^{page 375 note 1} The Romance and Prophecies of Thomas of Erceldoune, E. E. T. S., No. 61.

^{page 376 note 1} For Murray's collation of the various mss., and his numbering of the lines (followed by Brandi), see T. of E., pp. Ixii ff.

^{page 376 note 2} Brandi, Thomas of Erceldoune, Berlin, 1880.

^{page 376 note 3} Murray, T. of E., pp. xviii ff. Chambers, Popular Rhymes of Scotland (London, 1870), p. 211.

^{page 377 note 1} Child, Ballads (1882-1898), I, 317-329; Murray, T. of E., App. I, II, and III; Brandi, T. of E., pp. 117 ff.

^{page 377 note 2} Child, Ballads, i, 318.

^{page 377 note 3} Child, Ballads, i, 319. Yet how are we to explain the popularity in England, attested by the English mss., of this poem devoted to the Scotch wars?

^{page 378 note 1} Brandi, pp. 41, 51. He also suggests (p. 74) “ dass der dichter, wie er seine prophezeiungen für ein Jahrhundert älter ausgab als sie waren, auch seiner sprache ein archaisierendes colorit zu leihen versucht habe.”

^{page 378 note 2} ms. Harl. 2253 lf. 127, col. 2. See Murray, pp. xviii f.

^{page 381 note 1} Neither here nor elsewhere in the poem are elves, fairies, or Elfland named.

^{page 381 note 2} The Cambridge ms. makes Thomas's stay seven years.

^{page 383 note 1} Cf. Adam Davy's fourth and fifth Dreams; especially the fourth, E. E. T. S., No. 69, pp. 14, 16. Here we have vacillation from one person to the other, but nothing like the unexpected momentary lapse of line 276.

^{page 384 note 1} For use of the season-motif in poems not recounting visions, see Richard Cœur de Lion, Part ii (in Weber's Metrical Romances, vol. ii); Heuline and Eglantine (Le Grand, Fabliaux, tr. by G. L. Way, vol. ii); The Testament of Cresseid, etc.

^{page 384 note 2} And sometimes fairies appear when one has been sleeping under certain trees. Cf. Tydorel (Romania, viii, 67); Sir Orfeo, in which Heurodys, lying under an ympe-tree, visits fairyland in a dream, just as she is the next day compelled to do in reality; Tamlane, version G 26, K 14 (Child, Ballads, i, 350, iv, 456); Child, Ballads, i, 340, iii, 505; G. L. Kittredge, Am. Jour. Phil., vii, 190. Scott, Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft (London, William Tegg), p. 125: “Sleeping on a fairy mount, within which the fairy court happened to be held for a time, was a very ready mode of obtaining a passage for Elfland.” In the conventional vision, however, the tree seems to be merely a part of the “May morning” machinery. In going to sleep out of doors one naturally looks for shade. In Thomas of Erceldoune, perhaps we have the two conceptions united.

^{page 384 note 3} The first person and the sleep appear in the ballad of Tamlane.

^{page 385 note 1} On the vision-type see Langlois, Origines et Sources du Roman de la Rose, pp. 56, 57; Triggs, edition of Lydgate's Assembly of Gods, pp. lv f; and Schick's Introduction to The Temple of Glas, cxviii ff. On the season-motif, see Triggs, Assembly of Gods, liii. On the dating of visions and other poems, see C. G. Osgood's Introduction to Pearl, p. xvi (Boston, 1906). For visions opening with the season-motif, the walk, and the sleep: The Vision of Piers Ploughman; the Parlement of the Three Ages; Winnere and Wastour; Death and Life in the Percy Folio ms.; Douglas's Prologue to the “ 13th ” book of the Æneid; Dunbar's Golden Targe; Henryson's Prologue to his Moral Fables. Cf. also the late and very curious Armonye of Byrdes (Hazlitt's Early Popular Poetry, iii, 187), in which, though there is no vision, there is an induction in the conventional style; indeed the whole is a sort of apotheosis of the May morning motif and its singing birds. For visions without the walk and the outdoor description, though often with mention of the season: Lydgate's Assembly of Gods and Temple of Glas; Dunbar's Dance of the Seven Deadly sins, Amendis to the Telyouris and Sowtaris and The Tenyeit Freir of Tungland; The Romaunt of the Rose and The Boke of the Duchesse (in which the May morning description appears in the dream); The Parlement of Foules; The Bous of Fame; Adam Davy's Visions; Boethius. For ladies of one sort or another in visions: Boethius, Pearl, Death and Life, etc. For the first person in visions, any one of the above.

