Eildon Quotes

“Eildon stood proud of the river plain like a bubble of rock, a giant’s bubble, sporting three tops, more rounded than peaked. Cloud mist shrouded the northmost top, and though Hild stood on grass she could feel the hill’s bones through her soles.”
― Nicola Griffith, Menewood

“The Queen of Elfland in the Ballad of Thomas is a huntress, a spirit of the wild, and a queen. were the Romans to have encountered such a figure, worshiped by th pre-Christian Celts who inhabited the Eildons, the proces of interpretatio romana would inevitably have led to her being identified with Diana. If we are to look for evidence in the archaeological record supporting a pre-Christian origin for the Queen of Elfland, we do not have to look far to find it: the spot at which this inscribed Roman stone was uncovered lies less than one kilometre from the Rhymer's Stone, where the Eildon Tree once grew.”
― William A. Young, The Ghosts of the Forest: The Lost Mythology of the North

“Just between Melrose and Bemersyde is a lovely panorama, taking in an oxbow of the Tweed and a fine aspect of the Eildon Hills, which has become known as 'Scott's View', supposedly because the horses stopped there during the funeral cortege. As we have seen, after his death, Scott is over-written onto the places he described. Scott-land is a palimpsest of Scotland and Scott's works.”
― Stuart Kelly, Scott-land: The Man Who Invented a Nation

“As we descended the vale of the Gala, he began to gaze about him, and by degrees it was obvious that he was recognising the features of that familiar landscape. Presently he murmered a name or two - 'Gala Water surely - Buckholm - Torwoodlee'. As we rounded the hill at Ladhope, and the outline of the Eildons burst upon him, he became greatly excited, and when turning himself on the couch his eye caught caught at length his own towers, at the distance of a mile, he sprang up with a cry of delight.”
― John Gibson Lockhart, Memoirs of Sir Walter Scott, Vol. 5 of 5