Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Thomas of Erceldoune

THOMAS of Erceldoune, called also the Rhymer (c. 1225–c. 1300), occupies a prominent place as a poet and prophet in the mythical and legendary literature of Scotland. The historical person of that name figures in two charters of the 13th century, and from these it appears that he owned lands in Erceldoune (now Earlston), in Berwickshire, which were made over by his son and heir to the cloister of the Holy Trinity at Soltra, or Soutra, on the borders of the same county. He figures in the works of Barbour and Blind Harry as the sympathizing contemporary of their heroes, and Wyntoun tells how he prophesied a battle. In the folk-lore of Scotland his name is associated with numerous fragments of rhymed or alliterative verse of a more or less prophetic and oracular character; but the chief extant work with which his name is associated is the poem of Sir Tristrem, edited from the Auchinleck MS. by Sir Walter Scott in 1804, and again in 1886 for the Scottish Text Society by Mr G. P. M'Neill. In the latter edition the claim of Thomas to the authorship of this work (conceded by both editors) is fully discussed.