Scott's notes to Leyden's ballad say the tradition was current on the Border. Soulis is a cruel tyrant and sorcerer who oppresses his vassals, harasses his neighbours and fortifies Hermitage against the king by human and infernal means. The king, tired of the complaints, is said to have answered, "Boil him, if you please, but let me hear no more of him." The petitioners took him at his word and boiled him alive on the Nine Stane Rig in a cauldron said to have been long kept at Skelfhill, a hamlet between Hawick and Hermitage. Messengers sent to countermand the order arrived only to see it finished.
Scott noted that nine stones had stood in the circle, that five were still visible in his day and that two were pointed out as the ones that had held the bar over the fire. The historical William de Soulis forfeited Hermitage around 1320 for conspiracy against Robert the Bruce and appears to have died in prison at Dumbarton before 20 April 1321. Some scholars think the boiling legend has borrowed the death of an ancestor, Ranulf de Soules, who was killed by his servants around 1207. Scott himself pointed to a matching Scottish tale of a sheriff of the Mearns, Melville of Glenbervie, said to have been boiled after a king made a similar careless remark.
The circle dates to roughly 2000 to 1250 BC and is a scheduled monument.
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