GALLOWAY AND ITS PEOPLE.*
THE author of this substantial and erudite work is in anti- quarian matters a keen iconoclast; but in things national he is the intensest of patriots, and claims to be so by heredity, in virtue of his descent from Sir William Wallace's faithful companion, Sir William MacCairill, who, as his admirer says, of " high Irish Scot lineage," was the only landowner in Galloway who, in the first portion of the War of Independence, took the side of Scotland against Edward I. Wallace helped his friend in very substantial fashion. In 1283 MacCairill had lost his castle of Cruggleton ; but fourteen years later Wallace accompanied him to Galloway, recaptured Cruggleton, and put its English garrison to the sword. MacCairill was with Wallace when he was captured at Rob- royston, near Glasgow, in July or August of 1305, and was slain. Mr. McKerlie's love of Wallace is natural and ex- cusable, but he is surely a trifle too anxious to exalt him at the expense of Bruce. There is certainly a touch of "sectional" patriotism in this contrast :—
" Wallace and Bruce were both great warriors, but the first- named far outstripped the latter in every capacity, and without Wallace as the pioneer Scotland's position as a province of England was certain. Such a man as Wallace stands alone as a patriot and warrior. Bruce fought for a crown and Wallace for nothing but love of country. Bruce, as descendant of an Anglo- French Norman, has been called rich and noble, and Wallace stated to be possessed of neither attribute, yet he was certainly of as good, if not higher, origin, being of the ancient Cymric race, and there is reason to believe that for centuries his ancestors were chiefs in Kyle, Ayrshire. Buchanan calls him a man of an ancient and noble family, but with little or no estate."
Mr. McKerlie's view of the relations between Bruce and the Church is worth reproducing in this connexion
" Robert Bruce owed to the Church the support he had obtained in Scotland, and to it he was actually indebted for the means to cover the expenses of his enthronement at Scone in 1300. The money was provided by the abbot and monks of Melrose Abbey,
and amounted to six thousand merks He ruled for twenty-four years, and during that period over eighty charters to various abbeys and priories were given ; and not content with this substantial evidence of gratitude, although of laymen only one or two had fought with Wallace and to a small extent, yet he gave to one and another of those who had joined his service at the call of the church, and had kept aloof of Wallace, the large number of five hundred and ninety-five charters of lands without investigation to learn whether or not they belonged to others."
Mr. McKerlie may have his patriotic, or even personal, pre- judices, but in dealing with the history of the region of the parishes and landowners of which be gives a minute account he shows himself not only willing, but eager, to brush aside
fanciful racial theories. He takes what may fairly be termed the reasonable view of the association of Galloway—as, so to speak, the Cornwall of Scotland—with the rest of the country on the one hand and with Ireland on the other. The distance between County Down and Galloway is twenty-two miles, and this fact naturally accounts for the close connexion between the South of Scotland and the North of Ireland; it is clear, also, that in Mr. McKerlie's opinion the fact disposes of the old doctrine that Galloway was originally an inde- pendent kingdom. He holds, further, that the statement which certain writers have banded down is correct,—that the Goidels or Gaels were the first Celtic inhabitants, who absorbed the aborigines as situations or circum- stances demanded, and who in turn were dislodged by the Cymri and other Celtic hordes that flocked into Britain, driving the Goidels across to Ireland. We are reminded of the declaration of Roger de Hovenden that the Galwegians
• History of the Lands and their Owners in Galloway. By P. H. MoKerlie. 2 vols. Paisley Alexander Gardner. [25e. net.]
at the battle of the Standard in 1138 used the war-cry "Albanach ! Albanach ! " thus identifying themselves as Irish-Scots ; for to the present time the Irish call the people of Scotland Albanach and Albanaich. The " mixed " character of the Galwegian population may be gathered from Mr. McKerlie's elaborate theories of place-names. He writes thus, for example, of the word " Wigton," or " Wigtown," from which the county takes its name :—
" There has been much controversy of late years in regard to the spelling of the name. There is an idea that it should be spelled with the V, which is probably correct, and it is so given in Pont's Galloway Topographised. His survey of Galloway was made between 1603 and 1620. In his map published by Blaeu, the town is spelled with a W and not a V. This change, however, may have been copied from the Ragman Roll of the year 1296, in which we find the shire spelled Wygeton, Wyggeton, and Wiggeton. If originally spelled with the V it would be from the Norse so far as regards the first portion of the name, which in that language is vigy a house, vigi a stronghold. The impression has been that the first syllable is derived from the bay, and it may be so, as although, in the Norse, vik from vikja is the word applying, yet in the Danish as mentioned by Cleasby and Vigfusson there is vig for a small creek, inlet, or bay."
It is further stated that the form " wick " or " with" in British local names is partly of Norse and partly of Latin origin (vices), and that all inland places, of course, belong to the latter class. The final syllable " ton " is from the Norse, as " tun " in that language applies to a town as well as to a farm or buildings. Another quotation may be made from Mr. McKerlie to show how minutely he has inquired into the meaning of names :-
" Polwhely seems to have its meaning from its proximity to the Cree. The pol is found in Gaelic as pole or puill, in the Cymric as pwl, in the Norse as poll, and in Lowland Scottish as pau and pou. With reference to the Cree, it means here a dark deep stream or river, and the position of the banks at this farm shows that the suffix whely is a corruption of well, a whirlpool or an eddy, meaning here, no doubt, the latter. In Orkney and Caith- ness it is spelled well. It is also found as veil elsewhere. The name of the farm, it thus appears, is derived from an eddy which existed at that part of the river Cree and may still exist. The Cree is known to be a dangerous river. Another author gives it as derived from poll-chaills, stream of the wood."
Mr. McKerlie ranges his " lands and landowners of Galloway " under the various parishes into which it is divided, and as these are very numerous, it is not surprising, after all, that his story should extend to two ponderous volumes. But on the whole the ecclesiastical section of the history of Scotland thus told at length is more interesting than either the political or the social. Whithorn or the Candida Casa of the Romans is, of course, the centre of such history. Mr. McKerlie retells the history of Whithorn at great length. He has also some fresh information to give :— "it is only of recent years that we were privately informed of the discovery that Saint Ninian's structure, with its additions, was destroyed by fire about the end of the thirteenth century, and the new structure was raised under the patronage of the then Pope, who promised certain indulgences and privileges to those who would assist in its restoration. We hoped to have been able, with the aid of one who stands high in the Church of Rome, to have got access to the Papal document, but so far have failed.
Independent of the Papal document, however, positive proof of a great conflagration was brought to light by the late William Galloway, who, in his excavation of the crypts, found abundant traces of fire, both in the crannies of the walls and below the surface."
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