J. F. Campbell Collection > Popular rhymes of Scotland

34 POPULAR RHYMES OF SCOTLAND.
It is perhaps worthy of remark, that Dryfesdale church-
yard was one of those honoured by the attentions of Old
Mortality; and that that celebrated personage was found
expiring- upon the road near the burying'-g'round, while his
old white horse, scarcely less interesting* than himself, was
discovered g-razing- among- the tombstones, which it had
been so long- its master's delight to keep in repair.
DRUMLANRIG CASTLE.
This splendid old mansion, formerly belonging to the
Queensberry family, now to the Duke of Buccleuch, is
popularly called the House o' the Hassock. Sixty years
ago, the following rhyme, of which I cannot pretend to
make any sense, was current in its neighbourhood : —
When the Park bura ran
Where never man saw,
The House o' the Hassock
Was near a fa'.
LOCHAR MOSS.
* This moss is nearly a dead level of from two to three
miles in breadth, and ten miles in length, stretching from
the shore of the Solway Frith into the interior of the
country. There is a tradition that this barren waste was
at some remote period covered with wood, and that after-
wards it was inundated by the sea, which, upon receding,
left behind it the decaying vegetable matter in which the
moss originated. This tradition has been embodied by the
peasantry in the following couplet : —
First a wood, and then a sea,
Now a moss, and ever will be.
And its truth is corroborated by the fact, that the moss
rests upon a deep stratum of sea-sand, out of which not
only are shells and other marine deposits frequently dug,
but fragments of ancient vessels, of no very inconsiderable
size, together with several iron grapples or anchors. Some
ancient canoes or boats have also been found, and in par-
ticular one formed out of the trunk of a large oak, hollowed
apparently by fire. Between the surface of the moss and
the sea-sand, immense trunks of trees are found. These,
which are principally fir, invariably lie with their tops