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Thomas of Erceldoune, a personage less shadowy than some of those commemorated in this chapter, is known to have lived in the thirteenth century. His reputation for prophetic powers has been wide and lasting. These powers were said to be, like Oisin's, a gift from the Fairy Queen. She met him under the Eildon Tree, which stood on the easternmost of the three Eildon Hills.
Ossian in the Tir na n'Og The Island of Happiness The Mermaid Thomas of Erceldoune Olger the Dane The Sleeping Hero King Arthur Don Sebastian The expected deliverer British variants German variants Frederick Barbarossa Nameless heroes Slavonic variants.
Again, when Thomas of Erceldoune is being led down by the Fairy Queen into her realm, he desires to eat of the fruit of certain trees. "He presed to pul the frute with his honde, As man for fode was nyhonde feynte; She seid, Thomas, lat them stande, Or ellis the fiend will the ateynte.
"Thomas of Erceldoune," passim; Child, vol. i. p. 318; "Border Minstrelsy," vol. iii. p. 170. Malory, vol. iii. p. 339; Braga, vol. ii. p. 238; Liebrecht in a note to Gerv. Tilb., p. 95, quoting Aznar, "Expulsion de los Moriscos."
So far we see that the prohibition and the danger we found extant in the Fairyland of modern folk-tales apply also to the classic Hades; and we have traced them back a long way into the Middle Ages in French, British, and Danish traditions relating to fairies and other supernatural existences, with a special threat of Hell in the case of Thomas of Erceldoune.
They are on the contrary rather singularly pure, and contrast, in that respect, remarkably with the more popular folk-tale. This appears in, and complicates, the famous story of Tristram, which, though its present English form is probably younger than Havelok and Horn, is likely to have existed earlier: indeed must have done so if Thomas of Erceldoune wrote on the subject.
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