In Leyden's ballad Old Redcap sits by Soulis in Hermitage, unseen when others are about, and helps him with his sorcery. Scott's notes describe Redcap as a popular name for the class of spirits that haunt old castles, and say every ruined tower in the south of Scotland was supposed to have one. Later retellings say the redcap promised Soulis he could not be harmed by forged steel or bound with rope, that the Devil could be called by beating an iron chest, and that the redcap is still supposed to guard treasure somewhere around Hermitage.
The general redcap of border folklore is described as a short, thickset old elf with long teeth, talons and iron boots, who hurls stones at anyone sheltering in his ruin and can be driven off by scripture or a crucifix. Scott, the editor of the ballad, wrote that the idea of Soulis's familiar seems to be derived from the story of the spirit Orthone and the lord of Corasse in Froissart's Chronicles. That means the named familiar may be a literary import and not an old local belief.
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