Notes on Welsh Legend. By Miss Russell. 265 



The late John Bartley, who died in 1884 at the age of eighty-four, and 

 who, more than fifty years before, had been in the habit of crossing from 

 Yarrow to Inverleithen weekly by this road, used to say it was called the 

 Cheese Well, because it was where the drovers used to eat their "piece," 

 their luncheon of bread and cheese. While there is no reason to suppose 

 this was anything but his own explanation of the name, it is worth remark- 

 ing, that in this case it would not probably be very old, the driving of cattle 

 southward for the English market having only commenced after the second 

 Union in 1707; strange as it seems, protection previously had been carried 

 so far that the importation of cattle into England was not allowed from 

 either Scotland or Ireland. 



I do not know if there is any statement in print about the Cheese Well, 

 older than Sir Walter Scott's in the Border Minstrelsy.* 



It was near this place that a Mr Williamson of Cardrona of former times , 

 when riding over the hill saw the witches dancing on Minchmoor. The 

 Evil One was present in person, and business had apparently been going on, 

 for the book which contained the register of the witches' names, was lying 

 on the ground. Mr Williamson picked it up and carried it off, the witches 

 not discovering the loss at the time. They followed him, but did not catch 

 him up till he had got home to Cardrona, some four miles off, where they 

 screamed round the house till he gave them back the book. The idea of 

 course is, that they would all have been burnt if their names had been found 

 in it. 



However, there is a story of their being seen -also at the Satter-Sykes at 

 Traqnair, where the curling-pond now is ; so this story may have nothing 

 to do with the Well. 



That they were Welsh fairies to whom the cheese was originally offered 

 is altogether probable. The Minchmoor ridge would seem, from the names 

 and other circumstances, to have been the outpost of Cumbria for centuries. 

 What is remarkable in connection with the Welsh stories, is that the Gwynn 

 ap Nudd, who would seem from the Yarrow inscription, so far as it can be 

 made out, to have been buried in the valley below, has become in the later 

 Welsh legends a sort of king of the fairies, far more mythical than Arthur 

 himself. 



He seems to have been engaged in fighting the Highlanders on the 

 borders of Argyleshire and Dumbartonshire, from his being connected with 

 Urien's brother Arawn, and other indications ; he and Arawn are actually 

 identified sometimes. And if it is once understood, that the names of Uffern, 

 Avernus, and Annwn, Hades, were used by the Cumbrian Britons for the 

 Highland valleys, as they have been by others since, it becomes evident 

 what suggestions of mythology the northern Cymric history would offer, 

 after Cumbria ceased to be a Welsh kingdom in 945. 



The name of the North, which seems to have been the Welsh phrase for 

 Cumbria, was afterwards transferred to North Wales. 



*The Cheese Well is entered in Timothy Pout's Survey of 1608 : as given in 

 Blaeu's Atlas, 1654. J. H. 



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