Thomas the Rhymer is mainly remembered as the legendary hero of a folk ballad, in which he meets the Queen of Elfland, is taken into her kingdom, and then returns seven years later with the gifts of eloquence and prophecy beyond normal mortal powers. However, behind the folklore lies a series of intriguing historical issues that take us back to the earliest known Scots literature, and a string of debates around these issues which have claimed the attention of many major figures in Scottish history, from medieval kings and historians to more modern figures such as Walter Scott.

It is also a story which reminds us that the modern borders of Lothian are much reduced since medieval times. The narrative occurs at the foot of the Eildon Hills near Melrose, now technically in the Borders Region, but nonetheless, within the era of the earliest forms of the narrative itself, this area was still very much conceived of as a part of Lothian. Moreover, it also reminds us that in the early part of the medieval period, even Lothian itself was often referred to as "England", even by its own inhabitants, signifying not that the region was itself part of England as such, but that its inhabitants spoke the branch of the Northumbrian Anglian language which soon diverged from the southern branch to become what we now know as Scots.

According to the legend, not least as it has been passed down through local ballad lore, "True Thomas" was, one fine May morning, lying contemplatively on the banks of the Huntly Burn (at the Western foot of the Eildon Hills). During his lazy, early-summer musings, he noticed a beautiful woman riding up to him on a noble horse with silver bells on its mane. She was so noble and impressive that he initially took her for the Queen of Heaven, and paid homage to her as such. But when she answered, she claimed in fact to be "only" the Queen of Elfland. After their formal introductions, she requested that he accompany her back to her homeland and serve her there for seven years, and, still impressed by her regal air and beauty, he agreed. Going with her, they rode for many days until they reached Elfland, where Thomas stayed for what appeared to him to be a full seven years. Eventually, at the end of seven years, the Queen of Elfland showed him two paths by which he could return home - the path of righteousness, or the path of folly. Needless to say, "True Thomas" chose the correct path, and found his way home safely. On his return to the mortal world, he found himself blessed with the powers of eloquence and prophesy, and became a famous poet and prophet of many events of national importance to Scotland. Indeed, he was said to have foreseen the death of Alexander III, the Union of the Crowns, and many other events which have shaped Scottish history since, and his poetic prophecies were said even to have been consulted before the Jacobite wars of the eighteenth century.

Of course, the above version is culled from several (sometimes conflicting) versions of the story, but the most basic elements are represented, and significantly, these closely relate and equate to numerous other traditional tales from across ancient Europe, from the great Greek myth of Orpheus, through to a myriad of local, specifically British and Brythonic legends (such as the C18th story of Wil Hopcyn from Glamorgan, Wales) of heroes who travel magically to the Otherworld and come back gifted with eloquent powers to become either famed poets, singers, seers, or any given combination of the three.

Moreover, such mythic and legendary heroes are well-know in the Celtic (and not least Brythonic) legend and lore of the regions which are now Lowland Scotland - we have close parallels of certain events in Thomas' tale in such "Welsh" classics as Y Mabinogi, or in more recent and less literary folk-ballads in Scots, such as Tamlane.

Perhaps the best-known version of Thomas' story is that presented by the folk ballad and its many variants, which is still within the modern repertoire of performers of the classic medieval Border Ballads. The first printed publication of the ballad was that included in Walter Scott's epochal Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.^[1] (1802-1803). As an adult, Scott lived at Abbotsford House, just to the West of the Eildons, but his family's ancestral home was at Smailholm Tower, further to the North-east. Either way, he was local to the area in which the Thomas legends are set, and they were no doubt major influences on the development of his own Romanticist writings. However, Scott was also responsible for the first printed publication of another crucial text in the Thomas story, Sir Tristrem,^[2] a literary medieval Arthurian Romance on the Tristan myth (later taken up by Wagner) which, Scott claimed, had been written by the actual historical Thomas himself - namely, one "Thomas of Ercildoune", in the late thirteenth century.

In the vogue for Thomas the Rhymer material which followed on from Scott's work, not only did a plethora of other ballad variants find their way into publication by numerous scholars, but a series of five other medieval manuscripts emerged which appeared to contain different versions of another literary medieval Romance which bore very close textual relation to the later folk ballads, and this collection was published in parallel text format by James Murray in 1875 as The Romance and Prophecies of Thomas of Erceldoune.^[3] This text, it was claimed, was also the work of a real historical poet, identical to the author of Sir Tristrem, and to whom the entire corpus of folk legend and folksong ultimately referred.

Footnotes

[1] Walter Scott, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Consisting of Historical and Romantic Ballads, Collected in the Southern Counties of Scotland; With a Few of Modern Date, Founded upon Local Tradition (Edinburgh: 1802-1803), 3 Vols.

[2] ed. Walter Scott, Sir Tristrem, a Metrical Romance of the Thirteenth Century by Thomas of Ercildoune, called the Rhymer (Edinburgh: 1804).

[3] ed. James A.H. Murray , The Romance and Prophecies of Thomas of Erceldoune (London: Early English Text Society, 1875).