Chapter IV

WHO WAS THE FARMER IN THE DODHEAD IN 1580–1609?

Colonel Elliot has made no attempt to prove that one Telfer was tenant of the Dodhead in 1580–1603, which must, we shall see, include the years in which the alleged incidents occur. On this question—was there a Telfer in the Dodhead in 1580–1603?—I consulted my friend, Mr. T. Craig Brown, author of an excellent _History of Selkirkshire_. In that work (vol. i. p. 356) the author writes: “Dodhead or Scotsbank; Dodhead was one of the four stedes of Redefurd in 1455. In 1609 Robert Scot of Satchells (ancestor of the poet-captain) obtained a Crown charter of the lands of Dodbank.” For the statement that Dodhead was one of the three stedes in 1455, Mr. Craig Brown quotes “The Retoured Extent of 1628,” “an unimpeachable authority.” For the Crown charter of 1609, we have only to look up “Dodbank” in the Register of the Great Seal of 1609. The charter is of November 24, 1609, and gratifies “Robert Scott of Satscheillis” (father of the Captain Walter Scott who composed the _Metrical History_ of the Scotts in 1688) with the lands, which have been occupied by him and his forefathers “from a time past human memory.” Thus, writes Mr. Craig Brown to me, “Scott of Satchells was undoubtedly Scott of _Dodhead_ also in 1609.”

In “The Retoured Extent of 1628,” “_Dodhead_ or Dodbank” appears as Harden’s property. Thus in 1628 the place was “Dodhead or Dodbank,” a farm that had been tenanted by Scotts “from beyond human memory.” But Mr. Craig Brown proves from record that one Simpson farmed it in 1510.

So where does Jamie Telfer come in?

The farmers were Scotts, it was to their chief, Buccleuch, that they went when they needed aid. {101a}

Thus vanishes the hero of the ballad, _Jamie Telfer in the Fair Dodhead_, and thus the ballad is pure fiction from end to end.