The Boiling of Bad Lord Soulis

Kellie Castle, Fife, Scotland

Thomas the Rhymer told the peasants of Liddesdale the only way to bind their tyrant lord — wrapped in lead and boiled alive at Ninestane Rig. Whether it happened at all is a separate question.

Hermitage Castle, in Liddesdale in the Scottish Borders, is associated with one of the darkest legends attached to any Scottish nobleman: the story of William de Soules, remembered in tradition as Bad Lord Soulis, a tyrant and warlock whose cruelty finally exhausted the patience of the people he ruled. According to the legend, the local peasantry sought out the prophet and poet Thomas the Rhymer for a way to be rid of Soulis. Thomas told them that no ordinary means could bind him — Soulis could only be restrained by a rope of sand. When that proved impossible, the final answer given was more direct: Soulis had to be wrapped in lead and boiled. He was duly seized, carried to the stone circle at Ninestane Rig near the castle, and boiled alive in a cauldron there. The ballad "Lord Soulis," written by John Leyden, later dramatized the killing for a wider readership. The historical record tells a different, still grim, but non-supernatural story about a real William II de Soules — Butler of Scotland and one of the signatories of the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath — who was arrested for conspiring against Robert the Bruce, confessed at the so-called Black Parliament held at Scone on the 4th of August 1320, and was imprisoned for life at Dumbarton Castle, where he died around April of the following year. He was not boiled, and did not die at Hermitage. The two Soules — the boiled warlock of legend and the imprisoned conspirator of the historical record — have been merged in popular memory for centuries, and Hermitage Castle's genuine reputation as one of the bleakest fortresses in the Borders has done nothing to discourage the pairing.

Folklore Disclaimer: These accounts are drawn from local tradition, oral history, and community memory. They are not presented as factual claims.

Location accuracy: Approximate. Coordinates indicate the general area.