[74] Spreat—The spreat is a species of water-rush.
[75] Deer-hair—The deer-hair is a coarse species of pointed grass, which, in May, bears a very minute, but beautiful yellow flower.
[76] Some heralds say, that they carried cinque-foils, others trefoils; but all agree they bore some such distinction to mark their cadency from the elder branch of Douglas.
[THE COUT OF KEELDAR.]
BY J. LEYDEN.
The tradition on which the following ballad is founded, derives considerable illustration from the argument of the preceding. It is necessary to add, that the most redoubted adversary of Lord Soulis was the Chief of Keeldar, a Northumbrian district, adjacent to Cumberland, who perished in a sudden encounter on the banks of the Hermitage. Being arrayed in armour of proof, he sustained no hurt in the combat; but stumbling in retreating across the river, the hostile party held him down below water with their lances till he died; and the eddy, in which he perished, is still called the Cout of Keeldar's Pool. His grave, of gigantic size, is pointed out on the banks of the Hermitage, at the western corner of a wall, surrounding the burial-ground of a ruined chapel. As an enemy of Lord Soulis, his memory is revered; and the popular epithet of Cout, i.e. Colt, is expressive of his strength, stature, and activity. Tradition likewise relates, that the young chief of Mangerton, to whose protection Lord Soulis had, in some eminent jeopardy, been indebted for his life, was decoyed by that faithless tyrant into his castle of Hermitage, and insidiously murdered at a feast.