232 On the Name Dumfries. 



east, the loaning going to the Craigs on the north, and the said 

 ffriezehole on the west."^ 



William Baxter, in his " Glossarium Antiquitatum," the first 

 edition of which appeared in 1719, made an excellent venture 

 according to the most modern ideas, although Chalmers in his 

 "Caledonia" (1890, v. 5, p. 45) says: — "Baxter, who is never 

 at a loss for some plausible conjecture, will have Dumfries to be 

 merely ' Opidum Frisonum, vel Brigantum.' But of such excur- 

 sive imitations there is no end ! ' ' 



The next explanation appeared to be current during the 

 eighteenth century. It was that the name came from " domus 

 fratrum Franciscanorum. " Writing in 1743, the Rev. Peter 

 Rae said : — " Those who derive its Etymon from the Franciscan 

 Monastery built there by Dornagilla, as if it signified as much as 

 domus fratrum Franciscanorum or the Friar's House, and there- 

 fore write it Dumfries, do mistake it; for certainly there was a 

 Town there before that Monastery was erected, and it is called 

 Drumfries by all our ancient Writers."^ This, one would have 

 thought, was a sufficient reason for abandoning " domus 

 fratrum," yet in the third edition of the "Encyclopaedia Brit- 

 annica," published in 1797, we are told that "its ancient name, 

 it is said by some of the Scotch historians, was Coiiac ; but on 

 what authority we cannot tell. Its present name appears to have 

 been derived partly from its situation and partly from the monas- 

 tery of the Grey Friars that formerly stood near the head of the 

 street called the Friar-vennel, the kitchen of which is all that 

 now remains ; being only a corruption of Drumf riars or the 

 eminence of the Friary, and accordingly, till within these 40 or 

 50' years it was alwavs .spelt Drumfries, and not Dumfries, as 

 it is now for the sake of greater softness." Dr Burnside in nis 

 MS. History (1791) and Robert Riddell of Glenriddel in a note 

 to Edgar's MS. History also support this theory. 



Rae himself makes another suggestion. ^Vriting of the 

 Lochar Moss, he tells the following curious story, the original of 

 a legend which we have come across in various forms : — 



2 Disposition, Mr Peter Rae and Spouse to Robert Corsane, 

 their son. 19th May, 1738. 



3 Letter from tJie Reverend Mr Peter Rae in relation to Lochar 

 Moss. Select Transactions of the . Honourable Tiie Society of 

 Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture in Scotland. Edin- 

 burgh, 1743. 



