J. F. Campbell Collection > Popular rhymes of Scotland

72 POPULAR RHYMES OF SCOTLAND.
Le Mangeurs de Poitiers,
Li Meillers archers d'Anjou,
Li Chevaliers de Champagne,
Li Ecuyers de Bourgoigne,
Li Sergens (fantassins) de Hainault.
To the Local Reproaches here commemorated, I have
added a few which are applicable to professions.
BERWICKSHIRE AND LOTHIAN.
The people of these provinces have been characterised bj
some hobnail wit as —
Loudon louts, Merse bnites, Lammennuir wliaups*
LAUDER — {Berwickshire).
Lousie Lauder !
Lauder is a small and rather poor-looking- town, but it
must have been indebted chiefly to ' apt alliteration's artful
aid' for this odious epithet.
EARLSTOUN.
No to lippen to, like the dead fouk o' Earlstoun.
This is a proverb founded on a popular story, kept up as
a joke ag"ainst the worthy people of Earlstoun. It is said
that an inhabitant of this villag-e, going home one night
with too much liquor, stumbled into the churchyard, where
he soon fell asleep. Wakening* to a glimmering conscious-
ness after a few hours, he felt his way across the graves;
but taking every hollow interval for an open receptacle of
the dead, he was heard by some neighbour saying- to him-
self, ' Up and away ! Eh, this ane up and away too ! Was
there ever the like o' that ? I trow the dead fouk o' Earl-
stoun 's no to lippen to.'
JEDBURGH — {EoxburgJishire).
Jethai*t justice — first hang a man, and syne judge him.
According to Crawford, in his Memoirs, the phrase Jed-
burgh justice took its rise in 1574, on the occasion of the
Regent Morton there and then trying- and condemning,
with cruel precipitation, a vast number of people who had
offended against the laws, or against the supreme cause of
his lordship's faction. A different origin is assigned by the
* Curlews.