JAMIE TELFER
Scott, for once, was wrong in his localities. The Dodhead of the
poem is NOT that near Singlee, in Ettrick, but a place of the same
name, near Skelfhill, on the southern side of Teviot, within three
miles of Stobs, where Telfer vainly seeks help from Elliot. The
other Dodhead is at a great distance from Stobs, up Borthwick
Water, over the tableland, past Clearburn Loch and Buccleugh, and
so down Ettrick, past Tushielaw. The Catslockhill is not that on
Yarrow, near Ladhope, but another near Branxholme, whence it is no
far cry to Branxholme Hall. Borthwick Water, Goudilands (below
Branxholme), Commonside (a little farther up Teviot), Allanhaugh,
and the other places of the Scotts, were all easily "warned."
There are traces of a modern hand in this excellent ballad. The
topography is here corrected from MS. notes in a first edition of
the Minstrelsy, in the library of Mr. Charles Grieve at Branxholme'
Park, a scion of "auld Jock Grieve" of the Coultart Cleugh. Names
linger long in pleasant Teviotdale.
THE DOUGLAS TRAGEDY
The ballad has Norse analogues, but is here localized on the
Douglas Burn, a tributary of Yarrow on the left bank. The St.
Mary's Kirk would be that now ruinous, on St. Mary's Loch, the
chapel burned by the Lady of Branxholme when she
"gathered a band
Of the best that would ride at her command,"
in the Lay of the Last Minstrel. The ancient keep of Blackhouse on
Douglas Burn may have been the home of the heroine, if we are to
localize.
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