1 66 Yarrolu : Its Literature and Romance. [Sess. 



" Here to the memory ... of the most illustrious Prince 

 Nudus of the Dumnogeni. Here also in the barrow lie the 

 two sons of liberalis." The stone stands almost on the line of 

 the Catrail, which is supposed, and on good grounds, to be the 

 old boundary line between the Angles of Bernicia and the 

 Britons of Strathclyde ; and the tradition is that here a great 

 battle was fought at the close of the sixth century between 

 these two peoples. Koderick Hael, who was king of the 

 Britons of Strathclyde at that time, was known as " the 

 liberal " (and whose Welsh name is Nud), and it is supposed 

 that this stone commemorates his two sons who here fell 

 in battle. It is the oldest British inscribed stone in the 

 country. A cast of it is in the Edinburgh Museum of 

 Antiquities. 



Again we pass to another phase of our story. Near the 

 Gordon Arms is the site of the old farmhouse of Mount 

 Benger. Here Hogg lived for several years, doing his best 

 to earn a competency, but with indifferent results. To speak 

 truth, he was but a poor farmer. His heart was not in the 

 business. He had given himself to literature. Had he suc- 

 ceeded as a farmer we might not have known much of him 

 as a poet. He dispensed a lavish hospitality. It was during 

 Hogg's tenancy of Mount Benger that Wordsworth first visited 

 Yarrow. This was in the year 1814. He had been at 

 Clovenfords, but he would not turn aside at that time to 

 view the far-famed valley. We are grateful, however, for 

 his " Yarrow Unvisited," in some respects the best of his 

 " Three Yarrows." It is often said that when Wordsworth 

 first saw Yarrow from the height above Mount Benger he 

 was disappointed. 



" And is this Yarrow % — thu the stream 

 Of which mj' fancy cherished, 

 So faithfully, a waking dream ? 

 An image that hath perished ! " 



It is quite possible — nay, almost natural — that his first 

 feeling should have been one of disappointment. Yarrow 

 does not disclose her beauties to the first gaze, even of the 

 poet. You must live in Yarrow ; Yarrow must live in you. 



