150 THE POPULAR RHYTHMES OF BERWICKSHIRE. 



high rock overhanging the German Ocean, and St Helen pitched hers 

 upon a plain near, but not exactly bordering upon the shore. It is ob- 

 vious that the situation of these churches suggested the popular belief."* 

 There are now no remains of St Bey's chapel : the ruins of St Helen's are 

 still conspicuous in the parish of Colbrandspath, and the church-yard sur- 

 rounding them, is still used as a burial-ground ; but scarcely a vestige of 

 St Abb's remains on the high and lonely point, to which she has bequeath- 

 ed her name, and not a single grave-stone is now to be seen raising its 

 grey head from among the nettles and thistles which cover the deserted 

 spot, although some aged people remember to have seen it used as a place 

 of sepulture about sixty years ago. 



11." Grisly Draeden sat alane 



By the cairn and Pech stane ; 

 Billay wi' a segg sae stout, 

 Says * I'll soon turn Draeden out' 

 Draeden leuch, and stalk'd awa, 

 And vanish'd in a babanqua." 



This rythme, which I picked up when a boy from an old man (David 

 Donaldson, referred to above), who possessed a rich collection of old 

 sayings, songs, and rythmes, which I never heard any where else, evi- 

 dently relates to a large cairn which was situated about half-way between 

 two streams (Draeden and Billyburn), on the farm of Little Billy, in the 

 parish of Buncle. The cairn was surrounded, except on the south-west 

 side, by a circle of large whin stones, many of which would have weighed 

 several tons. At the distance of about 200 yards to the east of this 

 cairn stood a large block, of a reddish sort of granite, which the old man 

 already mentioned used to call " The Altar." The cairn is now removed, 

 but this stone still stands in its original situation. It is probable that 

 the circle of stones surrounding the cairn had constituted, in remote 

 times, a place of Druidical worship ; and it is also probable that the small 

 stream, a little to the north of the site of the cairn, derives its name, 

 Draeden, from this circumstance ; the affix draed being similar in sound 

 to Druid, and den, a dean or vale The Druid's Vale. When a moss 

 which skirted this stream, was begun to be drained about twenty years 

 ago, many pieces of oak were dug out ; and I recollect of being shewn, 

 near its northern extremity, a quagmire or babanqua, with a slit or open- 

 ing in the middle of it, on which no grass or any other plant grew, owing 

 to the constant oozing of the water from its bottom, into which, it was 

 said, a horse and his rider had sunk, and were never more seen. This 

 story rests upon tradition only ; but I have seen places of this descrip- 

 tion, into which, if a person had sunk, he would have been in imminent 

 danger of losing his life ; but, since the incalculable improvement of 



* Chambers' Popular Rjthmes, p. 45. 