^{page 386 note 1} Child, Ballads, i, 333; Langtoft's Chronicle (ed. Wright), ii, 452 ff.

^{page 387 note 1} See stanzas i and v of “ Als y yod.”

^{page 387 note 2} Cf. many of the Irish prophecies cited by O'Curry: MS. Materials of Ancient Irish History, pp. 383 ff.

^{page 387 note 3} “ Als y yod on a Mounday,” being a Scotch prophecy, would doubtless be available as a source to a Scotch or Northern poet of the fourteenth century. And though it appears in a ms. of the fourteenth century, it may quite possibly in one form or another be even older. Brandi points out a similarity of phrase between line 33 of the prophecy,

and line 233 of Thomas of Erceldoune,

But the phrase is not uncommon. We have it in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (line 242):

^{page 388 note 1} Lucy Allen Paton, Studies in the Fairy Mythology of Arthurian Romance (Radcliffe College Monographs, No. 3), p. 224.

^{page 388 note 2} Cf. Wright, St. Patrick's Purgatory (London, 1844), pp. 81 ff., 85; Am. Jour. Phil., vi, 194 ff.; the story of Oisin (Miss Paton's Fairy Mythology, p. 215); Mapes, De Nug. Cur., p. 16; Giraldus Cambrensis, It. Earn., liber i, ch. 8; Tam Lin, I, stanza 31 (Child, Ballads, i, 354); Sir Orfeo.

^{page 388 note 3} The popular stories of the nineteenth century, representing Thomas as being taught by the fairies in childhood recall, of course, the myth concerning Merlin's origin. These stories may or may not be as old as our poem.

^{page 389 note 1} Child, Ballads, i, 339.

^{page 389 note 2} Vita Merlini, lines 21, 22.

^{page 389 note 3} Brandi, p. 23 f. Stephens in his Literature of the Kymry (p. 232) shows that the name of Merlin is associated with apples, but gives nothing to throw light on the relationship of Thomas and Merlin.

^{page 390 note 1} As to eating in the other world, see Child, Ballads, i, 322; Hartland, Science of Fairy Tales, ch. iii; Meyer and Nutt, Voyage of Bran, i, 299; Scott, Demonology and Witchcraft, p. 125. It is surely an exasperating predicament in which Thomas finds himself. His complaint of hunger leads to his being conducted to the arbor full of fruit, and then he is forbidden to touch or taste.

^{page 390 note 2} Simroek says: “ Auch erinnert allerdings Hörselberg an Ercildoune.”—Deutsche Mythologie (ed. 1874), p. 386. He also compares Thomas with Tannhäuser (ibid., p. 330).

^{page 390 note 3} In the Cambridge ms. and the ballads.

^{page 390 note 4} Weston, Leg. Wagner Drama, p. 351.

^{page 391 note 1} On the underground abode, see supra, p. 388. For the fairy love, see Mapes, De Nug. Cur., pp. 70, 77, 80 f.; Gir. Cam. It. Kam., i, ch. 5, 10; the story of Owain in the Mabinogion; Cuchulin's Sickbed; the story of Oisin (Miss Paton, pp. 215 and 243); Merlin stories; lays of Lanval, Graelent, etc.; numerous ballads in Child, Ballads, i.

^{page 391 note 2} If, indeed, it is possible to regard “ Ercil ” as cognate with “Hörsel ” in ease we derive the latter from Asen, or even from Hör-seel (Simrock, Deut. Myth., p. 386).

^{page 392 note 1} Miss Paton, Fairy Mythology, p. 74.

^{page 393 note 1} Except that both have to traverse water. But Thomas, after first entering the hill, wades in water to his knee. Ogier is transported in a ship which seems to be a variant of the magic boat employed by many enamoured fairies. See Paton, Fairy Mythology, p. 16, note 1.

