Peat Law

Another photo from the last few days in the Scottish Borders.

At 464m asl., the hill on the right is known as ‘Three Brethren‘ after the three 16th-century cairns on its summit¹‘Yair – Forestry and Land Scotland’. 2022. Gov.scot (Forestry and Land Scotland) <https://forestryandland.gov.scot/visit/forest-parks/tweed-valley-forest-park/yair> [accessed 2 November 2022].

It stands on an old drove road once used by  cattle but now popular with walkers and mountain bikers.

The cairns were each built by the land owners of the Yair, Philiphaugh and Selkirk estates at the spot where their boundaries converge²‘Walk: Three Brethren – Where Ancient Lands Meet | Scotland off the Beaten Track’. 2021. Scotland off the Beaten Track | the Honest Travel Guide to Scotland <https://sobt.co.uk/walk-three-brethren/> [accessed 2 November 2022].

The cairns are a significant stop in the Selkirk Common-Riding, where three cheers were once hailed “for the King, for the burgh and the Provost, and the singing of ‘Hail, Smiling Morn’“³‘Selkirk Common-Riding. | Southern Reporter | Thursday 19 June 1924 | British Newspaper Archive’. 2022. Britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk <https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000469/19240619/041/0006> [accessed 2 November 2022]. 

But back to the main photo. This much smaller, cruder cairn stands on the western flank of Peat Law. It’s off the beaten track, who knows why it was built. Perhaps it was the spot where a poor man once fell asleep in the middle of a fairy ring.

Sir Walter Scott no less, recounted the story in his ‘Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border‘⁴1802-3. The man suddenly found himself being dragged at top speed through the air, and before he well knew what had happened he was in the middle of Glasgow, otherwise unharmed. His blue bonnet was found sticking on the top of the steeple of Lanark kirk, but his coat had been left on the hill of Peatlaw⁵Westwood, Jennifer and Sophia Kingshill. “The Lore of Scotland: A guide to Scottish legends”. ISBN 9780099547167 2011..

He wandered around and came across a carter who knew him. Eventually he made his way back to Selkirk and retrived his coat.

Scott comments that this tale of being carried off by the fairies “was implicitly believed by all, who did not reflect that a man may have private reasons for leaving his own country, and for disguising his having intentionally done so”.

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  ‘Yair – Forestry and Land Scotland’. 2022. Gov.scot (Forestry and Land Scotland) <https://forestryandland.gov.scot/visit/forest-parks/tweed-valley-forest-park/yair> [accessed 2 November 2022]
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  ‘Walk: Three Brethren – Where Ancient Lands Meet | Scotland off the Beaten Track’. 2021. Scotland off the Beaten Track | the Honest Travel Guide to Scotland <https://sobt.co.uk/walk-three-brethren/> [accessed 2 November 2022]
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  ‘Selkirk Common-Riding. | Southern Reporter | Thursday 19 June 1924 | British Newspaper Archive’. 2022. Britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk <https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000469/19240619/041/0006> [accessed 2 November 2022]
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  1802-3
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  Westwood, Jennifer and Sophia Kingshill. “The Lore of Scotland: A guide to Scottish legends”. ISBN 9780099547167 2011.