0. In the Beginning

0. In the Beginning

James Hogg, The Ettrick Shepherd

tells an intriguing story about the origins of the Laidlaw name in "The Queen's Wake" found in his collection, “The Works of the Ettrick Shepherd”.

James's mother was Margaret Laidlaw who had a reputation as a great source of tales and ballads of the Scottish Borders

In “The Queen’s Wake” the Tenth Bard describes how old David Ludlow became
David Laidlaw (Page 21):

“Old David rose ere it was day,

And climbed old Wonfell’s wizard brae;

Looked around with visage grim and sour,

O’er Ettrick woods and Eskdale -moor,

An outlaw from the south he came,

And Ludlow was his father’s name;

His native land had used him ill,

And Scotland bore him no good-will.

As fixed he stood, in sullen scorn,

Regardless of the streaks of morn,

Old David spied, on Wonfell cone,

A fairy band come riding on.

A lovelier troop was never seen;

Their steeds were white, their doublets green;

Their faces shone like like opening morn,

And bloomed like roses on a thorn.

At every flowering mane was hung

A sliver bell that lightly rung;

That sound, borne on the breeze away,

Oft set the mountaineer to pray.

Then later -

Old David hasted home that night,

A wondering and a wearied wight.

Sevens sons he had, alert and keen,

Had all in Border battles been;

Had wielded brand, and bent the bow,

For those who sought their overthrow.

Their hearts were true, their arms were strong,

Their falchions keen, their arrows long;

The race of fairies they denied -

No fairies kept the English side.

Then later they force their way through a massive door

That night the spoilers (fairies) range the vale,

By Dryhope towers and Meggat - dale;

Ah! Little trowed the fraudful train,

They ne’er should see their wealth again;

Their lemans, and their mighty store,

For which they nightly toils had bore

Full twenty autumn moons and more

They little deemed, when morning dawned,

To meet the deadly Rippon brand;

And only find at their return,

In their loved cave an early urn.

Ill suits it simple bard to tell

Of bloody work that there befell:

He lists not deeds of death to sing,

Of splintered spear, and twanging string,

Of piercing arrow’s purpled wing,

How falchions flash, and helmets ring.

Not one of all that prowling band,

So ling the terror of the land,

Not one escaped their deeds to tell;

All in that winding lab’rinth fell.

The spoil was from the cave conveyed,

Where in a heap the dead were laid;

The outer cave our yeoman fill,

And left them in the hollow hill.

And then the bard says -

Old David, for doughty raid,

Was keeper of the forest made;

A trooper he of gallant fame,

And first of all the Laidlaw name”

Here is an engaraving taken from “The Works of The Ettrick Shepherd” showing the fairies arriving back at the entrance to their cave with the booty from one of their raids, including the lady on the palfrey who was Ann of Raeburn, the lover of Owen, one of old David’s sons. She had been captured by the fairies and taken back to their hollow hill.

James Hogg added an interesting footnote to this event on Page 21:-

“I remember hearing a very old man, named David Laidlaw , who lived somewhere
in the neighbourhood of Hawick, relate many of the adventures of this old mosstrooper,
his great progenitor, and the first who ever bore the name. He described him as a
great champion - a man quite invincible; and quoted several verses of a ballad relating to him, which I never heard before or since. I remember only of them:-

There was ane banna of barley meal

Cam duntin dune by Davy’s shell;

But oot cam Davy and his lads,

And dung the banna a’ in blads

He explained how this “bannock of barley meal” meant a rich booty, which the old hero
captured from a band of marauders. He lived at Garwell in Eskdale moor.

Lochy-Law, where the principal scenes of this tale is laid, is a hill on the lands of
Shorthope in the wilds of Ettrick. The Fairy Slack is up in the middle of the hill,
a very curious ravine, and would be much more so when overshadowed with wood.
The Back-burn, which joins Ettrick immediately below this hill has been haunted
time immemorial, both by the fairies, and the ghost of a wandering minstrel who
was cruelly murdered there, and who sleeps in a lone grave at a small distance
from the ford.”

See map below from Ordinance Survey Explorer 330: Moffat and St. Mary’s Loch.
This shows the  places of interest in relation to each other

The places highlighted in yellow are places named in James Hogg’s footnotes on
Page 21 of “The Works of the Ettrick Shepherd”

Ref. Ordinance Survey Explorer 330: Moffat and St. Mary’s Loch.

The next map below shows Ettrick Village:-

- the James Hogg monument, Ettrick School and Ettrick Church where many Laidlaws are
buried.