^{page 393 note 2} See supra, p. 390. It seems to have been overlooked that though the apple—the fruit associated with Merlin and Ogier—grows in the arbor to which Thomas is led, the fruit which Thomas attempts to pluck is not specified.

^{page 393 note 3} Cf. Sébillot, Contes Populaires de la H. Bretagne (Paris, 1880), ii, 31; Eist. Litt., xxx, 93; Child, Ballads, i, 319, note; iii, 504. (References given by Miss Paton, p. 77.)

^{page 394 note 1} Cf. Wright, St. Patrick's Purgatory, p. 82.

^{page 394 note 2} Cf. Mapes, De Nug. Cur., p. 16; Wright, St. Patrick's Purgatory, p. 93; Baring Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, p. 219; Miss Paton's Fairy Mythology, pp. 2, 69, 211, n. 5, 215; Hartland's Science of Fairy Tales, chs. 7, 8, 9, passim; Rom., viii, 51 ff.; Sébillot, Contes Pop., ii, 36; Meyer and Nutt, i, 143.

^{page 394 note 3} For the tiend to hell, see Lady Wilde, Ancient Legends of Ireland, i, 70; Scott, Bord. Mins. (Edinburgh, 1861), ii, 325; Child, Ballads, v, 215; Tamlane, versions A, B, C, D, G, H, I, J; Scott, Demonology and Witchcraft, p. 127. This seems to be distinctly a folk-lore conception, and altogether dissonant with the Ogier material.

^{page 394 note 1} “Als y yod on a Mounday.”

^{page 396 note 1} See W. H. Schofield, Eng. Lit., p. 220. A reading of the two poems would seem sufficient to demonstrate the derivation of the Anturs from The Trentals of St. Gregory. In the latter, the Pope's mother comes to her son at mass, a grisly apparition; she explains that she is in torment for her sins of adultery, and begs that masses be said for her soul. In the Anturs it is Guinevere's mother who returns to make similar confession and to warn her daughter, and receives a promise of masses to be said.

^{page 396 note 2} Except in the Lansdowne ms., lines 151, 152.

^{page 396 note 3} Cf. supra, p. 384, note; Miss Paton, Fairy Mythology, p. 52, note 1.

^{page 396 note 4} Anturs, xi. Cf. the second appearance of the lady in The Trentals of St. Gregory, where she is addressed as Queen of heaven.

^{page 398 note 1} Compare the puella in the Meilerius story, “ villosam, hispidam, et hirsutam,” with the daughter of King Underwaves, with her “ hair down to her heels.” Campbell, Popular Tales of the West Highlands, iii, 403 ff.

^{page 398 note 2} Cf. infra, p. 406, note 2.

^{page 398 note 3} The lady of the earliest transformed-hag stories could hardly be termed a fay. (See Whitley Stokes, The Marriage of Sir Gawain, Academy, xli, 399). But in the later development of the legend, at least in that form into which the idea of enchantment has not entered—as The Wife of Bath's Tale—the heroine seems to take on the nature of the fairy-ladies of Celtic romance.

^{page 399 note 1} On the meaning of the loathly-lady theme, see Maynadier's Wife of Bath's Tale, p. 160.

^{page 399 note 2} Cf. the story of Daire's Sons (Academy, xli, 399), and the “Daughter of King Underwaves” (Campbell, Pop. Tales, iii, 403). But fairy ladies of every sort as a rule bestow gifts on their lovers.

^{page 399 note 3} O'Curry remarks that “ The word Baile, which means madness, distraction, or ecstacy, is the ancient Gaedhlic name for a Prophecy.” (MS. Materials, p. 385.) Cf. Gir. Cam., Descriptio Kambriœ, Liber i, ch. 16.

^{page 400 note 1} For truth in general as an object of concern to fairies see Hist. Litt., xxvi, 105; Meyer and Nutt, i, 190, 191, 217; a story from Gir. Cam. cited by Miss Paton (p. 129) of lovers of truth who lived underground; and these words from the Sickbed of Cuchullin (cited in another connection by Prof. Kittredge, Am. Jour. Phil., vii, 197): “ a country bright and noble, in which is not spoken falsehood or guile.”

