148 THE POPULAR RHYMES OF BERWICKSHIRE. 



8. "I stood upon Eyemouth fort, 



And guess ye what I saw, 

 Pairneyside and Flemington, 



Newhouses, and Cocklaw ; 

 The fairy folk o' Fosterland, 



The witches o' Edencraw, 

 The bogle bo' o' KUy 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 Rhyme, for nothing certain is known 

 concerning it, but that il has been in circulation for time immemorial. 

 Were a person at the present day to stand upon the site of Eyemouth 

 forti with the expectation of seeing all the places, not to say persons, 

 enumerated in the Rhyme, he would certainly be disappointed, as 

 from its situation it is impossible to see several of the places named. 

 Fairneyside, Flemington, and Cocklaw, are farm places in the parish of 

 Ayton. Of Newhouses we know nothing, and there is no place, we 

 believe, in the neighbourhood 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 which 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 discharges itself into Billy Myre. 

 On the east side of this stream, where its banks are steepest, there 

 formerly existed an extensive British encampment, 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 Fyperhiowe.^ 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 



rhymes regarding them, which would shew that, among other things, 



. they delightedinhorrid and wicked transactions; but the lines are hardly 



such as to be fit for hearing. 



* PyperTcnoioe, so called from the pipings of the fairies heard on it, is a large 

 knoll lying on the south bank of Billy Myre, behind the present farm-honse of 

 Causewayhanh. It consists principally of gravel, and less than twenty years ago 

 it was covered with a luxuriant crop of broom. It is now cultivated. 



