The best known form runs, "Betide, betide, whate'er betide, Haig shall be Haig of Bemersyde." Other versions differ in the wording. The link to Thomas has a documentary hook: an undated charter of about 1260 to 1280 names a Thomas Rimor de Ercildun as a witness when Petrus de Haga of Bemersyde agreed to pay wax to Melrose Abbey.
The verse gained a second life after the First World War, when Bemersyde was bought by the nation and presented to Field Marshal Douglas Haig, whose family had lost the estate in the meantime. For those who tell the story it completed the prophecy in a way nobody could have planned. As with most sayings put in the Rhymer's mouth, there is no evidence the couplet is as old as Thomas, and it may have been composed or polished later to praise the family. Field Marshal Haig is buried at Dryburgh Abbey, a few miles away.
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