1 18 TUK rorri-.\u KIIVTIIMKS or KKUWICKSHIRE. 



\Yc now proceed to another class of Kythmes, the most of which are 

 still floating about among the peasantry. 



8. " I stood upon Eyemouth fort, 



And guess ye what I saw, 

 Fairneyside and Flemington, 



Newhouscs, and Cocklaw ; 

 The fairy folk o' Fosterland, 



The witches o' Edencraw, 

 The bogle bo' o' Billy Myre 



Wha' kills our bairns a'." 



It would be a useless waste of time to form theories and conjectures as 

 to the origin of the above Rythme, for nothing certain is known con- 

 cerning it, but that it has been in circulation for time immemorial. Were 

 a person at the present day to stand upon the site of Eyemouth fort, with 

 the expectation of seeing all the places, not to say persons, enumerated 

 in the Rythme, he would certainly be disappointed, as from its situation 

 it is impossible to see several of the places named. Fairneyside, Flem- 

 inton, and Cocklaw, are farm places in the parish of Ayton. Of New- 

 houses we know nothing, and there is no place, we believe, in the neigh- 

 bourhood now known by that name. Fosterland was an old farm place, 

 its site, like many other old steadings, being marked out by a few ash 

 trees near the eastern extremity of the parish of Buncle. A small stream 

 \vhich rises on the moor, above that range of hills called Buncle Edge, is 

 still called Fosterland burn, and is one of the numerous rills that dis- 

 charges itself into Billy Myre. On the east side of this stream, where 

 its banks are steepest, there formerly existed an extensive British encamp- 

 ment, the traces of which have been nearly obliterated of late years by 

 the operations of the plough. The banks of this stream formed a favourite 

 haunt of the fairies in bygone days, and I once knew an old barn-man, 

 by name David Donaldson, who, although he never saw one of these 

 aerial beings, constantly maintained that he had frequently heard their 

 sweet music, in the silence of midnight, by Fosterland Burn, on the 

 banks of the Ale, and on the Pyperknowe.* Fosterland is said to be a 

 contraction of Foresterland, the name being derived from the forester of 

 Buncle wood, who had his dwelling here, when all the hill side, from the 

 Whitadder on the west, to this place, was covered with oak and hazel. 



Of the witches of Auchencraw or Edencraw, we have not been able 

 to glean many particulars. We have heard, indeed, one or two other 

 rythmes regarding them, which would shew that, among otherthings, they 



* Pyperknowe, so called from the pipings of the fairies heard on it, is a large knoll ly- 

 ing on the south bank of Billy Myre, behind the present farm-house of Causewaybank. It 

 consisto principally of gravel, and less than twenty years ago it was covered with a luxuriant 

 crop of broom. It now cultivated . 



