Last updated on March 19, 2023
It started off with an email. I was invited down to Traquair for a coffee by one Robin Crichton – variously a filmmaker, author, conference director and organiser of archaeological research. I decided to combine the trip with a weekend expedition into the surrounding hills; there were some places up there I’d had my eye on for a while, and this seemed like the ideal moment to pay them a visit.
I hopped on an early morning train down to Galashiels, then connected with a bus heading westwards up the valley. Twenty minutes later, I found myself in the little town of Innerleithen.
It’s a small place, but not an insignificant one. A cluster of stone-built Victorian hotels are to be found around the main road, a relic of a time this place was a spa resort for the genteel residents of Edinburgh and the Borders. On its northern edges lies a little blue-and-white building, erected to house the spring where the mineral waters rise. They were believed to possess medicinal properties – a late resurgence of the ancient belief in the magical properties of wells, concealed beneath a thin veneer of science.
Today, the waters have lost their draw, but visitors still make there way here nonetheless. There are a heritage printworks and a stately home, in addition to the well complex itself; and alongside these old attractions a new one has arisen, an extensive set of downhill mountain bike trails constructed in the woods to the south. These are often strikingly steep – descending them is an adrenaline-fuelled experience very distinct from the sedate pleasures of the historic spa town. They are extremely popular, though, and everywhere around Innerleithen bikes are to be seen, in all seasons and weathers.
I pick up supplies at the baker’s shop – highly recommended – and then head south. I cross the Tweed and tack right, heading through some woods into the grounds of Traquair estate.
There’s a Christmas fair on at Traquair House itself, and the place is busy.
Before too long I have a cup of coffee in my hand and am sat across a table from Robin. He has plenty of interest to say…
He tells me about his life, and his time in the filmmaking business. Then, he recounts the story of a project he worked on in France, building on the artistic connections of a little town in the south to help it draw in visitors. Having succeeded in doing so, he decided to try something similar in Tweeddale, and alighted on the legends of the valley as the most intriguing means of doing so. There are many such legends to be found in these hills; from the medieval Border Ballads all the way back to Arthurian legends originating in the Dark Ages. It was the latter that interested Robin in particular; he has written a couple of books, covering the stories of Arthur and Merlin as they pertain to Scotland.
Robin’s work has seen him create an organisation called the Merlin Trail Association, which aims to promote the Dark Age history of southern Scotland to visitors. They maintain a website for the purpose, have staged a museum exhibition on the legends, and recently arranged an international conference exploring the tales. In due time, they hope to construct a visitor centre – and Robin has a particular legend-haunted hillside near Moffat in mind for the purpose. Separately, he also co-ordinates a project called Dark Age Digs, which supports archaeological work. They have recently completed excavations in some of the locations in upper Tweeddale most closely associated with the Merlin legends. At the time of my visit, these excavations were just concluding; lab analysis of the recovered materials will come next. I will await the final publication of their results with considerable interest; they seem to have uncovered some intriguing things, that have the potential to add meat to the bones of the stories. You can keep track of their work through their Facebook page, which is well worth joining.
I could have stayed far longer – Robin is a fascinating interlocutor, and quite a well-spring of inspiration. There is no time on this occasion, though, and so I am shortly off once more, to ascend into the woods.
From Traquair House I head south to the village that bears the same name, and here join the long-distance path of the Southern Upland Way. Over these hills, this track follows the old drove road called the Minchmoor Road – an ancient path, and one strewn with enigmatic remains. It is these I have come to seek out. I follow the trail inwards, and upwards.
Ahead, trees rise. This is the green wall of the Forestry Commission estate of southern Scotland; the immense pinewood that now dominates the landscapes of these hills. At their outer edge, overhanging the road rises an ancient oak; a relic of the former forest, standing sentinel at the gates of the new one. I give it a respectful nod, and enter.
Alongside the path, the bracken has turned the red of Autumn. It still rises tall, though – it has only recently faded, the sign of an Autumn that has been unusually warm. Beneath their fronds there are still green plants rising from the earth, little flowers here and there to be seen. A land that usually sleeps at this time of year, enfolded in winter’s torpor, is clearly yet alive – a strange sight.
I trace the way up the hillside for a few kilometres. Nearing the summit, a little path breaks off to the right. A vigorous gurgle of water announces the place; this is the Cheese Well, a spot noted in local legend for centuries. It made an appearance in the pages of Scott’s ‘Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border’, where it is described as follows;
“It is sometimes accounted unlucky to pass such places, without performing some ceremony to avert the displeasure of the elves. There is, upon the top of Minchmuir, a mountain in Peebles-shire, a spring, called the “Cheese Well”, because, anciently, those who passed that way were wont to throw into it a piece of cheese, as an offering to the Fairies, to whom it was consecrated.”
