to an "older story." This, Professor
Child says, "was undoubtedly a romance which narrated the adventure of
Thomas with the elf queen _simply_, without specification of his
prophecies."

Doubtless the older story was not originally attached to Thomas of
Erceldoune, who, as "Thomas Rymour of Ercildoune," is a historical
character. He lived, as is proved by contemporary documents, in the
thirteenth century, at Ercildoune (Earlstoun on the banks of the Leader in
Berwickshire), and gained a reputation as a "rymour," _i.e._ poet and
prophet--in which character he was venerated by the folk for centuries.

But the Rymour does not concern us; the tale of a mortal's visit to
elf-land would have been told of some one, whether Thomas or another; he
was a prophet, and prophets needed explanation. His journal to fairy-land,
as narrated in the fifteenth-century romance, survives in the well-known
ballad of _Thomas the Rhymer_.[58]

Two points in romance and ballad may be noted. (i) In the romance the lady
shows Thomas four roads, leading respectively to heaven, paradise,
purgatory, and hell, besides the fair castle of Elf-land. The ballad is
content with three roads, to heaven, hell, and Elf-land. (ii) Both in the
romance and the ballad, _and also in Ogier the Dane_, the hero makes the
same mistake, of supposing his supernatural visitor to be the Virgin
Mary.[59]

A curious point about the first "fytte" is that it opens (ll. 1-18) in the
first person; at line 41 Thomas is mentioned, and the poem continues in the
third person to the end, with a single and sudden change to the first in
line 208. I do not know whether any assumption as to the authorship of the
romance can be based on such facts; the "I" question in early popular
poetry forms an interesting study in itself.[60]

The English romance of _Sir Launfal_, which survives in a manuscript[61] of
the fifteenth century, is therein said to have been "made by Thomas
Chestre"; but in fact it is chiefly a translation from Marie de France's
lay of _Lanval_, dating from the middle of the thirteenth century. The
translator, Thomas Chestre, has, however, taken incidents from other "lais"
by Marie de France, and enlarged the whole until it is some three hundred
lines longer than the French original.

Shakespeare may have read the tale in print. _Sir Lambewell_ appears to
have been printed about 1558,[62] and to have remained in circulation at
least until 1575,[63] but no complete copy