After wealth in abundance and entertaining minstrels.
After suffering from disease and despair in the forest of Caledon."
The place of the "apple tree" was Tal Ard—Talla of to-day; and somewhere between Drummelzier and Talla, Merlin and St. Kentigern foregathered for a time. High up on the mighty shoulder of broad law, too, there is a spring that gushes out from the hillside clear and cool, that may be the fountain—fons in summo vertice montis—beside which Geoffrey of Monmouth in 1150 tells that Merlin was wont to rest. And the "fair sportive maid"—that is Nimiane, Tennyson's "Vivien." A Romance of the fifteenth century tells how "Thei sojourned together longe time, till it fell on a day that thei went thourgh the foreste hande in hande devysing and disportynge, and this was in the foreste of Brochelonde, and fonde a bussh that was feire and high of white hawthorne, full of floures, and ther thei sat in the shadowe; and Merlin leide hys heed in the damesels lappe, and she began to taste softly till he fill on slepe; and when she felt that he was on slepe she aroos softly, and made a cerne (circle) with hys wymple all aboute the bussh and all aboute Merlin, and began hir enchantementes soche as Merlin hadde hir taught, and made the cerne ix tymes, and ix tymes her enchantementes; and after that she wente and satte down by hym and leide hys heed in hir lappe, and hilde hym ther till he dide awake; and then he looked aboute hym, and hym semed he was in the feirest tour of the worlde, and the most stronge, and fonde hym leide in the feirest place that ever he lay beforn.... Ne never after com Merlin out of that fortresse that she hadde hym in sette; but she wente in and oute whan she wolde." Not far from the churchyard of Drummelzier to this day they point out the grave where Merlin lies beneath a thorn tree. And to everyone is known Thomas the Rhymer's prediction:
"When Tweed and Powsayl meet at Merlin's grave
Scotland and England shall one monarch have,"
and how the prophecy was fulfilled that same day on which James of Scotland was crowned King of England. For Tweed then so overflowed its banks that burn and river joined beside the spot where Merlin lies, which, as Dr. Pennecuick says, "was never before observed to fall out, nor since that time."
Over against Drummelzier, Biggar Water falls into Tweed, and a curious circumstance about this stream is this, that "on the occasion of a large flood... the Clyde actually pours a portion of its water mto one of the tributaries of Tweed." The whole volume of Clyde at Biggar, says Sir Archibald Geikie, could without any difficulty be made to flow into Tweed by way of the Biggar Water. The latter at one point is separated from Clyde by but one and a half miles of almost level ground.
All this region of Biggar Water is rich in remains of old towers and camps; but of the most important, that of Boghall Castle at Biggai, seat of the great Fleming family, Lords Fleming in 1460, there is now practically nothing left standing; the customary fate, the fate that so long dogged most Scottish historical buildings overtook in about sixty or seventy years ago. It was a place of strength in 1650, when Cromwell's men held it; a sketch done in 1779 by John Clerk of Eldin, shows that it was then entire, or almost entire, and it stood, a fine ruin, as lately as 1831, when Sir Walter and Lockhart were at Biggar. With what devilish energy since then must the wreckers have laboured to destroy! Of Biggar Moss, Blind Harry tells the wondrous tale of how Wallace, with a diminutive Scottish force, smote here in 1279 a large English army led by Edward I; eleven thousand Englishmen were slain, says the veracious poet. And if corroboration of Blind Harry be needed, why is there not standing here, as witness to this very day, the Cadger's Brig, over which, as local tradition vouches, Wallace, disguised as a hawker, crossed on his way to spy out the weak points in Edward's camp! As with most Border places, there is no lack of interest about Biggar, but considerations of space forbid any attempt to treat of its history. Yet it must not be omitted that here was born a man greatly loved in Scotland, Dr. John Brown, best known to the outside world, perhaps, as the author of "Rab and his Friends."