J. F. Campbell Collection > Minstrelsy of the Scottish border

THOMAS THE RHYMER. 431
liini with a club. Waldhave defends himself with his sword, throws the savage
to the earth, and refuses to let him arise till he swear, by the law and lead he
lives upon, " to do him no harm." This done, he permits him to arise, and
marvels at his strange appearance :
" He was formed like a freike (man) all his four quarters ;
And then his chin and his face haired so thick,
With haiie growing so grime, fearful to see."
lie answers briefly to "Waldhave's enquiry, concerning his name and nature,
that he "drees his weird," i. e. does penance, in that wood; and, having hinted
that questions as to his own state are offensive, he pom-s forth an obscure
rhapsody concerning futurity, and concludes,
" Go musing upon Merlin if thou wilt ;
For I mean no more man at this time."
This is exactly similar to the meeting betwixt Merlin and Kentigern in
Fordun. These prophecies of Merlin seem to have been in request in the
minority of James V. ; for, among the amusements, with which Sir David
Lindsay diverted that prince during his infancy, are.
The prophecies of Rymer, Bede, and Merlin.
Sir David Lindsay's Epistle to the King.
And we find, in Waldhave, at least one allusion to the very ancient prophecy,
addressed to the countess of Dunbar :
This is a true token that Thomas of tells,
When a ladde with a ladye sliall go over the fields.
The original stands thus :
When laddes weddeth lovedies.
Another prophecy of Merlin seems to have been current about the time of
the regent Morton's execution. — When that nobleman was committed to the
charge of his accuser, captain James Stewart, newly created earl of Arran,
to be conducted to his trial at Edinburgh, Spottiswoode says, that he asked,
" Who was earl of Arran ?" " and being answered that captain James was the
man, after a short jjause he said, ' And is it so ? I know then what I may
look for !' meaning, as was thought, that the old prophecy of the 'Falling of
the heart* by the mouth of Arran', should then be fulfilled. Whether this
was his mind or not, it is not known ; but some spared not, at the time when
the Hamiltons were banished, in which business he was held too earnes.t,
to say, that he stood in fear of that prediction, and went that course only to
disappoint it. But, if so it was, he did find himself now deluded ; for he fell
by the mouth of another Arran than he imagined." — Spottiswoode, 313. The
fatal words, alluded to, seem to be these in the jirophecy of Merlin :
" In the mouth of Arrane a selcouth shall fall.
Two bloodie hc;irts shall be taken with a false traine,
And derfly dung down without any dome."
The heart was the cogiiisance of Morton.