The old castle of Sewingshields is one of which there are many legends. If local tradition might be accepted as a guide, we should find that Arthur the King lived there once on a time. But surely another Arthur than him of whom Tennyson sang. One, “Not like that Arthur, who, with lance in rest,From […]

This is a tale they tell at the darkening, and you who are Rulewater folk probably know it well. But however well you may know it, you have to own that it is an eerie thing to listen to when the fire is dying down, and there are queer-shaped shadows playing on the walls, and […]

“It is commonly reported that some party, in a considerable action before the Session, finding that Lord Durie could not be persuaded to think his plea good, fell upon a stratagem to prevent the influence and weight which his lordship might have to his prejudice, by causing some strong masked men to kidnap him, in […]

Your Border ruffian of the good old days was not often a humorist. Life to him was a serious business. When he was not reiving other people’s kye, other people were probably reiving his; and as a general rule one is driven to conclude that he was not unlike that famous Scotch terrier whose master […]

When we think of “the Border,” the picture that rises to mind is usually one of hill and dale, of peat-hag and heathery knoll, of brimming burns that tumble headlong to meet the embrace of rivers hurrying to their rest in the great ocean. One sees in imagination the solemn, round-shouldered hills standing out grim […]

The Merse has given many a gallant man to the mother-country, oftentimes a fighter, now and again a martyr, but no fairer flower has ever blossomed in that stretch of land that has the North Sea for one of its boundaries, and looks across fertile plains to the long, blue line of Cheviots in the […]

“Silent, O Moyle, be the roar of thy water;Break not, ye breezes, your chain of repose;While murmuring mournfully, Lir’s lonely daughterTells to the night-star her tale of woes.” Moore. They are the tragedies, not the comedies of the old, old days that are handed down to us, and the literature of the Celts is rich […]

“Her beauty filled the old world of the Gael with asweet, wonderful, and abiding rumour. The name ofDeirdre has been as a harp to a thousand poets. In aland of heroes and brave and beautiful women, how shallone name survive? Yet to this day and for ever, men willremember Deirdre….” Fiona Macleod. So long ago, […]

“I heard a voice, that cried,‘Baldur the BeautifulIs dead, is dead!’And through the misty airPassed like the mournful cryOf sunward sailing cranes.” Longfellow. Among the gods of Greece we find gods and goddesses who do unworthy deeds, but none to act the permanent part of villain of the play. In the mythology of the Norsemen […]

Among the old castles and peel towers of the Border, there are few to which some tale or other of the supernatural does not attach itself. It may be a legend of buried treasure, watched over by a weeping figure, that wrings its hands; folk may tell of the apparition of an ancient dame, whose […]

“He was of mankindIn might the strongest.” Longfellow’s Translation. Whether those who read it be scholars who would argue about the origin and date of the poem, ingenious theorists who would fain use all the fragmentary tales and rhymes of the nursery as parts of a vast jig-saw puzzle of nature myths, or merely simple […]

“Roland, the flower of chivalry,Expired at Roncevall.” Thomas Campbell. “Hero-worship endures for ever while manendures.” Carlyle. “Roland, the gode knight.” Turpin’s History of Charlemagne. The old chroniclers tell us that on that momentous morning when William the Conqueror led his army to victory at Hastings, a Norman knight named Taillefer (and a figure of iron […]

“Ich weiss nicht, was soll es bedeuten,Dass ich so traurig bin;Ein Maerchen aus alten Zeiten,Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn. * * * * * Die schoenste Jungfrau sitzetDort oben wunderbar,Ihr gold’nes Geschmeide blitzet,Sie kaemmt ihr gold’nes Haar. Sie kaemmt es mit gold’nem Kamme,Und singt ein Lied dabei;Das hat eine wundersame,Gewaltige Melodei.” Heine. In […]

“Friday’s bairn is loving and giving,” says the old rhyme that sets forth the special qualities of the children born on each day of the week, and to the superstitious who regard Friday as a day of evil omen, it seems strange that Friday’s bairn should be so blessed. But they forget that before Christianity […]

“The fairest youth that ever maiden’s dream conceived.” Lewis Morris. The ideally beautiful woman, a subject throughout the centuries for all the greatest powers of sculptor’s and painter’s art, is Venus, or Aphrodite, goddess of beauty and of love. And he who shares with her an unending supremacy of perfection of form is not one […]

In the solitudes of the hills we find her, and yet we may come on her unawares in the din of a noisy city. She will answer us where the waves are lashing themselves against the rugged cliffs of our own British coast, or we may find her where the great yellow pillars of fallen […]

Fourteen years only have passed since our twentieth century began. In those fourteen years how many a father’s and mother’s heart has bled for the death of gallant sons, greatly-promising, greatly-daring, who have sought to rule the skies? With wings not well enough tried, they have soared dauntlessly aloft, only to add more names to […]

“For murder, though it have no tongue, will speakWith most miraculous organ.” Shakespeare. Ibycus, the poet friend of Apollo, was a happy man as he journeyed on foot through the country where the wild flowers grew thick and the trees were laden with blossom towards the city of Corinth. His tuneful voice sang snatches of […]

In the plays of Shakespeare we have three distinct divisions–three separate volumes. One deals with Tragedy, another with Comedy, a third with History; and a mistake made by the young in their aspect of life is that they do the same thing, and keep tragedy and comedy severely apart, relegating them to separate volumes that, […]

“Is it because the wild-wood passion still lingers inour hearts, because still in our minds the voice ofSyrinx lingers in melancholy music, the music of regretand longing, that for most of us there is so potent aspell in running waters?” Fiona Macleod. As the evening shadows lengthen, and the night wind softly steals through the […]