^90 Mr. Hardy on the Wolf in Scotland. 



brae and Wolfland, in the parish of Nenthorn, belonging to 

 Kerr of Fowberry * The name seems to imply that it had 

 been held in former times by the tenure of hunting the wolf; 

 lands thus granted being called Wolf-hunt-lands. f On the 

 farm of Godscroft a cairn, now removed, was called the Wolf- 

 Camp. It may have been a den of wolves, as in the Suther- 

 land story. Nor must Fastcastle, the representative of the 

 Wolf's Crag of the Bride of Lammermoor, be passed over, 

 whose scenery and site fully justified a Scottish monarch in 

 remarking, that " the man who had first chosen Fastcastle 

 for his residence, must have been in heart a thief;" though 

 insignificant now are the remains of the towers once 



" Broad, massive, high, and stretching far. 

 And held impregnable in war." 



The epithet in the romance may have been suggested by the 

 Wolf Crags in the Frith of Forth, on which, on the 29th of 

 June, or the 1st of July, 1335, during a hostile cruise on the 

 Scottish coast, the English admiral's ship ran aground. 



" Amang the craggis that of aide 

 In Scotlande ware the Volvys calde, 

 The grettast a schype of thame al 

 Thare brokyn was in pecis small." J 



Another exemplar the novelist had in Craig- Vad, or Wolf- 

 Cliff, a rock in a pass between Monteith and Appin, where a 

 battle was fought between the Appin men, under Donald of 

 the Hammer, a highland marauder, and the Grahames of 

 Monteith, led on by the earl.§ There is also a Craig-mad of 

 similar signification in Tweedsmuir, in Peeblesshire. || But 

 the appellation Fastcastle also may challenge, on account of 

 its appropriateness ; for the wolf once infested its precincts. 



" The neighbouring dingle bears his name." 



(Hamper). Besides, Mr. Veitch was in the constant practice of writing the 

 name of the place "VVoolstruther, and not Wolfstruther. (Lives of Veitch and 

 Brysson, edited by M'Crie.) Chalmers has satisfactorily shown that it derived 

 its name from a swamp in which the village was situated (Caledonia, ii. p. 389). 

 Adam de Gordon, in the 13th century, granted to the convent of Kelso, a pas- 

 ture in his marsh called Westrulher. (Cart. Kel. 118.) 



* Newcastle Journal, July 29, 1769. 



f In the 11th year of Henry VI., 1432, Sir Robert Plumpton possessed a 

 bovate of land, in Mansfield-Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire, called Wolf-hunt- 

 land. It was so named from its being held by the service of winding a horn, and 

 chasinsr or frightening the wolves in Shirewood Forest. Testa de Neville, in 

 Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, p. 14. Plumpton Correspondence by T. Staple- 

 ton, F. S. A., p. 92, 93. Camd. Soc. Pub. 



+ "Wyntownis Chron. ii. p. 193. Fordun, 1. xiii. c. 31. 



§ Tales of a Grandfather, 2nd Ser. i. p. 145, 6. 



I Caledonia, ii. p. 915. 



