part am accustomed to treat with ridicule." out according to his prediction in this ancient kingdom of Scotland-what is past, present, and to come. This brief account is taken from the Record of Cryle (Crail), near which place he was born and brought up. His father was said to be Laird of Balcomie, and the records of that family are extant in the rolls." Then follows a somewhat dif ence to the death of Alexander III., and some others which we do not find quoted elsewhere. The first is in reference to the battle of Sheriffmuir, regarding which the Rhymer is made to say : "That three ships and a shield That day shall keep the field, And be the antelope's build." (bield?). The three ships are explained to mean the arms of Argyle. Then comes the following in reference to the Rebellion of 1745, of which it is alleged he predicted every particular : Boece appears to be the first who puts on record the tradition that his surname was Learmont; and Scott, who | does not think it can have been borne by the seer himself, sees no improbability in its having become the surname of his descendants, and produces a genealogical memorandum,ferent version of the prophecy in referfound in the offices of the clerks of session, tracing the family of Learmonth of Balcomy in Fife to "the Laird of Erselmont in the Mers." From His torical Notices of the Burgh of Crail, we learn that the first Learmonth of Balcomie was Sir John Learmonth, whose eldest son, Sir James, became a Lord of Session, by the title of Lord Balcomie, in 1627. He died suddenly while sitting on the Bench in 1657. The following, which also bears upon the Learmonth question, is from a chap book entitled the Prophecies of Thomas the Rhymer, and may be taken as a specimen of the traditional information that was current regarding him and his prophecies during the commotions of 1745-6. It is very likely from the pen of Dougal Graham, the metrical historian of the Rebellion. "Sir Thomas Learmant, commonly called Thomas the Rhymer, was born in the east corner of Fife, of a good family. His prophecies have been more credited than any that were ever recorded in the Scots Chronicle, as they have been well attested, what of them is past, and what they allude to in this present century and period, and of his dark sayings yet to come. He told many mystical prophecies anent all the kings of Europe, and what fell "A chieftain unchosen Shall choose forth himself "When speaking of the battle of Prestonpans in the year 1745, he names the very two neighbouring villages to the spot of ground whereon it was fought, viz., Coyleford-green and Seton, saying,—' Between Seton and the sea sorrow should be wrought by the light of the moon,'-which act really came to pass that morning the battle of Prestonpans was fought." The naiveté of the following is charming when put into the mouth of one whose property was, possibly at his own request, given to the church. "When speaking of King Charles, he calls him is still claimed in Earlstoun churchyard by persons of the name of Learmont ; and that a stone in the church wall bears the inscription "Auld Rymer's race Lies in this place." At the times of the two unions, that of the crowns and that of the nations, the prophecies of Thomas stood at their highest repute. The Earl of Stirling, in dedicating his Monarchicke Tragedies to James VI., compliments his sapient majesty thus: "The world long'd for thy birth three hundreth yeeres, Since first foretold, wrapt in propheticke rimes." They are also referred to by Drummond of Hawthornden, as pointing to James; but the most notable reference is that of Archbishop Spottiswoode, who, in his History of the Church of Scotland, represents them as "having foretold so "From clear-skied France and muddy Zuyder- many ages before the union of England and Scotland in the ninth degree of the Bruce's blood, with the succession of Bruce himself to the crown, being yet a child; and other divers particulars, which the event hath ratified and made good." To this he adds the prophecy regarding the King's death, almost as quoted from Bower's Continuation of Fordun's Chronicle. The "honest but credulous" archbishop, by "the prophecies extant in Scottish rhyme," from which he quotes, refers to a collection, entitled "The whole Prophecies of Scotland. England, Ireland, France, and Denmark, prophecied by Thomas Rymer, marvellous Merling, Beid, Berlington, Waldhave, Eltrain, Bannester, He also records, that a right of sepulture and Sybilla," printed in 1603, but which must have existed, to some extent, in the 14th century, when two lines of the beginning of it are quoted in Ralph the Collier. It is also quoted more than once by Lindsay, in the 16th century. In an edition published by Andro Hart at Edinburgh in 1615, occur the