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'No warrior's hand in fair Scotland

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Shall ever dint a wound on me.'

Now, by my sooth,' quo' bauld Walter,
If that be true we soon shall see.'

His bent bow he drew, and the arrow was true,
But never a wound or scar had he.

Then up bespake him true Thomas,
He was the lord of Ersyltoun:
'The wizard's spell no steel can quell,
Till once your lances bear him down.'

They bore him down with lances bright,
But never a wound or scar had he;
With hempen bands they bound him tight,
Both hands and feet on the Nine-stane lee.

That wizard accurst, the bands he burst;

They moulderd at his magic spell;
And neck and heel, in the forged steel,
They bound him against the charms of hell.

That wizard accurst, the bands he burst,
No forged steel his charms could bide;
Then up bespake him true Thomas,

'We'll bind him yet, whatever betide.'

The black spae-book from his breast he took,
Impresst with many a warlock spell;
And the book it was wrote by Michael Scott,
Who held in awe the fiends of hell.

They buried it deep, where his bones they sleep,
That mortal man might never it see;

But Thomas did save it from the grave,
When he returned from Faerie.

The black spae-book from his breast he took,
And turnd the leaves with curious hand;
No ropes, did he find, the wizard could bind,
But threefold ropes of sifted sand.

They sifted the sand from the Nine-stane burn,
And shaped the ropes so curiouslie;
But the ropes would neither twist nor twine,
For Thomas true and his gramarye.

The black spae-book from his breast he took,

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And he bade each lad of Teviot add
The barley chaff to the sifted sand.

The barley chaff to the sifted sand
They added still by handfulls nine;
But Redcap sly unseen was by,

And the ropes would neither twist nor twine.

And still beside the Nine-stane burn,

Ribbed like the sand at mark of sea,
The ropes, that would not twist nor turn,
Shaped of the sifted sand you see.

The black spae-book true Thomas he took;
Again its magic leaves he spread;
And he found that to quell the powerful spell,
The wizard must be boiled in lead.

On a circle of stones they placed the pot,
On a circle of stones but barely nine;

They heated it red and fiery hot,

Till the burnisht brass did glimmer and shine.

They rolld him up in a sheet of lead,

A sheet of lead for a funeral pall;

They plunged him in the cauldron red,

And melted him, lead, and bones and all.

At the Skelf-hill, the cauldron still,

The men of Liddesdale can show;

And on the spot, where they boild the pot,

The spreat and the deer-hair ne'er shall grow.

[The tradition,' says Sir Walter Scott, 'regarding the death of Lord Soulis, however singular, is not without a parallel in the real history of Scotland. The same extraordinary mode of cookery was actually practised (horresco referens) upon the body of a sheriff of the Mearns. This person, whose name was Melville of Glenbervie, bore his faculties so harshly, that he became detested by the barons of the country. Reiterated complaints of his conduct having been made to James I. (or, as others say, to the Duke of Albany,) the monarch answered, in a moment of unguarded impatience, Sorrow gin the sheriff were sodden, and supped in broo!' The complainers retired, perfectly satisfied. Shortly after, the lairds of Arbuthnot, Mather, Laureston, and Pittaraw decoyed Melville to the top of the hill of Garvock, above Laurencekirk, under pretence of a grand hunting party. Upon this place, still called the Sheriff's Pot, the barons had prepared a fire and a boiling cauldron, into which they plunged the unlucky sheriff. After he was sodden (as the king termed it) for a sufficient time, the savages, that they might literally observe the royal mandate, concluded the scene of abomination. by actually partaking of the hell-broth."]

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[This ballad was written by Dr. Leyden, and first pub. lished in Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.' The tradition,' says Sir Walter Scott, 'on which it is founded, derives considerable illustration from the argument of 'Lord Soulis'-(see next ballad.) It is necessary to add, that the most redoubted adversary of Lord Soulis was the chief of Keeldar, a Northumbrian district, adjacent to Cumberland, who perished in a sudden encounter on the banks of the Hermitage. Being arrayed in armour of proof, he sustained no hurt in the combat; but, stumbling in retreating across the river, the hostile party held him down below water with their lances till he died; and the eddy, in which he perished, is still called the Cout of Keeldar's Pool. His grave, of gigantic size, is still pointed out on the banks of the Hermitage, at the western corner of a wall, surrounding the burial-ground of a ruined chapel. As an enemy of Lord Soulis, his memory is revered; and the popular epithet of Cout, i. e. Colt, is expressive of his strength, stature, and activity. The Keeldar Stone, by which the Northumbrian chief passed in his incursion, is still pointed out, as a boundary mark, on the confines of Jed forest and Northumberland. It is a rough insulated mass, of considerable dimensions, and it is held unlucky to ride thrice withershins-in a direction, that is, contrary to the course of the sunaround it. The Brown Man of the Muirs is a Fairy of the most malignant order."]

HE eiry blood-hound howled by night,
The streamers flaunted red,
Till broken streaks of flaky light

The lady sighed as Keeldar rose:
'Come tell me, dear love mine,
you to hunt where Keeldar flows,
Or on the banks of Tyne?'

Go

'The heath-bell blows where Keeldar flows,
By Tyne the primrose pale;

But now we ride on the Scottish side,
To hunt in Liddesdale.'

'Gin you will ride on the Scottish side,
Sore must thy Margaret mourn;
For Soulis abhorred is Lyddall's Lord,
And I fear you'll ne'er return.

The axe he bears, it hacks and tears;
'Tis formed of an earth-fast flint;

No armour of knight, though ever so wight,
Can bear its deadly dint.

No danger he fears, for a charmed sword he wears,

Of adderstone the hilt;

No Tynedale knight had ever such might

But his heart-blood was spilt.'

In my plume is seen the holly green,
With the leaves of the rowan tree;

And my casque of sand, by a mermaid's hand,
Was formed beneath the sea.

Then Margaret, dear, have thou no fear;
That bodes no ill to me,

Though never a knight, by mortal might,
Could match his gramarye.'-

Then forward bound both horse and hound,
And rattle o'er the vale;

As the wintry breeze, through leafless trees,
Drives on the pattering hail.

Behind their course the English fells
In deepening blue retire;

Till soon before them boldly swells

The muir of dun Redswire.

And when they reacht the Redswire high,

Soft beamed the rising sun;

But formless shadows seemed to fly

Along the muirland dun.

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