Mr. J. Tait on Earlstoun. 263 



dale and the two Lothians as well as Berwickshire, and one 

 of them — Walter de Lindsay — was a witness to the Inquisitio 

 Davidis in 1116. Another of the family — William de Lind- 

 say — acted as Justiciary of Lothian from 1189 to 1199. He 

 was succeeded in this oiRce by Patrick, fifth Earl of Dunbar, 

 and about the same time Ercildoune, with the adjoining 

 lands, seems to have been acquired by the powerful descend- 

 ants of Cospatrick. At the east end of the village there once 

 stood a stronghold designated the Earl's Tower ; and on what 

 is now termed the Hawk Kaim, the hawking-house of the 

 earls is believed to have stood. By some, the modern name 

 of the village is derived from the fact of its having been an 

 earl's residence ; but of this theory, though it comes to us 

 endorsed with the authority of Sir Walter Scott, we have 

 gi-eat doubts. In official documents, dated about 1558, we 

 find the name softened into Ersiltoun, from which the trans- 

 ition into Earlstoun is very easy and natural. 



Though little remains to commemorate the residence in 

 Earlstoun of the powerful Earls of March, time has dealt 

 more gently with another ancient relic — the remains of the 

 Rhymer's Tower, near the south-west side of the village. 

 The race of poets, and especially of prophets, is sacred, and 

 all that pertains to them is had in affectionate remembrance. 

 The facts actually ascertained regarding Thomas the Rhymer 

 are comparatively few. He appears like a dim reality six 

 centuries ago, and the fame he acquired among his contem- 

 poraries has thrown ite shadow down even to our own times, 

 without any substantial foundation on which his great repu- 

 tation should rest. The date of his birth was probably 

 about the year 1219. He was alive and in the full blaze of 

 his prophetic honours when King Alexander III. was killed 

 in 1286, and he seems to have been dead in 1299, for in that 

 year his lands were conveyed by his son and heir to the 

 Trinity House of Soltre, thus fulfilling an alleged prophecy 

 of his own — 



" The hare sail kittle on my hearth-stane, 

 And there never will be a Laird Learmont again." 



It is remarkable that the superiority of the property called 

 Rhymer's Lands, now owned by Mr. Charles Wilson, still 

 belongs to the Trinity College Church in Edinburgh. It 

 would almost appear as if Thomas had held his lands not 

 direct from the Crown, but from the Earls of Dunbar; for his 

 name does not appear in any State document of that period. 

 Nor does it appear that the lands were of large extent, for 



