Bodesbeck Law

A historical perspective, drawn from the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, edited by Francis H. Groome and originally published in parts by Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh between 1882 and 1885.

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Bodesbeck Law, a great rounded hill on the mutual border of Dumfries and Selkirk shires, flanking the left side of Moffat Water, 7¼ miles NE of Moffat town. One of the Hartfell group, it rises immediately N of Capelfell and Ettrick Pen, which have altitudes of 2223 and 2269 feet above sea-level, and itself has an altitude of 2173 feet. Bodesbeck farm lies around its north-western skirt, and is the scene of a tradition employed by Hogg in his tale of The Brownie of Bodesbeck. This last of the browines laboured so bravely that Bodesbeck became the most well-to-do farm in the district, till the goodman one night left out for him a mess of bread and milk, when the brownie departed, crying-

'Ca', brownie, ca'
A' the luck o' Bodesbeck
Away to Leithenha'.'

An accompanying 19th C. Ordnance Survey map is available, or use the map tab to the right of this page.

Note: This text has been made available using a process of scanning and optical character recognition. Despite manual checking, some typographical errors may remain. Please remember this description dates from the 1880s; names may have changed, administrative divisions will certainly be different and there are known to be occasional errors of fact in the original text, which we have not corrected because we wish to maintain its integrity. This information is provided subject to our standard disclaimer

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