Etymology of the Wokd Rutjiwkll. 



103 



4 



Item for towes [ropes to tie the poor creature to the .stakes], 

 small and great 



Item for ane tar barle to Andrew Aitken ... [[[ ; 4 q 



Item to Hugh Anderson for carrying of the peits and colls . 6 



Item to Wdliam Kirk [the executioner] qn she was burnincr 



ane j.int of aill °' „ ., 



Item payed to Robert Creighton, conform to precept, viz. :- 

 eight shillings Scots for beatting the drum at Elspet 

 M'Queen's funerall, and to James Carson, his wife 

 threeteen shillings drunken by Elspet's executioner, at 

 seall times 



J J 



The executioner wa.s on the reg-ular .staff of buryh officials 

 and m receipt of a weekly allowance ; but in his old age he had 

 eked It out with the .seeking of alms, and the tragedy just 

 recorded by attaching increased odium to his office seems to have 

 cut off supplies. In a pitiful petition to the Council he repre- 

 sented that when he went to the country the people bade him 0-0 

 home to the town "and cast stanes at me," and to relieve his 

 nidigent condition the Council made him a special grant of six 

 shillings Scots. 



I [!._<' 77,^ Eiymologv of the Word Rnthwell." By E. J. 

 Chimnock, LL I)., London. 



I was deeply interested iu reading the paper on Dr Georo-e 

 Archibald's sketch of Dumfries in the seventeenth century by my 

 lamented friend, the late Dr James Macdonald, in whose death Scot- 

 land lost one of her best antiquarian scholars. The old Dumfries 

 physician in his "Account" gives two derivations of the name 

 luithwell, upon which a discussion arose among the members of 

 the Society present at the meeting at which it was read. I hope 

 It will not be thought presumptuous on my part if I continue this 

 discussion, with the desire of throwing some light upon the subject, 

 lliere are six derivations a.ssigned to the word, as far as I can 

 gather, two of which are manifestly absurd, and therefore ought 

 to be at once discarded. Let us take them in order :— I The first 

 IS that which the worthy Archibald a.ssigns, and which I have 

 neve^r before .seen-A>«^/.«, ralUun, "Ruth's wall " He says that 

 the Saxons erected it as a rampart, and that they never advanced 

 further than this point in Scotland. This derivation and statement 

 IS so childish in its simplicity and ignorance that it is not worthy 



