I'm just learning a song Willie Scott used to sing - "Hermitage Castle". Most of the song is concerned with the (historical) visit by Mary Queen of Scots to her lover, the Earl of Bothwell, who lay recovering from wounds in Hermitage Castle. Fine so far. Now read the fifth and final verse:

"Wide wound the road to Hermitage, the jingling bits are done;
a ghostly band may cross the hill, and none will see them come;
None will see that white hand wave or from the ramparts turn
with tidings o the phantom troops that ride the Braidley Burn."
(Words from Alison McMorland's book "Herd Laddie o the Glen", p.56)

We know that Mary's visit took place, and that she and her entourage returned unscathed to Jedburgh the same day. This verse seems to imply that she didn't actually make it to Hermitage at all. Can anyone out there shed any light on this? Could it, for instance, be an import from some other ballad about the castle?