emarkable assumption by the foreman of the jury of the
privileges of a judge; and the thoroughly satisfactory description of
the false steward's execution--

'I-wis they did him curstly cumber!'

--all these help to form the ever-popular _Lord of Learne_.

The remaining 'Fyttes of Mirth' are mostly well known, and require no
further comment.

ADDITION TO GLOSSARY OF BALLAD COMMONPLACES

(See First Series, pp. xlvi-li)

The late Professor York Powell explained to me, since the note on 'gare'
(First Series, p. 1) was written, that the word means exactly what is
meant by 'gore' in modern dressmaking. The antique skirt was made of
four pieces: two cut square, to form the front and the back; and two of
a triangular shape, to fill the space between, the apex of the triangle,
of course, being at the waist. Thus a knife that 'hangs low down' by a
person's 'gare,' simply means that the knife hung at the side and not in
front.

THOMAS RYMER

+The Text.+--The best-known text of this famous ballad is that given by
Scott in the _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_, derived 'from a copy
obtained from a lady residing not far from Erceldoune, corrected and
enlarged by one in Mrs. Brown's MS.' Scott's ballad is compounded,
therefore, of a traditional version, and the one here given, from the
Tytler-Brown MS., which was printed by Jamieson with a few changes. It
does not mention Huntlie bank or the Eildon tree. Scott's text may be
seen printed parallel with Jamieson's in Professor J. A. H. Murray's
book referred to below.

+The Story.+--As early as the fourteenth century there lived a Thomas
of Erceldoune, or Thomas the Rhymer, who had a reputation as a seer
and prophet. His fame was not extinct in the nineteenth century, and
a collection of prophecies by him and Merlin and others, first issued
in 1603, could be found at the beginning of that century 'in most
farmhouses in Scotland' (Murray, _The Romance and Prophecies of Thomas
of Erceldoune_, E.E.T.S., 1875). The existence of a Thomas de Ercildoun,
son and heir of Thomas Rymour de Ercildoun, both living during the
thirteenth century, is recorded in contemporary documents.

A poem, extant in five manuscripts (all printed by Murray as above),
of which the earliest was written about the middle of the fifteenth
century, relates that Thomas of Erceldoune his prophetic powers were
given him by the Queen of Elfland, who bore him away to her country for
some yea