Curses & omens

Merlin's Grave at Drumelzier

Drumelzier, Tweeddale

Tradition recorded from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

Scott's notes say Merlin's grave is pointed out at Drummelziar in Tweeddale beneath an aged thorn tree, with the Pausayl burn falling into the Tweed on the east side of the churchyard. The prophecy he gives is "When Tweed and Pausayl join at Merlin's grave, Scotland and England shall one monarch have." He writes that on the day of the coronation of James VI the Tweed overflowed and joined the Pausayl at the prophet's grave, citing Pennecuik.

Other accounts tie the flood to 1603, when James also became king of England, and say a parish minister showed the thorn tree to the antiquary Pennecuik in 1715. The sources differ on which event the flood coincided with, and I have not found an independent contemporary record of it. The Merlin buried here is Merlin the Wild, Myrddin Wyllt, a figure Scott treats as distinct from Arthur's Merlin.

Evidence
Long-standing local tradition
Access
Access unrecorded
Location
55.594, -3.373 (Sited to the village)

Sources: Walter Scott, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, vol. 3 (Project Gutenberg) [public-domain]; Wikipedia, "Drumelzier" [other]

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