Merlin

It is said, according Scottish myth, that Merlin, the wizard from Arthurian legend, is buried in the Borders town of Drumelzier.

However, there are many different versions of what actually happened to Merlin, ranging from his own prophecy of a “triple death” to slightly more supernatural accounts of him being imprisoned in a tree and left to die by Morgan le Fay, another Arthurian legend, or being entranced by spiders and fairies who bound him in their threads until he completely vanished from human sight.

The account which seems to be most prevalent, and perhaps most realistic, is the story of Merlin predicting his own death.

Sometime during the 570s, the Battle of Arderyth (or Ardderyd) saw Gwenddoleu ap Ceidio take on King Riderch Hael of Strathclyde in a bloody skirmish. The specific location of the battle is unknown, with some believing that it was fought in modern day Peebles, whilst others have claimed that it took place near Airdrie, or even down in Cumbria, in the north-west of England. However, it was said to have been a particularly bloody and violent fight that saw the annihilation of Gwenddoleu’s army. Merlin was the bard to Gwenddoleu and fought on the losing side. Legend has it that Merlin, witnessing such carnage, was driven into a state of insanity and fled to the depths of the Caledonian Forest. It was in the forest where he apparently met Saint Mungo (also known as St. Kentigern). St. Mungo, an apostle from the late sixth century, was born in the Fife coastal village of Culross and was the founder and patron saint of Glasgow. Merlin and Mungo spent a long time talking, and it was during this meeting where it is said that Merlin was converted from Paganism to Christianity. It was not long after his meeting with St. Mungo, Merlin had a sense of foreboding. He felt that something was not quite right and then suddenly he had a premonition of his own murder; what he described as a “triple death” where he would be cudgeled, drowned and stabbed.

Later that day Merlin was on his own in the forest when out of nowhere a group of men he recognised as being enemies appeared and set upon him. Merlin was beaten then pushed, causing him to fall into a nearby river, where he was finally run through with a stake whilst helpless in the water. This beating, drowning, and fatal impaling was the “triple death” that Merlin foresaw only hours earlier.

Reference to Merlin’s final resting place in Drumelzier has been made since as early as the 13th century. Thomas the Rhymer, famous laird, poet and supposed prophet, was said to have foreseen the 1603 Union of Crowns when he predicted that when the Tweed floods into Merlin’s grave Scotland and England will have one king. And such a flooding from the Tweed occured, no doubt coincidentally, on the very day Scotland’s James VI was crowned King of England.

The place in Drumelzier where Merlin is said to be buried is marked modestly by a thorn tree, near where a burn joins onto the River Tweed. The town has placed a plaque at the bottom of the tree acknowledging “the wizard Merlin’s grave”, and where it also states that the present tree is not the original one, which was swept away in a flood sometime in the late 1920s.

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Thomas meeting the Queen of the Fairies

Thomas Learmonth from Ercildoune (now Earlston), better known as Thomas the Rhymer was a 13th century Laird, poet and a supposed prophet.

Legend tells us how Thomas the Rhymer went out walking one day and fell asleep beneath a tree on the side of the Eildon Hills. He awoke to find a shining woman sitting on a grey horse at his side. This woman turned out to be the Queen of the Fairies. It was of no coincidence that they met, as it was Thomas that the queen seeked to meet. Thomas was struck by the Queen’s beauty and immediately fell in love with her and she asked him to kiss her, right under his favourite Eildon tree. The Queen asked Thomas if he would go back with her to the Land of the Fairies to be her lover and he agreed.

Thomas stayed with the fairies for what felt like three days, but was in fact seven years.

When he left the Queen, as a sign of her love for him, she gave Thomas the gift of poetry, of always speaking the truth (which apparently Thomas protested against), and the gift of prophecy.

Thomas made a lot of predictions, which he put into rhyme, about significant events that were to happen to Scotland.

Some of the prophecies attributed to Thomas the Rhymer:

“On the morrow, afore noon, shall blow the greatest wind that ever was heard in Scotland.”

This apparently predicts the death of Alexander III in 1286 who died the day after Thomas said it. The Scottish king was killed on a stormy night when travelling from Edinburgh Castle to see his queen in Kinghorn, Fife, and it is believed that his horse lost it’s footing in the dark and the king was found the following morning on the shore with a broken neck. Alexander died without an heir.

“At Eildon tree, if yon shall be, a brig ower Tweed yon there may see.”

From the Eildon tree that Thomas is talking about you can now, in fact, see a bridge which crosses the river Tweed.

A monument to Thomas the Rhymer

Other supposed predictions that were made by Thomas which have since come true are the succession of Robert the Bruce to the Scottish throne; Scotland’s decisive loss to the English at the Battle of Flodden Field in 1513, at which Scotland’s James IV was killed; and he foresaw the union of the Scottish and English crowns which occured in 1603. Thomas allegedly said that when the Tweed flooded into Merlin’s grave, Scotland and England would have one king. Initally it seemed that this prophecy had turned out incorrect, but  on the day of James VI‘s coronation the supposed grave of Merlin in Drumelzier flooded with water from the Tweed.

Thomas went on and lived the rest of his life in the real world, until one day when it is said that Thomas finally went back to see his lover in the Land of the Fairies after he went out for a walk and was never seen again.

In the 17th century, a Scottish Learmonth settled in Russia, and the famous 19th century Russian romantic writer and poet, Mikhail Lermontov (1814-1841) claimed to be a descendent of this Learmonth. Lermontov was thought of as the most important poet in Russia after the death of Alexander Pushkin in 1837 and it has been claimed, however never proven, that Lermontov is related to Thomas the Rhymer.

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