Thomas of Ercildoune, Thomas the Rhymer, and True Thomas were thus only different names for one marvellous man who sang and played, never told an untruth, and who, moreover, was able to tell beforehand events that were going to take place.
Listen, and I will tell you how Thomas of Ercildoune came to visit Elfland.
It was one beautiful May morning that Thomas felt something stirring in his heart. Spring had come, spring was calling to him. He could stay no longer in the grim tower on the banks of the Leader. He would away, away to the woods where the thrush and the jay were singing, where the violets were peeping forth with timid eyes, where the green buds were bursting their bonds for very joy.
Thomas hastened to the woods and threw himself down by the bank of a little brook.
Ah yes! spring has come. How the little birds sing, how the gentle breezes whisper! Yet listen! what is it Thomas hears beyond the song of the birds, the whisper of the breeze?
On the air floats the sound of silver bells. Thomas raises his head. Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle! The sound draws nearer, clearer. It is music such as one might hear in Elfland.
Beyond the wood, over the lonely moors, rode a lady. So fair a lady had Thomas never seen.
Her palfrey was dapple-grey and she herself shone as the summer sun. Her saddle was of pure ivory, bright with many precious stones and hung with cloth of richest crimson.
The girths of her saddle were of silk and the buckles were each one a beryl. Her stirrups of clear crystal and adorned with pearls hung ready for her fairy feet. The trappings of her palfrey were of finest embroidery, her bridle was a chain of gold.
From the palfrey's mane hung little silver bells, nine-and-fifty little silver bells. It was the fairy music of the bells that had reached the ears of Thomas as he lay dreaming on the bank of the little brook.