One, in accord with the local pronunciation of the word—"Delorran," with the accent on the second syllable—gives its origin as from the Gaelic, "dal Grain," the place or land of Orain, who, I understand, was a Celtic saint. There is also the explanation given by the Rev. Dr. Russell of Yarrow, in the Statistical Account of the Parish of 1833. "In 1503, James IV endowed his Queen, the Lady Margaret of England, with the Forest of Ettrick and Tower of Newark, which had formerly been the dowry of Mary of Guelders. Hence, probably, our two farms of Deloraine (de la reine) received their name, or afterwards perhaps from Mary of Lorraine." One would prefer to adopt Dr. Russell's interpretation of the name, but probably the place was called "Delorran" long before the day of any of the historical characters mentioned.
Higher still up Ettrick is Tushielaw, with its fragment of a ruined tower, the home in old days of that formidable freebooter Adam Scott, "the king of the Border," or "king of thieves." Local tradition tells that he was hanged by James V to the branch of an ash tree that grew within his own castle walls—retributive justice on a man who had himself, in like manner, sent to their doom so many poor wretches from the branches of that same tree. The ash no longer stands, but in Chambers' Gazetteer for 1832 there is this note concerning it: "It is curious to observe that along its principal branches there are yet visible a number of nicks, or hollows, over which the ropes had been drawn wherewith he performed his numerous executions."
Like too many local traditions, however, the story of his execution will not bear examination. Adam Scott was arrested and hanged in Edinburgh, a full month before the King set out on his memorable expedition to pacify the Border. James certainly laid a heavy hand on the freebooters; and he appears also to have very materially altered the face of things in other ways in these Border hills. The timber which clothed them began from this time to disappear—birch and oak it appears to have been for the most part, interspersed with ash, mountain-ash, thorn, and hazel, to judge by the numbers of stumps and pieces of decayed trees still found in mossy ground. They mostly suggest timber of no great size, but now and again the remains of a fine tree are come upon, even in exposed and high-lying situations. The remains of a very large oak, for instance, were discovered some years ago during draining operations among the wild hills right at the head of Jed.
Probably James destroyed a great deal of timber in his efforts to convert the country into a sheep-run. According to Pitscottie, the king soon had "ten thousand sheep going in the forest, under the keeping of Andrew Bell, who made the King as good an account of them as if they had gone in the bounds of Fife." James V no doubt was a good husbandman,—it was his boast that in these wilds he "made the rush bush keep the cow,"—but he was a better husbandman than he was a sportsman, at least as we now understand the word.
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We should now probably call him a pot-hunter. It was early in June when he started on his expedition; young calves are then with the hinds, and the harts are yet low in condition, and "in the velvet" as to their horns. Yet Pitscottie says: "I heard say he slew in these bounds eighteen score of harts." However, if his expedition had to be made then, his army—and it was an army—must necessarily be fed; and no doubt if he wanted to run sheep there, the stock of deer had to be cleared out.
