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Tarn Philogar. Communicated by Mr James Smail, 

 F.S.A. (Scot,)* 



Border Ballad, from the recital of Matthew Gotterson. 



Tradition has now little to relate regarding the infamous 

 Tarn o' Philogar, whose character is portrayed in the following 

 ballad. His rieving and cruelty were carried on chiefly along 

 the watershed of the Cheviots, on the upper glens of Eoxburgh- 

 shire and Northumberland. The sparse population in these 

 districts made it comparatively easy to him for a time to 

 carry on his savage exploits. It may be noted that on no 

 part of the Border hills in the olden time were there finer 

 trees than on Phil6gar. The huge Keil or Keilder Stone 

 stands in a very desolate spot on an eastern slope of the Peel 

 fell, and is on the very edge of Northumberland, and at an 

 elevation of thirteen hundred feet above sea level. In size 

 it is about as large in every way as an ordinary country 

 house of two storeys ; and on its sowewhat flat top grow 

 blaeberry and cloudberry plants and heather. There is a 

 well-known legend, which Scott and other writers noticed, 

 that if a person walk thrice round the stone against the sun, 

 and then strikes it, he will hear a groan from its interior. 

 On one side of the stone there is a very deep and fairly open 

 rent, into which a person can see distinctly for many feet, 



* This originally appeared in The Scotsman, 

 MM 



