The Popular Rhymes, Sayings, and Proverbs of the County of Berwick |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Allanbank amang ancient Auchencrow auld Ayton bairns baith banks bannocks bawbee Berwick Berwickshire Billy Blackadder BLAINSLIE Blythe bonny bread burn butter called Castle cauld cheese Chirnside clarty Cockburnspath Coldingham corn Cowdenknowes deils Dunse Edencraw Edrom Ercildoune Eyemouth fairies farm FAST CASTLE Fogo Foulden frae Gordon green grey gude hame heard heart hill hinds Home Horndean horses Houndwood ilka inhabitants Jock John Johnnie kail kirk Kirstan lady laird Lammermoor land Langton lasses lassie Lauderdale Lintlaw lived Lothian mair mare Merse miles Mill mony ne'er neighbours never night Norman Ross once owre parish of Buncle parish of Chirnside peats Pefferlaw person POLWART popular Rhyme Reston Robin Adair Scotland Scottish seen SHIELS side stane stone sweet thee There's Thomas the Rhymer Tweed village wad ye gang Wallace wight weel Whitadder wife Willie witches woman
Popular passages
Page 145 - Ercildoune, a person came running in, and told, with marks of fear and astonishment, that a hart and hind had left the neighbouring forest, and were, composedly and slowly, parading the street of the village. The...
Page 74 - Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world : now could I drink hot blood, And do such bitter business as the day Would quake to look on.
Page 62 - In our childhood, our mothers' maids have so terrified us with an ugly devil having horns on his head, fire in his mouth, and a tail...
Page 30 - They have neither good bread, cheese, or drink, They cannot make them, nor will they learn. Their butter is very indifferent, and one would wonder how they could contrive to make it so bad.
Page 51 - Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.
Page 62 - Boneless, and such other bugbears, that we are afraid of our own shadows, insomuch that some never fear the devil but on a dark night ; and then a polled sheep is a perilous beast, and many times is taken for our father's soul, specially in a churchyard, where a right hardy man heretofore durst not to have passed by night but his hair would stand upright. Well, thanks be to God, this wretched and cowardly infidelity, since the preaching of the Gospel, is in part forgotten, and doubtless the rest...
Page 27 - What gars ye rin sae still ? ' Till said to Tweed, ' Though ye rin wi' speed, And I rin slaw, Whar ye droon ae man, I droon twa.
Page 111 - Scottish villages as a propitiatory gift to the devil, on which property they never ventured to intrude. It was dedicated to the devil's service alone, being left untilled and uncropped, and it was reckoned highly dangerous to break up by tillage such pieces of ground.
Page 30 - When they go abroad none of them wear hats, but a party-coloured blanket which they call a plaid over their heads and shoulders. The women, generally, to us seemed none of the handsomest. They are not very cleanly in their houses, and but sluttish in dressing their meat.
Page 152 - ... must there have been throughout such a territory, and by what greater cause of endearment could such a heroine have been inspired ! These forests of broom were, moreover, in themselves extremely beautiful and interesting objects. Before the recent improvements in Scottish agriculture, there were to be seen everywhere throughout the country, whole districts which waved, a sea of glorious yellow, beneath the autumn wind ; while, for miles around, the ground was covered by the blossoms which they...