lines relied on by Spottiswoode in reference to the Union. They are shown by Lord Hailes to be an interpolation of a prediction regarding the return of the Duke of Albany from France in 1515, adapted to suit the event of the succession of James VI. to the crown of England, which had recently taken place. Such has been the popularity of this collection, that it has often been republished in chap-book form; but, as Scott remarks, it has "so often been vamped and revamped, to serve the political purposes of dif ferent periods, that it may be shrewdly suspected that, as in the case of Sir John Cutler's transmigrated stockings, very little of the original material now remains." The earliest prophecy attributed to him which is found in writing, is one contained in a manuscript in the Harleian Library, supposed by Pinkerton to be of the time of Edward I. or II., but by Scott to be somewhat later. It is in the form of an answer to a question put to him in French by the celebrated black Agnes of Dunbar as to when the Scottish wars should cease. "La Countesse de Donbar demande a Thomas de Essedoune quant la guerre d'Escoce prendreit fyn. E yl l'a repoundy et dyt― "When man is mad a kyng of a capped man ; When man is levee other mones thyng than his owen; When londe thouys forest ant forest is felde; When Rokesboroughe nys no burgh ant market is at Forwyleye; When Bambourne is donged with dede men ; When men ledes men in ropes to buyen and to sellen; When a quarter of whaty whete is chaunged for a colt of ten markes; When prude (pride) prikes and pees is leyd in prisoun; When a Scot ne me hym hude ase hare in forme that the English ne shall hym fynde; When rycht ant wronge astente the togedere; When laddes weddeth lovedies; When Scottes flen so fast, that for faute of shep hy drowneth themselve; When shal this be? Nouther in thine tyme ne in mine; Ah comen ant gone Withinne twenty winter ant one." " Scott treats the prophecy as a forgery, contrived for the encouragement of the English invaders, and written by some one in their interest to work on the superstition of the Scots; its tendency being to aver that the war should only cease with the conquest of Scotland. But perhaps the most romantic aspect of the history of Thomas is that in which popular superstition has shrouded him — happily not a repulsive one which makes his case even more exceptional than that of Michael Scott. The common belief was that he was carried off at an early age to Fairyland by the Queen of Faëry, and was permitted to revisit his home at the end of seven years, but only on condition of returning when his royal mistress should intimate her pleasure. While, one day, making merry with some friends in the tower of Erceldoune, a person came and told them that a hart and hind, from the neighbouring forest, were slowly parading the street of the village. Thomas at once left the house and followed the animals back to the forest, whence he was never seen to return. It was also believed that, after he dreed his weird (fulfilled his destiny), he would again revisit the earth. In none of the prophecies attributed to him is it assumed that he is himself the narrator, and from the manner of his introduction, as 66 the busteous beirne on the bent" (the huge man on the wild), it might be supposed that his appearance was supernatural, and long after his disappearance as a natural inhabitant of the earth. There are at least three MSS. of about the 15th century giving an account of his abstraction by the Queen of Fairyland; but their language being somewhat obscure, the more modern ballad (Part I.), given in the Minstrelsy of the Border, is more suitable as a popular account of it. Part II., which follows, is a ballad of his principal prophecies. THOMAS THE RHYMER. PART FIRST. True Thomas lay on Huntlie bank; Her shirt was o' the grass-green silk, Sure of your bodie I will be." 'Betide me weal, betide me woe, That weird shall never daunton me.' Syne he has kissed her rosy lips, All underneath the Eildon tree. "Now, ye maun go wi' me," she said; "True Thomas, ye maun go wi' me; And ye maun serve me seven years, Thro' weal or woe as may chance to be." She mounted on her milk-white steed; She's ta'en true Thomas up behind ; And aye, whene'er her bridle rung, The steed flew swifter than the wind. O they rade on, and farther on; The steed gaed swifter than the wind; Until they reach'd a desert wide, And living land was left behind. "Light down, light down, now, true Thomas, And lean your head upon my knee; Abide and rest a little space, And I will shew you ferlies three. "O see ye not yon narrow road, So thick beset with thorns and briers? That is the path of righteousness, Though after it but few enquires. That weird, &c. -That destiny shall never frighten me. |