THE BORDER REIVER Volume 11, Number 4 Voice of Clan Hall Society December 2004

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Horsemanship and combat was such an integral part of the Border Reiver’s world that it lent its name—chivalry— to its ideological core.

The peoples of the Border Reiver’s time, who had the deepest and most intimate relations with horses, were nei-ther Celts nor Romans. They were, instead, descendants of the first horse riders.

Around 700 BC, several thou-sand years after the Old People came, groups of horse-riding warriors were seen in the Tweed valley. They came from continental Europe and they spoke a language called P-Celtic. Tall, fair-headed and vigorous, they brought a military technology based on the horse and chariot which must have given them an immediate and terrifying dominance over the

river-folk they found in southern Scotland.

Not until 79 AD, when Gnaeus Julius Agricola, the governor of Britannia, marched his legions over the Cheviot Hills into the Bor-

ders, was the peace and tran-quility shattered by the arrival of the Roman army. As of the political geography is under-stood, the Votadini tribe inhab-ited a swathe of country in the eastern Borders, from the Lo-thian plain down into Northum-berland, while the hills to the west were occupied by the Sel-govae. From the Roman [Trimontium] garrisons near Newstead, which are almost absent from the country east of Lauderdale, it is generally sur-mised that the Votadini were a peaceful tribe, whereas the lands of the warlike Selgovae had to be held at some strength.

Under the Emperor Marcus Aurelius (161-180AD), the Ro-man Army campaigned for eight years in the central and north-ern parts of the Carpathian Basin, north and east of the (continued pg 3)

Origins - Border Reiver Riding Families

Teviotdale — Battle Harden / Romantic Reiver Country The romance of the Borders comes alive in the ruined abbeys and fortifications that punctuate the land-scape, river vistas and splendid views from Sir Wal-ter Scott’s “delectable mountains.”

The countryside in the area where Tweed and Teviot rivers meet is some of the most varied in the Borders. To the east around Morebattle are high, bold hills and deep-cut valleys like those of the Bowmont and Kale Waters leading into the

heart of the Cheviot massif. As you go westward to the Teviot, the hills become lower and more gentle. Beyond the Teviot and to the north of the Tweed, the landscape is lower but roll-ing, with innumerable oval mounds, or ‘drumlins’, of boul-der clay laid down under a mas-sive ice sheet from the Ice Age. These drumlins, often a mile or more in length, are frequently topped by farmsteads and sometimes small villages such as Samailholm. They are sepa-rated by wetter hollows where even centuries of agricultural

Septs of Clan Hall Collingwood

Crispin De Aula

Fitz Williams Hal

Hale Haile Haul

Haule Haw

Mac Hall

Inside this issue: President’s Desk 2

Search for your Scot-tish Roots - “Reiver roots may not be Scot-tish at all”

6

Clan Hall Society Offi- 7

Editor’s Notes 8

King Arthur - Movie presents the Sarmar-

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improvement have not always succeeded in removing patches of marsh and rank sedges or small pools and lochans.

The soil of the lower part of the Terviot valley forms good arable land in many places, but the moorland is never far away. A small rise in altitude soon brings you into the domain of the sturdy Blackface and the Cheviot. This low country is broken up by isolated higher,

(continued pg 4)

Sarmatians in Roman Service 175 - 410AD with draconarius banner

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As I begin this column, I note that the year has nearly ended, and has been quite a busy one for me. I want to take this time to wish each of you the best in

the upcoming holiday season.

I have been a bit behind in getting things done due to illness. I had surgery again in late November to repair the sternum wires which have ruptured and left my sternum detached. Hopefully, this will be the last surgery I will need. I know how a turkey feels as I have been "carved" quite a bit this year.

I have recently retired, and will be mov-ing to North Carolina prior to Christmas. Judy and I had planned to move to North Carolina when we retired, and we will be moving a bit earlier than previously planned. We have children living in North Carolina at this time, so that will make the transition easy.

I would like to request that each of you notify the Membership Secretary and Newsletter Editor of any changes of ad-dresses, phones, etc., which will make it easy for us to contact you, and to ensure that you receive your newsletter and other correspondence.

It isn't too early to start making plans for our 2005 Annual General Business

Meeting, which will be held in conjunc-tion with the Glasgow Highland Games, in Glasgow, Kentucky, on 3-5 June 2005. Please make reservations to attend this year. Your clan society will also be repre-sented at a number of festivals during the coming year, and you are encour-aged to attend.

I will make this article brief, as I am in the process of relocating, and also pre-paring for the upcoming surgery. In the March 2005 issue of "The Border Reiver," I will provide you with informa-tion relative to the Glasgow Highland Games and our AGBM.

