On a circle of stone they placed the pot,
On a circle of stones but barely nine,
They heated it up red and fiery hot,
Till the burnished brass did glimmer and shine.
They rolled him up in a sheet of lead,
A sheet of lead for a funeral pall,
They plunged him in the cauldron red.
and melted him lead, bones, and all.
William de Soulis (d. 1320-21) and William Wallace were, for a short time, contemporaries in 14th century Scotland (Wallace was executed in 1305), having been born within a decade of each other, but aside from sharing a name and a span of time, the two men could not have been painted more differently in the folklore of that barbarous era. William Wallace is remembered as a patriot and defender of Scotland, but also as a man of his time; the same body of folklore that recognizes his historical victory at the Battle of Stirling also discloses that Wallace had a belt made from the skin of one of the first Englishmen to fall. William de Soulis, on other hand, seems to have possessed all the barbaric aspects of the historical “Braveheart,” and more, but none of the redeeming values. Part noble, part despot and would- be-usurper of the Scottish throne, part necromancer who consorted with a fiendish elemental, the De Soulis of folklore is every bit as scary as many other fabled “human monsters.”
History simply notes that William de Soulis was a Scottish Border noble during the Wars of Scottish Independence (~1296-1357), holding the titles Lord of Liddesdale and Butler of Scotland. He was not popular among the Scots populace, probably because his primary allegiance was seen as lying with the English rather than the Scots – a belief that was found to be justified when De Soulis participated in an English-inspired plot to kill Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland, in 1320. Arrested for his treachery, official historical accounts tell us only that De Soulis was confined to Dumbarton castle until his death, in April of 1321, from unknown causes.
Enter a dark and sinister folk story, very different from the above. Legend holds that De Soulis was a cruel giant of a man, given to the dark arts. Within the walls of his castle, he entered into a pact with a horrific elemental named Robin Redcap, who gave him a degree of invulnerabilty in exchange for the blood of innocents….
A Redcap, more properly known as a powrie, is a sinister elemental of British folklore, a fanged, goblin-like being, fleet of foot and having a need for human blood. Their traditional habitat is very specific: they reside in decaying castles that line the border between England and Scotland, where they lie in wait for victims. When a traveler wanders into the elemental’s lair, the Redcap murders the hapless soul and uses the spilled blood to dye its hat – thus the name “Redcap.” Redcaps kill frequently, out of a sense of necessity, for according to the nature of a Redcap, if the blood which dyes its cap should dry out the monster will die.
De Soulis lived in a border castle, now known as “Hermitage Castle.” It hardly could have been crumbling then, as it is today – in fact, it is very likely that the current Hermitage Castle had not even been built yet, but that De Soulis lived in a wooden castle he erected near the present-day sight of Hermitage. Whatever the case, it is alleged that De Soulis’ demenses were the site of blasphemous acts of dark magic, where kidnapped children were murdered for their blood, which was given as tribute to Robin Redcap, who in turn provided De Soulis with immunity from both rope and sword (the two main instruments of execution, then). Freed from fear of retribution, it is said that De Soulis terrorized the Scottish countryside without opposition, taking men, women, or children at will.
Hermitage Castle, Scotland, Present Day (Courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
After this, the folklore merges with history. The colorful peasant variant on the story has it that De Soulis was jailed for his plot to murder Robert the Bruce, but that many people felt this was too lenient, given the enormity of his crimes and blasphemy. They set to petioning Robert the Bruce to put De Soulis to death, whereupon, after having been prevailed upon for a time, King Robert is alleged to have shouted, out of pure exasperation: “Soulis! Soulis! Go boil him in brew!”
Which is precisely what they did, binding him with a specially forged chain which his supernaturally endowed powers could not overcome and dragging him to the stone circle at Nine Stane Rig, where he was summarily rolled in a sheet of lead and boiled alive.
Legend has it that every seven years, the spirit of De Soulis returns to Hermitage Castle to meet with Robin Redcap, who now owns his soul, and that their presence is characterized by fiendish, maniacal laughter emerging from the bowels of the ruins.
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[...] are more commonly portrayed as sinister beings in much of Scotch-English folklore, as my article “The Boiling of Bad Lord Soulis,” bears [...]