The spirits of the place demanded a tax of those who passed through their domain – and many still pay it. On the stones and heather near the well, a scattering of coins is readily visible; on a branch of a birch tree rising over the well, a cluster of antique Chinese coins has been hung on a red string. For all the centuries that have passed, this tradition retains its vitality – and I add one more coin to the collection, to help keep it alive a little longer yet.
From the Cheese Well I ascend further, breaking into the gloom of the cloud layer.
I am aiming for the summit of Minch Moor but, by the time I reach it the rain has closed in. I find I can see less than 100 metres from the summit.
As the light is fading, I decide to pitch my tent early – thus facilitating a return trip to the summit in the morning, when conditions will hopefully be clearer. In the dry of the interior, the end of the afternoon is very pleasant; my sleeping bag is warm, as is my coffee, and I spend some hours reading the book “UnRoman Britain” by Stuart Laycock and Miles Russell. It’s a survey of the persistence of Celtic identity in Roman Britain – a survey which that evening yields to me the following gem, relating to the persistence of the cult of the wells;
“At Silchester a sword and a spearhead were found deposited in a pit and a well among civilian metal items… At Caversham, the remains of a destroyed Christian lead font were found in a well along with fourth-century pottery, a spearhead, a scythe and two iron-bound wooden buckets. All these deposits may have ritual significance, and may continue pre-Roman traditions of weapon deposits in Britain…” (pg. 214)
It is a wonderful little snapshot of the enduring nature of Celtic beliefs among the Britons in the years running up to the Roman withdrawal. It contains a sign too that such beliefs did not meekly surrender before the rise of Christianity, as so many histories suggest – the destruction and apparent sacrifice of an instrument of Christian conversion speaks to a spirit of resistance that, in my view, permeates the history of the period. That such an act could be performed in Caversham, on the fringes of Reading in the Thames valley, surely implies an even stronger continuity of belief in the less-Romanised lands of the north and west; a belief that was unafraid to challenge the rising Christian civilisation. The well here on Minch Moor stands as a symbol of that continuity; a tradition that has endured from the Iron Age through to today, an unbroken stream of ideas flowing down the years, all the way from its ancient wellsprings.
In the morning, I am rewarded for my persistence. The clouds have lifted from the hilltops, and the land is illuminated. I eat a swift breakfast and stow away my tent, and am soon stood on the summit once again to see the hills of the Southern Uplands bathed in the morning light.
I head onwards, following the Minchmoor Road southeast towards the valley of the Ettrick. I pass through pinewoods that break here and there to reveal steep-sided little valleys, descending towards Ettrickdale below.
I pass the spot where the Minchmoor Road separates from the Southern Upland Way, and follow the former track for a kilometre or so.
My final destination is the point where two ancient sites lie beside one another; a wall, and a well.
The wall is one of earth. It extends right across the hilltop for several hundred metres, blocking passage along the hilltop tracks. The earthwork barrier is formed from soil dug up from a trench on its eastern side; it is this ditch that has given the place its name, “Wallace’s Trench”. Local tradition connects the name to the famous freedom-fighter, William Wallace, stating that his troops carved out the earthworks. The design of the fortifications argues against this, however; the barrier could be circumvented at either end readily enough. The design of the wall mirrors that placed across drove roads in the Cheviots by the Iron Age inhabitants, where such earthworks appear to have been used to regulate traffic and mark boundaries. This is perhaps the more likely explanation for the earthworks here too; they may mark some lost boundary between ancient tribal divisions, and associated toll-point. The name Wallace may in fact refer not to the rebel, but to the ancient peoples who dug the trench; both ‘Wallace’ and ‘Welsh’ are derived from the Anglo-Saxon word ‘wealhas’, a term used to describe the Celtic Britons. Sir William Wallace bore this surname as a sign of his descent from those very ancient natives – a topic that deserves much exploration in itself, but for which there is insufficient space here.
The southern terminus of the wall sits a few metres from the second site of interest to be found here. This is today almost invisible, buried in the red bracken beside the path – but what the eyes cannot detect the ears can pick out easily enough. The gurgle of rising water can be discerned coming from the hillside, and a glance at the OS map shows why; this is the Katythirsty Well.
Who Katy was, and why she was thirsty, is unknown. It is a striking fact, however, that there are wells named after her scattered throughout the hill country of northern Britain. There are several on the fringes of the Campsie Fells between Glasgow and Stirling, and two at either end of the Ochil Hills between Stirling and Perth. In the Borderland, in addition to this one on Minch Moor, there is another (the “Kittythirst Well”) to be found just over the border in England, on the slopes of Deadwater Fell near Kielder. None of these wells bear any connections to saints, and have no obvious connections to any chapels. Some local folktales do exist to explain certain of them – but these are clearly late tales, connecting them to such things as whisky stills and faithful housemaids. The widespread distribution of the wells suggests that such tales may not be the original explanation for the name of the springs – it would, after all, be quite the coincidence for so many places to have housed a Katy who happened to be thirsty, and for her to have become well-known enough in every instance for her name to attach itself to each of the springs. Another, older legend likely underlies these later ones; and it is not beyond the boundaries of possibility that Katy represents the faded memory of an old Celtic water-spirit of some importance. The region in which wells named after her are found spans the former territories of both the Britons and the Picts, suggesting a deity who was not simply local or tribal, but formed a part of a wider regional mythology. Were this the case, she could legitimately be termed a goddess, rather than a minor spirit or fairy.