You are encouraged to submit articles for inclusion in the newsletter which will make it entertaining and informative.

I look forward to meeting all of you dur-ing the upcoming year. Sincerely, Aye!

TàÄtá WA [tÄÄ Atlas D. Hall, FSA (Scot.) President

President’s Desk

THE BORDER REIVER

President Atlas and Mrs. Judy E. Hall

King Arthur — Movie Presents the Sarmatian Story A £70 MILLION Disney blockbuster portraying King Arthur as a Roman soldier is the true story — or as close as we will ever get.

In King Arthur Clive Owen played Lucius Artorius Castus, a warrior from the Caspian Sea who allied himself with the Roman cause and was posted to Hadrian’s Wall in the second century AD. Disney marketed the Jerry Bruckheimer epic, released this last summer, as the definitive version of the Ar-thur legend, stripped of fantasy and based on historical research. Disney told the authority that its film depicted Arthur as Artorius, leader of a band of Sarmatians, warriors from eastern Europe who joined the Roman army after they were defeated by the Romans in battle.

The film has Artorius and his warriors joining forces with the woad-wearing rebel Britons to battle the invading Saxons. There is historical evidence that Artorius was a military commander born in AD140 and posted to Northern England by the Roman Army. Disney argued that this was the figure on whom the King Arthur legends were based. The Sarmatians influenced the legends because they revered a sword stuck point downwards in the earth and ate at round tables.

John Matthews, author of King Arthur: Dark Age Warrior And Mythic Hero, said: “Our Arthur Castus is a fictional character who we say is a half-Roman, half-British descendant of the original. The idea is that the story of the real Lucius is the seed from which later Arthurian legends grew.”

The advertising authority noted that “scholars’ opinions were divided on whether Lucius Artorius Castus was the man on whom the figure of King Ar-thur was based.” But it considered that viewers would “understand that the film was a work of fiction and were likely to interpret the claim as differentiat-ing between events that could have happened and myths.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1382280,00.html http://video.movies.go.com/kingarthur/mainsite.html

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Not only did these men add to the sum of native horse and cavalry knowledge, but also their terrifying standard gave us a peculiarly British name for a cavalry trooper, a dragoon. The Draconarius standard and colors have a curious reso-nance in the Red Dragon of Wales.

Sarmatians were stationed in permanent camps outside the Roman forts at Rib-chester in Lancashire, Chester, at Ha-drian's Wall and forward in the frontier garrisons (i.e. Trimontium). The cavalry’s job was to patrol the “no man’s land” in front of the wall north into southern Scot-land. They were working in the lands of these independent Britons and doubt-less mixing with them socially as well as fighting alongside them, scouting for signs of barbarian Pictish raiding parties and intercepting them before they be-sieged the wall.

The Celts were already a society that used the horse widely for warfare. The Romans trained them and in southern Scotland showed how policing and war-fare could be carried out successfully on horseback. The Sarmatians created mili-tary stud farms to breed replacement horses as needed. Their cavalry horses were generally much smaller than those we see today. The largest were about fourteen hands and the smallest eleven. Riders’ legs would dangle lower than the bellies of some these animals.

After the withdrawal of the Roman army in 410 AD, the Sarmatians stayed and continued to live in their accustomed sites (Chester, Ribchester, etc.), raising

new generations of cavalrymen, and passed their skills, knowl-edge and customs into the Brit-ish mainstream.

They were still called Sarmatians after 250 years. The semi-historic Arthur lived about 500 AD. He was very probably a de-scendant of those Sarmatian horsemen, a battle leader of the Romanized Celts and Britons against the Anglo-Saxons, who invaded Britain after the Roman army had withdrawn. Arthur and his military leaders trained the natives as armored horseman after Iranian patterns used

against the attacks of Angles and Saxons fighting on foot, until their victory at Badon Hill.

The Border Scots have long been noted horse breeders. Such horses were ideal all-purpose mounts both for peace-time raiders and war-time light cavalry.

Thus were the beginnings of very long tradi-tions which were embraced by the Border Reiver riding families and persist in the pre-sent day annual Riding of the Marches— Common Riding festivals.

