Tales from the past
A new book by Elspeth Turner and Donald Smith delves into the stories and folklore of the Scottish Borders. In this extract, the Romans arrive in the region, plus the monks of Melrose
Myth and magic in a new Borders history
The Celtic British hilltop enclosure on North Eildon was the largest of its kind in Scotland
There was magic in the hills but there was also something in the water. The river Tweed brought water and people together as it headed for the North Sea. Rivers loom large in Border history, legend, story and ballad.
Until roads and railways snaked across the landscape, the easiest way to travel was along river valleys. As the towns of today bear witness, junctions of rivers were convenient places to trade goods and to meet for ceremonial events. Water has a special and enduring place in rituals and spiritual beliefs, while the junctions of rivers were associated with movement between one world and the next. Rivers and their banks also feature prominently in tales of family honour with their avenged and ill-fated lovers. The Tweed and its tributaries played a big part in shaping the outlook and mindset of Borderers.
The Eildon Hills and Melrose
From Tweedbank Station turn left at roundabout (signed Melrose), follow signs for A68 (signed Edinburgh/ Jedburgh), take first exit at roundabout (signed Edinburgh) and proceed to Leaderfoot viewpoint.
The Romans were greeted by the striking sight of three hills outlined on the horizon as they approached for the first time and went on to name their Scottish headquarters Trimontium (‘three hills’). A short walk up the disused road running parallel to the river takes us to a monument on the site of the camp and a series of viewing platforms with information boards. Just imagine sitting with two or three thousand others in the most northerly amphitheatre of the Roman Empire watching the Roman equivalent of Edinburgh’s Military Tattoo.
The Romans were not the first to make their mark on this landscape. The Celtic British hilltop enclosure on North Eildon was the largest of its kind in Scotland and, like Trimontium, seems to have been used intermittently. It latterly consisted of 300 or so huts which probably housed the crowds who gathered periodically to pay taxes, attend political gatherings or celebrate the turning of the seasons. Fires lit on Eildon Hill North are visible from much of the Tweed valley so when the Anglo-saxon Northumbrians arrived they named the hills ‘the Aeled-dun’, meaning firehill.
Leaving Leaderfoot turn right and, at roundabout, take second exit onto A6091 (signed Galashiels, Melrose) then first right onto B6361 (signed Newstead).
Newstead is the oldest continuously inhabited village in Scotland. The numerous wells archaeologists have discovered here – more than 200 – tell us that the area was already pretty crowded when the Romans arrived. Everyone who lived here relied on these wells for fresh water.
During the Bronze and Iron Ages, metal workers fashioned a variety of items here, some of which became offerings to the gods or goddesses associated with particular wells, springs or pools. Quite why some wells had a spiritual significance while others did not is a mystery but the Romans too, when they closed the wells supplying Trimontium, had their priests appease the water gods with animal and metal offerings such as swords or shields. The stories and legends of pre-christian Anglo Saxon times are full of watery tales, and the holy wells, so important to early and later Christians, were often sited at places with earlier spiritual associations. Proceed to Melrose and park. Newstead was home to the masons who built the 12th century abbey in Melrose. Later we visit Old Mailros, the site of an abbey built six centuries earlier a couple of miles downstream, but we are greeted now by the rosy ruins of Melrose Abbey. This second abbey was founded by David I, the reforming king, in 1136. The Cistercian monks, brought from Riveaulx in Yorkshire, came with a mission to contemplate, grow things, convert the locals and pray for their souls. They were also record keepers, and the Abbey became famous for learning and the production of books. Much of what we know about this area’s early history comes from the Chronicle of Melrose. Begun in 1140, it pieces together the history of the first abbey at Old Mailros and goes on to document the story of this abbey until 1270.
Stories about the monks were of course also told by local people. The most memorable ascribe the achievements of religious men to their ability to work miracles and see visions. Such tales reflect belief in a
spiritual cosmos, though one with often practical implications.
Monks and miracle workers
Drythelm, a venerable monk at Mailros, was given to visions and seeings. But he had not always been a man of religion. Earlier in his life, he had fallen ill, so ill in fact that those tending him gave him up for dead. The next morning however they found him not only awake but with an amazing tale to tell about his travels through the realm of the spirits.
He had, he said, been guided along a path by a heavenly being clothed in shining light with, on one side, blazing fires and, on the other, freezing snows. The souls of mankind were, he saw, being tossed from one extreme to the other. Eventually Drythelm was led into a place of total darkness and silence and left alone but presently his guide reappeared in the form of a star which led him into open light and towards a wall endless in its dimensions and without doors or windows. As they approached, Drythelm was suddenly transported atop the wall and found himself looking down into a meadow full of flowers and lush grasses through which people in white robes wandered at their ease.
Drythelm returned from this journey to bodily consciousness and recovered to tell his story and indeed to become a monk and to devote the rest of his life to ascetic prayer and meditations. He also bathed daily in the Tweed whatever the weather, refusing afterwards to dry his robe. One time, when he was bobbing amidst ice on the river, Drythelm was asked how he could endure such cold, to which he replied shortly, ‘I have felt worse cold’, remembering less Borders winters than the frozen wastes of the underworld.
And Waltheof (Walter), the second abbot of Melrose (who just happened to be David I’s stepson), was said to have miraculously saved around 4,000 starving people. When the harvest failed, more and more desperate people came to camp in the fields and woods around the Abbey hoping the monks would share what food they had with them. Walter did not fail them. He ordered that the grain in the Abbey’s granaries be distributed until it ran out. The monks in charge of the stores reckoned that there was only enough to last for two weeks but somehow the supplies lasted three months, just long enough for the next year’s grain to ripen and be gathered.
Any doubts that Walter could work miracles were set aside when, 11 years after his death in 1159, his coffin was opened and his body was as fresh as the day it was buried. It was opened again 36 years later and again 34 years after that. On both occasions, it was recorded that there were no signs of decay.
Tweed Dales: Journeys and Evocations by Donald Smith and Elspeth Turner, is published by Luath Press at £12.99, out now Main Street Books in St Boswells will host a reading and book signing with Donald Smith and Elspeth Turner on 23 July. More details to follow on www.luath. co.uk