They buried it deep, where his bones they sleep,
That mortal man might never it see:
But Thomas did save it from the grave,
When he returned from Faërie.
The black spae-book from his breast he took,
And turned the leaves with curious hand;
No ropes, did he find, the wizard could bind,
But threefold ropes of sifted sand.
They sifted the sand from the Nine-stane burn,
And shaped the ropes so curiouslie;
But the ropes would neither twist nor twine,
For Thomas true and his gramarye.
The black spae-book from his breast he took,
And again he turned it with his hand;
And he bade each lad of Teviot add
The barley chaff to the sifted sand.
The barley chaff to the sifted sand
They added still by handfulls nine;
But Redcap sly unseen was by,
And the ropes would neither twist nor twine.
And still beside the Nine-stane burn,
Ribbed like the sand at mark of sea,
The ropes, that would not twist nor turn,
Shaped of the sifted sand you see.
The black spae-book true Thomas he took;
Again its magic leaves he spread;
And he found that to quell the powerful spell,
The wizard must be boiled in lead.
On a circle of stones they placed the pot,
On a circle of stones but barely nine;
They heated it red and fiery hot,
Till the burnished brass did glimmer and shine.
They rolled him up in a sheat of lead,
A sheat of lead for a funeral pall;
They plunged him in the cauldron red,
And melted him, lead, and bones, and all.
At the Skelf-hill, the cauldron still
The men of Liddesdale can shew;
And on the spot, where they boiled the pot,
The spreat[74] and the deer-hair[75] ne'er shall grow.