The English rob the peel tower, they
drive away ten cows, and urge them southwards over Borthwick water,
then across Teviot at Coultart Cleugh (say seven miles above Hawick),
then up the Frostily burn, and so down Ewes water as before; but the
Scottish pursuers meet them before they cross the Liddel again into
English bounds. The English are defeated, their captain is shot
through the head (which in no way affects his power of making
speeches); he is taken, twenty or thirty of his men are killed or
wounded, his own cattle are seized, and his victim Telfer, returns
rejoicing to Dodhead in distant Ettrick.
C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre! These events never
occurred, as we shall see later, yet the poet has the old reiving
spirit, the full sense of the fierce manly times, and possesses a
traditional knowledge of the historical personages of the day, and
knows the country,--more or less.
The poem has raised as many difficulties as Nestor's long story about
raided cattle in the eleventh book of the Iliad.
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