J. F. Campbell Collection > Popular rhymes of Scotland

48 POPULAR RHYMES OF SCOTLAND.
STIRLINGSHIRE.
THE LINKS OF FORTH.
* Oh, i8 it the Links o' Forth ?' she cried,
' Or is it the Crooks o* Dee ?
Or the bonnie woods o' Warrockhead,
That I sae fain wad see ?' — Guy Mannering.
The numerous windings of the Forth, called Links, form
a great number of beautiful peninsulas, which, being of a
very luxuriant and fertile soil, gave rise to the following
old rhyme : —
A crook o' the Forth
Is worth an earldom o' the north.
In Fountainhall's Decisions, under May 1683, occurs an
allusion to public business connected with Stirling Castle ;
after which is added — ' It being a strong pass between the
Highlands and the Lowlands, according to the old motto
about the arms of Stirling anent the bridge —
I am a pass, as travellers dae ken,
To Scotisli, British, and to English men.
It standing with many hills about it, which made the
abbots and monks of Cambuskenneth, and King James VI.
(who, and many of his predecessors, were bred there in
their infancy), to observe that the wind and wet met once
a-day at the Cross of Stirling. Forth there has many crooks,
Alloa being twenty-four miles by water from Stirling, and
only four by land. So that it is a byword in Scotland,
The crooks of land wathin the Forth,
Are worth ane earldom in the north.'
PERTHSHIRE.
BRIDGE OF TEATH.
In 1530, Robert Spittel, who designated himself ' tailzour
to the maist honorabill Princes Margaret, queen to James
the Feird,' and who seems to have made a large fortune by
his trade, founded the bridge of Teath, immediately above
Doime Castle, for the convenience of his fellow-lieges, who,