looked in vain.

* * * * *

After passing by the domains of honest Lauckie, Scott pointed out, at a
distance, the Eildon stone. There in ancient days stood the Eildon
tree, beneath which Thomas the Rhymer, according to popular tradition,
dealt forth his prophecies, some of which still exist in antiquated
ballads.



Here we turned up a little glen with a small burn or brook whimpering
and dashing along it, making an occasional waterfall, and overhung in
some places with mountain ash and weeping birch. We are now, said
Scott, treading classic, or rather fairy ground. This is the haunted
glen of Thomas the Rhymer, where he met with the queen of fairy land,
and this the bogle burn, or goblin brook, along which she rode on her
dapple-gray palfrey, with silver bells ringing at the bridle.

"Here," said he, pausing, "is Huntley Bank, on which Thomas the Rhymer
lay musing and sleeping when he saw, or dreamt he saw, the queen of
Elfland:

"'True Thomas lay on Huntlie bank;
A ferlie he spied wi' his e'e;
And there he saw a ladye bright,
Come riding down by the Eildon tree.

"'Her skirt was o' the grass-green silk,