OF BER-WICKSHIRE. 121 



6. " We'll gang «' together, Me the folic o' tlie Shieh:' 



I have heard tliat Lammerton Shiels is the place here referred to. 

 Others say it ig r; Shiels somewhere in the Merse, but the name is so 

 common in Scotland, that we have some doubts whether it ought to be 

 admitted as a p ouliar proverb of this county. It is, however, very 

 common in the mouths of the peasantry, when any party of them ^ ish 

 to accompan}^ another to their homes from hirns and other social 

 meetings. 



7. " Go to Birgham anil luy lichers.^' 



This is said to a person whom one is desirous to get rid of. Birgham 

 is a small but ancient A'illage on the north bank of the Tweed, a few 

 miles below Kelso. The Scottish competitors for the crown, in the 

 time of King Edward I., met here in 1291 to acknowledge that ambi- 

 tious king as their supreme lord and master ; and hence the place 

 became odious to all true patriots of the Scottish nation, and was 

 associated in their minds with the abominable transaction of those who 

 bartered away the independence of their country for a precarious 

 crown ; and it is supposed that this popular sapng originated in the 

 contempt with which the common people viewed the ignoble transac- 

 tion of their superiors. 



8. " Wc''re lihe the foil: o' Kennetside-heads, ice hae it «' lefore its." 



Kennetside-heads is a farm in the western extremity of the parish 

 of Eccles. The occasion which gave rise to this proverb, is said to 

 have been the following : — A person passing the place on an afternoon, 

 about the end of harvest, found a band of reapers taking their ease by 

 the road-side. lie asked them. Why were they resting so long, when 

 they had so much corn to cut ? One of the band answered, "It is our 

 kirn day, and we hae it a' before us, before the sun is down," — mean- 

 ing thereby, that the}^ had it fuUy under their command. But when 

 the traveller returned pretty late in the evening, he found the " folko' 

 Kennetside-heads " still shearing bg moonlight ; and hence the saying 

 is fi'equently used by the labourers in the time of harvest, in a sort of 

 mock waj', to indicate that they need not work too hard, becaiise they 

 have it all lefore them. Or it is applied as a warning to those who are 

 too confident in their own powers, and who are hence rather lax in 

 their exertions — "not to be like the folk o' Kennetside-heads." 



9. '•'•lie's failierh letter, eooper o' FogoP 



The village of Fogo, which at one time seems to have been of con- 

 siderable size, has now dwindled down to a few houses, and all its 

 coopers have become extinct. This proverb is very common in Ber- 



