of which place I had never heard though I knew all the Country round about; he also told me, That he himself was that person of the Family of Learmonts so much spoken off for a Prophet; At which I began to be somewhat fearful, perceiving us in a road which I had never been in before, which increased my fear and admiration more. Well on we went till he brought me under ground I know not how into the presence of a beautiful woman that payd me the moneys without a word speaking; he conducted me out again through a large and long entry, where I saw above 6000 men in Armour layd prostrate o n the ground as if asleep: at last I found my self in the open field by the help of Moon-light in that very place where first I met him, and made shift to get home by three in the morning, but the money I received was just double of what I esteemed it, and what the woman payd me, of which at this instant I have several pieces to show consisting of nine pences, thirteen pence halfpennies, &c.
Sir Walter Scott mentions this account in his Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft [27] and gives the traditional version associated with the Eildon Hills in his own time:
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 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 extraordinaryd epot 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.
Scott had at one time intended to write a romance based on this 'fine legend of superstition, which is current in the part of the Borders where he had his residence', and gave a more elaborate version of it in Appendix I to the General Preface to Waverley. [28] It is more explicit than the summary in the Demonology, or differs from it, in some respects. As an introduction, Scott notes that Thomas 'is alleged still to live in the land of Faery, and is expected to return at some great convulsion of society, in which he is to act a distinguished part'.
He then tells that a 'horse-cowper' who lived 'on the Borders', and whom he calls 'Canobie Dick' (from Canonbie in Dumfriesshire, near the border of Cumberland) was riding over Bowden Moor one moonlight night 'having a brace of horses along with him which he had not been able to dispose of'. A 'man of venerable appearance, and singularly antique dress' paid for them in ancient gold coins, and arranged for the dealer to bring more horses alone at night to the same spot, which he did 'more than once'. Dick suggested that he should be offered a drink at the stranger's home, and was warned that if he lost courage at what he saw there, he would rue it all his life. However, 'he followed the stranger up a narrow foot-path, which led them up the hills to the singular eminence stuck betwixt the most southern and the centre peaks, and called from its resemblance to such an animal in its form, the Lucken Hare. At the foot of this eminence.... Dick was somewhat startled to observe that his conductor entered the hill side by a passage or cavern, of which he himself, although well acquainted with the spot, had never seen or heard.'
Every horse in the stables was coal-black, and by each 'lay a knight in coal-black armour, with a drawn sword in his hand'. The hall was lit by 'a great number of torches' and a sword and horn lay on the table at 'the upper end'.
'"He that shall sound that horn and draw that sword," said the stranger, who now intimated that he was the famous Thomas of Hersildoune, "shall, if his heart fail him not, be king over all broad Britain. So speaks the tongue that cannot lie. But all depends on courage, and much on your taking the sword or the horn first." '
Dick's 'feeble note' on the horn aroused thunder which pealed 'through the immense hall'. Seeing 'the whole army.., .about to rush on him' he 'dropped the horn, and made a feeble attempt to seize the enchanted sword'. The same rhyme was spoken (but with 'Who' instead of 'That' in the second line), and the whirlwind 'precipitated him over a steep bank of loose stones, where the shepherds found him the next morning, with just breath sufficient to tell his fearful tale, after concluding which he expired'. The adventurer was also hurled to his death in Scott's verse account in The Shepherd's Tale [29] written in 1799. John Leyden refers to Arthur as sleeping under the Eildon Hills in his poem Scenes of Infancy, and speaks of this story in a note. [30]
Tradition... relates, that a shepherd was once conducted into the interior recesses of Eildon Hills, by a venerable personage, whom he discovered to be the famous Rymour, and who showed him an immense number of steeds, in their caparisons, and, at the bridle of each a knight sleeping, in sable armour, with a sword and bugle-horn at his side. These, he was told, were the host of King Arthur, waiting till the appointed return of that monarch from Fairyland. [31]
The mention of a shepherd rather than a horse-dealer connects the story of the Eildons to another branch of the legend found commonly on both sides of the Border, [32] in which it is dogs, not horses, that are half-roused from sleep. In Thomas Wilkie's account [33] the opposite action from that in Scott's version brings down the words:
Curse on the day when thou wast born
Who drew the sword before you blew the horn.
It is the blowing of a horn that is the signal to rouse Thomas from his slumber under Tom-na-hurich in an Inverness prophecy quoted by John Geddie in Thomas the Rymour and His Rhymes: [34]
When the horn is blown
True Thomas will come forth.
In The Myth of the Eternal Return, [35] Mircea Eliade discusses 'the metamorphosis of a historical figure into a mythical hero'. Thomas of Erceldoune appears to have been first associated with this myth as the prophet of the return, and then himself to have become the central figure of the prophecy.
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Footnotes:
1 Margaret E. Griffiths, Early Vaticination in Welsh, with English Parallels, Cardiff, 1937, pp. 15-16.
2. J. G. Campbell, Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, Glasgow, 1900, p. 272.
3. Andrew Jervise, The History and Traditions of the land of the Lindsays in Angus and 1 Mearns, Edinburgh, 1853, p. 166.
4. F. 127r & v. James A. H. Murray in Thomas of Erceldoune, Early English Text Society, London, 1875, gives the text on pp. xviii-xix, and a translation on p. lxxxvi.
