Some miles above Allanton, on the left bank of Whitadder, stands Blanerne, home of a very ancient Scottish family. And farther back from the river are the crumbling fragments of Billie Castle—"Bylie," in twelfth century charters,—and of Bunkle, or, more properly, Bonkyll, Castle. All these have met the fate assigned to them by the old local rhyming prophecy:
"Bunkle, Billie, and Blanerne,
Three castles Strang as aim,
Built whan Davy was a bairn;
They'll a' gang doun
Wi' Scotland's crown,
And ilka ane sail be a cairn."
A cairn each has been, without doubt, or rather a quarry, from which material for neighbouring farm buildings has been ruthlessly torn. Of Blanerne, I believe the Keep still exists, as well as some other remains, to tell of what has been; but Billie Castle is now little more than a green mound at foot of which runs a more or less swampy burn, with here and there a fragment of massive wall still standing; whilst Bunkle is a mere rubble of loose stones. AH these were destroyed in Hertford's raid in 1544, when so much of the Border was "birnd and owaiertrown."