^{page 400 note 2} These two points would seem to be established, even if the specifically “ loathly-lady ” details—the test of the hero and the lady's return to her beautiful form—never existed in Meilerius, and entered our romance from quite a different source. That the latter was very likely the case, is suggested at once by the fact that no unmistakable transformed-hag story, technically so called, seems to appear in Wales. Two folk-tales, of fiends assuming the guise of beautiful women, but in the end exhibiting their true nature, may be cited as of some interest here (Owen, Welsh Folk-lore, pp. 186 f, and Sikes, British Goblins, pp. 193 ff.). The second presents some points of likeness to T. of E.: the lady insists on the hero's following her, at the same time implying that her beauty may sometime depart. But the order of events is different, and the theme of the story is plainly not test and reward, but exorcism of a devil.

^{page 402 note 1} “The Daughter of King Underwaves ” was written down from an old woman's recital in 1860 (Campbell, Pop. Tales, iii, 403). The latest appearance of the hag seems to be that in Campbell's Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (Glasgow, 1900), cited by Maynadier, Wife of Bath's Tale, p. 194. It is singular enough that the loathly-lady theme, so popular in other forms, and so natural a magnet for the equally popular stories of disenchantment, should have dropped out of the ballad Thomas altogether.

^{page 403 note 1} On the vogue of prophecy in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, and the forms under which it appeared, see Schofield, Eng. Lit., pp. 367 f; Brandi, T. of E., p. 12; O'Curry, MS. Mat., pp. 383 ff.; Stephens, Lit. of Kymry, pp. 273, 275 ff.; Skene, The Four Ancient Books of Wales, i, 436-446.

^{page 403 note 2} Cf. Maynadier, Wife of Bath's Tale, p. 161: The “ resemblance of the story of Thomas to the incident of Meilyr, coupled with its northern location, may be due to a fusion of two legends—one of Welsh origin, the other of Scottish Gaelic—by a poet who recognized that they contained virtually the same incident.”

^{page 403 note 3} For explanation of this ballad see Maynadier, Wife of Bath's Tale, pp. 260 ff.

^{page 406 note 1} For Paradise located in the East, see Wright, St. Patrick's Purgatory, pp. 92-3; Maundevile, ch. xxx. For hell and purgatory underground, Owayne Myles (Englische Studien, i, p. 100); St. Patrick's Purgatory, pp. 85, 94, 99, 102, 103; Becker, Mediœval Visions of Heaven and Hell, p. 58. For Fairyland underground, St. Patrick's Purgatory, pp. 81 ff.; Gir. Cam. It. Kam., i, 8; Mapes, De Nug. Cur., p. 16; Sir Orfeo; Meyer and Nutt, i, 174; Miss Paton, Fairy Mythology, p. 215.

^{page 406 note 2} Scott (Demonology and Witchcraft, p. 126), speaks of a man who, for his sins, was condemned to wander with the fairies after his death. The easy transition from fairies to demons is doubtless illustrated (if my view of the material is correct) by the demons who attended Meilerius. It is shown again in Thomas's feeling (as reported by the Lansdowne ms., line 144) that the hag he sees in place of the lovely fay must be the devil. Cf. also Scott, Bord. Mins., ii, 291 ff.

^{page 407 note 1} It is noteworthy that in Thomas we have only the roads to the different realms, with a brief characterization of each, but no description.

^{page 407 note 2} Becker, Mediœval Visions, passim; The Eleven Pains of Hell (E. E. T. S., No. 49, p. 147); In Diebus Dominicis (E. E. T. S., No. 34, p. 41).

^{page 407 note 3} Pearl seems to partake of both the allegorical and the other-world vision, in form as well as in thought. See Schofield, Nature and Fabric of the Pearl, Pub. Mod. Lang. Ass., xix, 162.

^{page 407 note 4} Cf. Schick in Temple of Glas, p. cxix.

^{page 407 note 5} Brandi (T. of E., p. 131) remarks: “I 1 hat besondere ähnlichkeit mit dem eingange eines gedichts, welches ebenfalls eine vision des paradises enthält und von Wright aus einem ms. des 15. jahrhunderts in Rel. Ant. I 26 gedruckt worden ist:

But the most attentive reading of the song printed by Wright fails to reveal any vision of Paardise.

