The Auldest Tung

Scots Law

According to history, that is history as mostly taught contemporaneously, Edinburgh’s Drylaw, up behind the zoo, should be the most northerly high-point of Northumbrian Anglic territory in Britain. After all it is closest to the castle, the greatest redoubt of that same control our side of the border. But it is, of course, not the case. Indeed Drylaw is, albeit not by much, not even the most northerly in The Lothians. That is Wreaklaw by Dirleton and to be fair that has been recognised for some considerable time, indeed for the best part of two hundred years.

But both Drylaw and Wreaklaw are markers maybe of something indeed Anglic only but perhaps equally of more, a topographical feature certainly found in Anglic territory but also elsewhere. "Lows" and similar, as already pointed out, are to be found in small numbers in England, both inwith and outwith Anglic areas. And in Scotland they are elsewhere too, again beyond. Indeed for evidence one does not have to go far. Look from Drylaw immediately across the First of Forth at southern Fife and it is there, looking back not once but several times. Just behind Aberdour, double-named and on the frontier between Brittia and Caledonia are the Cottesloe Hills, Cottes-loes, Cottas-laus, as also found in England, notably by Leighton Buzzard. Then further north still are Hare Law, Barselaw and Thisalaw by Ballingry with then three miles more north-west by Leslie, Ryelaw and Prinlaw. They form a phalanx that reaches from the Fife shoreline ten miles inland. And there is further evidence. In addition to Sunny Law, Caw Law and Cupar Law by Stirling, in the Ochil Hills that run from the Forth almost to the Tay are The Law by Ben Cleuch between Tillicoultry and Alva, Law Hill above Dollar and a chain of more laws through the Ochils themselves to between Dunning, Dunn-ing, and Gleneagles onward to by Auchterarder and finally to the again double-named Lawhill on the north side of the River Earn six miles from Perth. In all it is almost twenty miles.

Then in eastern Fife there are at least three more examples. The older the map the more that are there to be found. First there are Largo Law and Coldlaw on one side of Chapel Ness and on the other Kellielaw, Blacklaw and Comielaw above St. Monans with Gunnlaw in between, then second, Lawpark, behind St. Andrews and finally the area to the south of the Tay, from Norman’s Law above Brunton and Creich via Darklaw and Lucklaw to Harelaw and Craiglaw above Tayport.

And it continues. On the other side of the Tay there is Dundeelaw and, with the again double-named Sidlaw Hills in the background behind the Carse of Gowrie once more a chain of laws six miles back from the edge of the Carse, the old shore-line, back to Legerlaw by Collace. Then with Downhill above Perth there is a mixed group of “downs” and “laws” to the back of Carnoustie, Arbroath and Dundee with, finally, a cluster of “laws” either side of Letham. They extend in a chain from two miles inland and east of Montrose to the carse by Kirriemuir and then for ten miles north of Forfar before turning fifteen miles west via Cat Law to Craigie Law and the Highland Line. And they are also linked from Forfar back to the coast the via Lour, Tolloes, Lownie and notably, although itself not a “law”, Dunnichen.

And it is this pattern that continues further north still. There may be a Saxon “down” at Gourdon with Fordoun inland, although both are also said to be Pictish in origin, a Germanic hinterland to Johnshaven, a grouping of “laws” between Crawton and Stonehaven, both “laws” and also “downs” around the Dee estuary and Harlaws above Inverurie on the Don, each side of Aberdeen’s Rubislaw. And it is this pattern of apparent settlement by river, with probable Pictish territory between, that is replicated with East- and Ulaw either side of Ellon on the Ythan, on the Uigie back of Peterhead to Mintlaw, back of Fraserburgh to Ardlaw, Glasslaw and Northlaw and finally to Poddochlaw at Banff/Macduff via the Deveron to Greenlaw and Italaw, then further up the same river at Drachlaw with Blacklaw in between. In fact it turns out that Drylaw and Wreaklaw, whilst being the most northerly of the Anglic "laws", are in reality but halfway, the Firtt of Forth being an intersection not an interruption, in a more or less unbroken chain of Anglic and others that runs from the English Tees to the Scottish Moray Firth.   

Now it has to be accepted that north of the Forth most of what should only be called enclaves, "law-enclaves" are admittedly small, some no more than tens of square miles in area. But each would nevertheless have meant the self-insertion of “law” people into where the native population was never really Gaelic or indeed Brythonic, Welsh-Scots, but Pictish. Moreover, and this is the crux of this book, they would have come with their Germanic to an area where we have little idea of the original, native tongue. That is because it has been to a degree over-spoken and overwritten not once but twice. There has been Gaelic brought from the west. However, that was no earlier than 800 AD, so too late really to affect our story. And then there were the Germanic speakers themselves with their language or perhaps languages that were, firstly, certainly not English, because English and, indeed, England did not exist at the time, secondly, have been presumed by historians even today, perhaps with a side-order of Saxon and their “downs” here and there, to be Anglic, since Angles have been thought to be the most northerly of Germanic speakers and “law” is the most northerly hill-name, thirdly, must be assumed to be early North-East Scots, Doric and the other dialects of Fife, Angus, Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and Moray, because there is not a sign that in its heartlands it has at any time ceased to have been spoken since but with the caveats that, fourthly, for reasons to be explained it might have a source far earlier even than Anglic or Saxon and, fifthly, is not just a distinctive form of Scots but a language in its own right with a specific antecedent.

And so to four questions, firstly, how do we suspect this, secondly, how did it happen, thirdly, when and lastly by whom? The answer to the first is because of the Battle of Dun Nechtain, to the second it is by still related Germanic but non-Anglo-Saxon immigration, to the third, sometime, not excluding incrementally, during the period from 450 AD to 684 AD and perhaps beyond and, fourthly, by a suggested, relatively small but precise group, one evidenced circumstantially but not in written form, since it has no equivalent of the Anglo-Saxons chronicles only continuity.