5 F. 8v. The prophecy is printed in Ayenbyte of Inwyt, ed. Richard Morris' Early English Text Society, London, 1866.
6 Walter Scott, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Kelso, 18o2, Vol. II, p. 281.
7 The Whole Prophesie of Scotland, England, and some-part of France and Denmark, printed by Robert Waldegrave, 1603, and reprinted in A Collection of Ancient Scottish Prophecies, Bannatyne Club, No. 44, Edinburgh, 1833. The quotations here are from pp. 38-9; cf. also p. 17: Then shal Ladies laddes wed, and Wynnere and Wastoure, ed. Mabel Day, London, 1931, 11. 13-17, where the above two signs are mentioned as forerunners of dredfull domesdaye.
8 Scott, Vol. II, p. 26I. In post-medieval references Thomas is often called Sir Thomas Learmont.
9. Ed. James A. H. Murray, Early English Text Society, London, 1875, I 1.650-656, Sloane MS.
10 F. 99v, quoted on p. I26 of Thomas of Erceldoune, ed. Alois I880. Brandl, Berlin.
11. A. Keith, A View of the Diocese of Aberdeen, 1732, in Collection for a History of the Shires of Aberdeen and Banff, Spalding Club, Aberdeen, 1843, p. 365. 12 Robert Chambers, The Popular Rhymes of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1870, p. 219.
13 William Patten, The Expedicion into Scotlande of the Duke of Soomerset, London, 1548. There is no pagination, but the rhyme is given in the preface. It is ascribed to Thomas by Robert Chambers in his Popular Rhymes of Scotland, Edinburgh, I841, p. 7.
14 See e.g. Murray, op. cit., pp. 57 and 62.
15 The Original Chronicle of Andrew of Wyntoun, ed. F. J. Amours, Vol. VI, Scottish Text Society, Edinburgh and London, 19o8, Cotton MS. 11. 4718-22.
16 John Barbour, The Bruce, ed. Walter W. Skeat, Scottish Text Society, Edinburgh and London, I894, Book II, 11. 86-90. Cf. also Thomas of Erceldoune, 11. 617-20 and 353-4.
17 Robert Chambers, The Popular Rhymes of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1826, p. 86. Ringle-tailedgled = female hen harrier.
18 Glasgow, 1900, pp. 270-2.
19. These lines do not appear in either The Uist Collection, ed. Archibald Macdonald, Glasgow, 1894, or Songs of John MacCodrum, ed. William Matheson, Scottish Gaelic Texts Society, Edinburgh, 1939.
20. O. F. Campbell in Popular Tales of the West Highlands, London, 1893, Vol. IV, p. 35 gives the lines:
Nuair a thig Tomas an riom 's a chuid each,
Bidh latha nan creach an Cluaidh.
When Thomas of power and his horses shall come,
The day of plunderings will be in Clyde.
21. Alexander Mackenzie, The Prophecies of the Brahan Seer, Stirling, 1924, pp. 14 and 50.
22 Patrick Kennedy, Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts, London, I891, pp. 173-4.
23 The History of the Berwickshire Naturalists Club, Vol. I, x837-8, p. 147, and Robert Chambers, The Popular Rhymes of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1858, p. g9.
24 Mrs Mary Ann Hughes, Letters and Recollections of Sir Walter Scott, ed. H. G. Hutchinson, London, 1904, pp. 112-15.
25 Popular Tales of the West Highlands, London, 1893, Vol. IV, p. 35.
26 Section 20 in Chapter III of a second book of 'An excellent discourse of the Nature and Substance of Devils and Spirits' added to Reginald Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft by an anonymous author in the third edition, London, x665.
27 London, 1830, pp. 136-7.
28 The legend is on pp. xlix-liv of the 1829 edition, Edinburgh and London, in which the preface first appeared.
29 First printed in J. G. Lockhart's Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Edinburgh and London, x837, Vol. I, pp. 307-13. A corrected version is given in Notes and Queries, CLXIV, i933, PP. 75-6.
30 E dinburgh, 1803, p. 75 and pp. 173-4.
31. Donald A. Mackenzie in Folk-lore and Folk Life, London and Glasgow, 1935, p. 106, says that 'the chief sleeping giant under Eildon Hills has been named Thomas the Rhymer'. Madge Elder in Tell the Towers Thereof, London, 1956, pp. 1o7-8, recalls Leyden's account of Arthur, and gives a version of the legend (in which the horse-dealer survives) similar to Scott's. Variations are that the dealer has to enter the hill for the payment of his money, which he does not actually receive; there is no sword, and the horn he blows is hung in the entrance. Cf. Robert Davidson's poem The Enchanted Cave (not in the Eildons) in which horn and sword are hung in the entrance: Leaves from a Peasant's Cottage Drawer, Edinburgh, 1848, pp. 171-3.
32 Three North of England versions are included in The Denham Tracts by Michael Denham, ed. James Hardy, Folklore Society, XXIX, London, 1892, Vol. II, pp. I21-8.
33 In Sir Walter Scott's Materials for Border Minstrelsy, NLS MS. 877, f. 75v. Wilkie's collection is dated 1813-15. He adds a note, 'I have often heard the above story sometimes happening where related, sometimes at Hermitage but generally at Roslin Castle'.
34 Rymour Club, Edinburgh, 1920, p. 23. It may be that in the legend of Tom-na-hurich there is no choice between horn and sword, for there is no sword in the legend as told of Fionn. See e.g. J. G. Campbell, Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, Glasgow, 1900, p. 272, and John S. Keltie, A History of the Scottish Highlanders, Edinburgh and London, 1879, Vol. II, pp. 98-9.
35 1949, translated from the French by Willard R. Trask, London, 1955, p. 42 fol.