^{page 407 note 6} The details of the other-world experiences of Thomas are conventional. Christian elements: For the darkness of the journey cf. Owayne Myles (Eng. Stud., i, p. 100); Maundeville (ed. Halliwell), p. 302; for the roaring flood, Maundevile, p. 305; cf. also Becker (Mediœval Visions, p. 61): “The loathsome flood or river is a conspicuous feature in almost all detailed early Christian accounts of hell.” Fairy elements: For the usual view of eating in the other world see Child, Ballads, i, 322; Hartland, Science of Fairy-Tales, ch. iii; Meyer and Nutt, i, 299; Scott, Dem. and Witchcraft, p. 125. For silence as a wise measure in the other world, Child, Ballads, i, 322. So ballad Thomas A 15. Sir Orfeo and his wife say nothing when they meet in fairyland (Am. Jour. Phil., vii, 193). But Thomas is not told to be speechless, only to say nothing to any one but the fairy queen. Perhaps the object here is the secrecy so dear to the fairy nature (See Brandi, T. of E., p. 24). In general, “ Kings or Queens of the Otherworld, when they entered into relations with mortals, established a sort of taboo ” (Schofield, Eng. Lit., p. 191). On this point see Meyer and Nutt, i, 143, 150, 299; Schofield, Lays of Graelent and Lanval, Pub. Mod. Lang. Ass., xv, 166.

^{page 409 note 1} Of course, however, this is a commonplace of fairy material.

^{page 410 note 1} Genesis, 2, 15-17; Owayne Myles, st. 146, p. 108; second text, lines 527-8, p. 119.

^{page 410 note 2} In case there were an earlier version of one of the poems.

^{page 411 note 1} As to fairy gardens, see Meyer and Nutt, sections 6, 39, 43.

^{page 411 note 2} The ballads repeat this interpretation. May not the poet have intended a fusion of the Christian and the fairy conceptions, using the tree of knowledge because he happened to be dealing with paradise (possibly by imitation of some such poem as that under consideration) but also preventing Thomas from eating, that he might return to give his prophecy?

^{page 411 note 3} Contrast, for example, The Eleven Pains of Hell (E. E. T. S., No. 49, pp. 211 ff.).

^{page 412 note 1} Cf. the old Irish tract of “ The Champion's Ecstacy,” in which Conn gains knowledge of the future during what seems to be an other-world sojourn. (O'Curry, MS. Mat., p. 385.) The same tract faintly suggests the connection of fairy and Christian other-worlds in T. of E., for though the land whither Conn journeys seems to be of fairy (or pagan) character, the “Champion” is one of Adam's race who has come back from death.

^{page 412 note 2} It may be remarked—though the suggestion is far-fetched—that the original transformed hag prophesied to the hero in the sense of promising him or his descendants sovereignty (Academy, xli, 425).

^{page 413 note 1} Child, Ballads, i, 319.

^{page 413 note 2} The vision used as a vehicle for prophecy is illustrated by Adam Davy's Dreams about Edward II, and further by the vision of Art as he slept on his hunting-mound (O'Curry, MS. Mat., p. 391).

^{page 417 note 1} It is much to be desired that we have some popular utterance on the name True Thomas. If any tradition accounting for the name has existed apart from the ballad and the romance, the name may be independent of the whole Meilerius story. If so, it might nevertheless attract the Meilerius material into the story of Thomas.

^{page 418 note 1} May the vision account, at least in part, for the fact that the lady is nowhere classified as fay or what not? It is only in the ballads that she is called Queen of Elfland.

^{page 419 note 1} And would not a shorter story than our present romance accord better with the shorter prophecy?

^{page 419 note 2} It may now seem more remarkable than before that the loathlylady has entirely disappeared from the ballads. But the ballad writer might not see her connection with “ the truthful tongue.” In the prophecies, too, he had no interest. Nor is it strange that the loathly-lady episode has dropped out of the later prophetic poems based on T. of E., when we consider that the narrative element in those poems is simplified almost to the point of extinction.