Another Point of View

At last, we had a dry day. We decide to walk the old road between Newton St Boswells and Melrose, and it turned out to be a good choice,. Vestiges of the tarmac are still there, so it was nice and firm under foot. 

 I was intrigued when I realised that the hill we could see across the valley is Bemersyde, and on it is Scott's view, which must be the best known in the Borders. It never occurred to me to wonder what it would look like from the other side.

As the track begins to descend into Melrose, you pass what looks like a modern gravestone. It was put there in the 1970s to mark the spot where the Eildon Tree grew, reputedly. 

In the ballad of Thomas the Rhymer, this is the place where  the hero encountered the Queen of Elfland. He was bold enough to kiss her, and she carried him off to her realm and kept him there to serve her for seven years. His reward was 'the tongue that can never lie'.

 When he got back home he got down to writing poetry, and making prophesies ... so the story goes.

I think we can assume that he wouldn't have stood a chance in modern-day politics.