Dryfe, a small river of Annandale, Dumfriesshire, rising in the northern extremity of Hutton parish, at an altitude of 1900 feet, on the southern slope of Loch Fell (2256 feet), within 1¼ mile of the Selkirkshire border, and 5½ miles E by S of Moffat. Thence it runs 18½ miles southward and south-south-westward, through the northern half of Hutton, across the eastern wing of Applegarth, and through the W of Dryfesdale, till it falls into the Annan at a point 2 miles W of Lockerbie, and 140 feet above sea-level. Its basin, above Hutton church, is hilly moorland; but, in the middle and lower parts, is champaign country, nearly all under the plough. Open to the public, its waters contain abundance of trout, herlings, and a few salmon. In fair weather small and singularly limpid, it swells after heavy rain into rapid and roaring freshet, and occasionally, over breadths of rich loamy soil, cuts out a new channel. The ancient parish church of Dryfesdale stood on Kirkhill, on the SE of the Dryfe. In 1670, both it and part of its graveyard were swept away, and their site converted into a sand-bed, by one of the Dryfe's impetuous inundations. Next year, a new church was built near the former site, on what was thought a more secure spot; yet even this was, in a few years, so menaced by the encroachments of the river, which tore away piece after piece of the graveyard, that, along with its site, it was finally abandoned. These disasters were regarded as the verification of an old saying of Thomas the Rhymer, which a less astute observer of the furiously devastating power of the Dryfe than he might very safely have uttered-
'Let spades and shools do what they may,
Dryfe shall tak Drysdale kirk away.'
The church of 1670, and even greater part of the cemetery, have now wholly disappeared. A story has long been current in Annandale, that 'a Dryfesdale man once buried a wife and married a wife in ae day,' which fell out thus. A widower, after mourning for a reasonable time the spouse whom he had buried in Dryfesdale, was proceeding, on a wet and stormy day, to take to himself a second helpmate, when, crossing the bridge at the head of the bridal party, he saw the coffin of his former wife falling from 'the scaur' into the torrent, and gliding towards the spot on which he stood. To rescue it from the water, and re-commit it to the earth was no long task, after which the wedding proceeded merrily. The tract along the lowermost reach of the Dryfe is a stretch of low level land, consisting of silt and detritus brought down by the freshets, and called Dryfe Sands. The spot is memorable as the scene of a sanguinary conflict, in Dec. 1593, between the Maxwells and the Johnstones. The former, though much superior in numbers, were routed and pursued with the loss of 700 men, including their commander, Lord Maxwell. Many, on reaching Lockerbie, were there cut down in a manner so ruthless as to give rise to the proverbial phrase for a severe wound, 'a Lockerbie lick.' Two very aged thorn-trees, the 'Maxwell Thorns,' stood on the field of conflict, ½ mile below the old churchyard of Dryfesdale, but about 1845 were swept away by a freshet.—Ord. Sur., shs. 16,10, l864. See pp. 232-234 1f870) ert Chambers' Popular Rhymes of Scotland (ed.
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