THE HIRSEL 



BERWICKSHIRE 



E'S awa to Birgham to buy bickers" 

 is an ancient Border equivoque how 

 ancient, no man may say. It seems 

 to date from the memorable treaty 

 concluded at Birgham-on-Tweed on 

 18th July, 1290, defining the relations that should 

 subsist between the realms of England and Scotland 

 after the marriage of the Maid of Norway Margaret 

 Queen of Scots to Edward of Carnarvon, Prince 

 of Wales. Death snatched the Maid on her way to 

 the wedding, and there followed three hundred years 

 of "bickers" and butchery between two nations of 

 the same race, speech and creed, the most purpose- 

 less and wasteful war that ever drained the resources 

 of a civilised people. 



Little enough does Birgham now bear the aspect 

 of a source of strife. Perhaps the old saying was 

 coined in irony because of the inadequacy of this 

 hamlet to sustain a name so great in history, for 

 "bicker" means a wooden bowl as well as a battle. 

 Half a score of grey roofs scattered along a green 



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