Dr. Wilson on Linton and its Legends. 29 



once foiled in an attack with ordinary weapons, resorted to the 

 expedient of thrusting a live peat down its throat by means of his 

 lance, which proved completely successful. The recompense for 

 his bravery consisted in the gift of extensive lands in the neigh- 

 bourhood upon which he had conferred so signal a benefit. The 

 story is a favourite at the cottage hearth, and is received with 

 unhesitating belief; no one daring to dispute such proofs as the 

 stone in the church wall, the den still visible at Wormington on 

 the farm of Greenlees, and the ancient triplet, with its charac- 

 teristically rude alliteration and ruder rhymes, which tells that 



" The wode laird of Larristone 

 Slew the worme of Wormiston, 

 And wan a' Linton parochine." 



The family of Somerville claims the merit of this exploit for that 

 John Somerville, who has been already mentioned as having ac- 

 quired the barony of Linton in 1174; the lands, it is asserted, 

 having been then conferred upon him by William the Lion, as a 

 reward for the destruction of the Worm. The author of the ' Me- 

 morie of the SomervihV enters into an account of the adventure 

 with such minute circumstantiality, as to prove how much his ima- 

 gination, or that of his informant, was engaged in the narrative. 

 Yet the size of the monster sinks, with him, into insignificance, 

 when compared with that in the more usually received tradition ; 

 and the giant folds, which encircled a little hill, dwindle into a 

 length of " three Scots yards, and somewhat bigger than an or- 

 dinary man's leg, with a head more proportionable to its length 

 than greatness, in form and colour like to our common muir-" 

 edders." It says little for the gallantry of the Scots, a century 

 after the Norman conquest of England, that such a creature be- 

 came the " terror of the country people ;" and the prowess of a 

 Norman baron was scarcely worthily tested by the risk to be 

 encountered in its subjection. That an animal of these dimen- 

 sions swallowed oxen whole, " instantly devouring them," ren- 

 dered the country desolate, not by diffusing any poisonous at- 

 mosphere, but by its simple voracity, and struck the inhabitants 

 of Jedburgh, ten miles distant, " with such a panic fear that 

 they were ready to desert the town," is merely part of the 

 inconsistencies of a tale, which wants all the qualities of the 

 genuine legend, with its uncumbered breadth of outline, and 

 details which, however opposed to the truth as it really exists, are 

 at least usually in unison with each other, and with the prevalent 

 notions of the times in which they claim their origin, or as a 

 reflection from which they own their chief value. The informa- 

 tion he has given could not, on this head, be gleaned from the 

 family charters, and it is evidently no pure oral tradition. We 

 can here, therefore, accept nothing farther from the author of 