Any attempts to ascertain the nature of such a deity must unfortunately remain speculative. Excavations at the wells in question might prove revealing, showing up some pattern in the types of offering made, and giving an indication of the time-periods over which offerings were deposited. Ritual offerings of Iron Age or Dark Age date would confirm the time-depth necessary for the wells to connect to pre-Christian religion, and consistent types of artefacts would imply that the wells were dedicated to a single, connected cult. Were we to be very, very lucky, it is possible that an inscribed stone might be recovered, giving some ideas of the cult’s iconography, or even a name for the goddess.
Such a stroke of luck is admittedly very unlikely – not least because the funding for such work is very hard to find. There may, however, be another route to ascertaining Katy’s original name. Since the wells named after her are found in the territories of the Picts and the Britons, it is likely to have been from their languages that her name originally derived. Both spoke related P-Celtic languages, which are connected to modern Welsh & Breton – and so it may be possible for a native speaker of either language, or a linguist, to hazard some educated guesses on P-Celtic terms that might be corrupted into the Anglo-Scots “Katy Thirsty”. Any ideas would be most welcome – and if any readers have some to offer, please do pop them into the comments section below. Were the riddle to be unravelled – and it is a hard one, it is true – then we will have succeeded in adding a whole new name to the pantheon of the old gods of the North. It is quite a prize…
I descended into the red-brown bracken and, with the aid of my ears, eventually discovered the source of both sound and waters. I filled up my bottle – and I can confirm that the waters are as fresh and as clear now as they have been at any time down the ages.
From the well, I clambered uphill, following the line of Wallace’s Trench. On gaining the top of the ridge, I found I had been fortunate in my timing. The earthen mounds of the Borderland, though brimming with historical intrigue, are difficult to capture in photos – in two dimensions they are reduced to featureless lumps of grassy earth, devoid of charisma. On this day, however, the low winter sun danced over the surface of the trench at just the right angle to set the dew ablaze – and I was rewarded with some images that really do bring out the beauty in the place.
I followed the trench all the way to where it connects with the Southern Upland Way, and from there retraced my steps back westwards, until I had passed the Cheese Well once more. Thereafter, however, I took the next forestry track to the right, diverging from the Way and heading off to the forested slopes of Plora Craig.
I spent some hours criss-crossing the woods, passing by plenty of mountain-bikers en route, until eventually I descended down the northern face of the hill towards the valley floor. Here lies the last of the sights I had come to see; Plora Wood.
Once, the Borderland was one of the most densely forested parts of Britain. The first historical record of Traquair names it a hunting seat for royalty, and the wood through which the kings of the land pursued their prey was the immense hunting preserve of Ettrick Forest. This wood once spanned the core of the Southern Uplands; and the bears on the arms of Traquair House recall the formidable nature of the fauna it once housed. Subsidiary forests stretched out east and west, spanning the western uplands and the Cheviots both. Almost all of it was cut down long ago though, for timber and to make way for sheep – and so today almost all the trees that rise in the Borderland are those of later, artificial plantings. Only a few fragments of the original wildwood remain.
Plora Wood is one; and by far the most important. A full 50% of the remaining native woodland in Tweeddale is to be found here, including stands of ancient oak woodland. Some of the oaks on the upper slopes are large, gnarled and evidently of great antiquity; these may in fact be the last oaks of Ettrick Forest to grow on the Tweeddale Hills. They are a rare and precious sight – and one thankfully now cared for by the Woodland Trust, who will ensure they are preserved for posterity.
I spent a great deal of time in these woods, exploring their nooks and crannies, and taking in the Autumn atmosphere. I have never been to this corner of the old forest before, but I anticipate I will return, many times. All those who have read my book “The Ghosts of the Forest” will have a very clear idea of why; the ancient woods of these hills connect to some of the most potent old legends of this part of the world, and it is only in such places as these that we can touch the original nature of the place. I commend a visit to anyone.
This down, it is less than two kilometres back to Innerleithen, where I hop again on the bus. An hour and a half later, and I am back in the centre of Edinburgh; an easy journey, and no obstacle to a visit. It is one I will repeat; there are other trails that lead off from Innerleithen, that lead to places every bit as intriguing as those highlighted in this tale. Mid-Tweeddale has much to offer, and I’ll cover more in future posts…
© William Young and Inter-Celtic, 2023. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to William Young and Inter-Celtic with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
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