Origins - Border Reiver Riding Families (con’t)

Volume 11, Number 4

Roman lines along the Danube River against the Quadi, a Ger-man tribe, and Sarmatians [’lizard people’ - clothed fully in scale armor], Iranian speaking barbarians who came from east of the Carpathians, from the south Russian steppe and from the Lower Danube Plains near the Black Sea. After hard but victorious battles, the Sar-matian tribe Lazyges’ king Zanticus agreed to hand over 8,000 horsemen as hostages, with 5,500 Sarmatian cavalry consisting of prisoners of war. They were posted to Britain in 175 AD. Marcus Aurelius sent these warriors to Britannia, the first steppe

n o m a d s w i t h m a y b e 1 5 , 0 0 0 t o u g h s t e p p e w a r -h o r s e s , s ta l l i ons a n d m a r e s

with colts at their side, to establish a breeding pool at their destination to de-ploy them along the empire’s frontier hot spot, Hadrian's Wall and beyond. The Sarmatians were pressed into the Ro-man army as auxiliary cavalry, and riding under their own banner of the flying dragon [draconarius] (see cover picture), consisting of a red silken windsock sewn into the shape of a serpentine dragon which hissed when filled with air as its bearer charged into battle. The Sarma-tians, with their women-warriors (Greeks called them Amazons), were nomadic fighting horsemen riding fine quality thoroughbred horses, capable of cover-ing enormous distances either in pursuit or fight, riding horses that are swift and tractable. Sarmatians were swordsmen. They used long slashing swords [28—51 inches long] delivering blows at close quarters from the saddle, literally cutting people down. They also used bows and arrows and a two-handed spear/lance [9—14 feet long]. The armor garment of Sarmatian cavalry was the scale cuirass covered with iron and brass scales, and later made from split horse hooves.

Source acknowledgement: Arthur the Dragon King - The Barbaric Roots of British’s Greatest Legend, by Howard Reid, ISBN 0-7472-7557-2 Arthur and the Lost Kingdom, by Alistair Moffat, ISBN 0-297-64324-X The Sarmatians 600BC—AD450, Brzezinski & Mielczarek, ISBN 1-84176-485-X The Steel Bonnets, by George MacDonald Fraser, ISBN 0-00-272746-3 Web Sites: http://www.dragonbear.com/arthur.html

Sarmatian Homeland

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steeper hills produced by intrusions of volcanic lava among the sand-stones. Capped by monuments or prehis-toric hillforts — in the case of Penial Heugh, near Ancrum, by both—they form useful land-marks; the Minto hills, the craggy outcrops at Smailholm and Redpath Hill north of Bemersyde are examples.

The western part of the area is dominated by the Eildon Hills, rem-nants of a mass of vol-canic lava. The summit of the northernmost of the hills is ringed by concentric lines of ram-parts defending a large Iron Age fort. This was probably the oppidum, or capital, of the warlike tribe known to the Ro-mans as the Selgovae, who occupied the middle Tweed basin and Teviotdale at the time of the first Roman incursions [79 AD] into Scotland. The ramparts seem to have been deliberately slighted and dismantled, presumably to prevent any further trouble from the natives.

The Romans built their own fort beside the Tweed at Newstead at the foot of the Eil-dons, trusting to the discipline of their legionnaires and the quality of their fortifi-

cations rather than to an inaccessible site. As a result, surface traces of their fortress have been completely obliter-ated although its out-lines have been recov-ered by excavations.

Immediately below the Eildons the Tweed sweeps round in a broad loop. In the neck

of this loop was Old Melrose, an early Christian monastic site that predated by many centuries the later and much more impressive Cistercain abbey two miles upstream at Melrose. Although no re-mains of this early religious community survive, an earthwork across the neck of

the meander marks the boundary of the monastic precincts.

The Romans’ main road through eastern Scotland, Dere Street, cuts straight across Teviotdale north of Jedburgh. Its line is followed by a series of minor roads and farm tracks and, close to St Boswells, part of the A68 highway.

North of Ancrum, between the A68 and the line of Dere Street, is the site of the Battle of Ancrum Moor [1545], one of the less well-known Scottish victories. This fight was an episode in the notori-ous ‘Rough Wooing’ when Henry VIII used force to persuade the Scots to agree to a marriage between the infant Queen Mary and his son Edward. 3000 horsemen under Lord Eure, tired and laden with plunder, were ambushed by a hastily assembled force of borderers commanded by the Earl of Angus and Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch. Eure’s army contained a contingent of Scottish borderers who, out of a mixture of calcu-lation and conviction, were fighting on the English side. As Eure’s riders fell back in dismay, his Scottish allies tore off their red crosses and turned on the Englishmen. The result was a rout.

It is said that an Amazonian (Sarmatian

heritage?) girl called Lilliard fought on the Scottish side at Ancrum Moor and was killed in the battle. The ridge on which the battle was fought is still known as Lilliard’s Edge. A stone near Dere Street is said to mark her grave. It once bore an in-script ion, com-memorating the maiden, wh ich ended:

“…...Upon the English loons She laid many thumps, And when her legs were cuttit off She fought upon her stumps.”

Historians will, of course, point out that the name ‘Lilliard’s Edge’ is recorded in documents before the date of the battle.

The history of Teviotdale in the 15th and 16th centuries is dominated by the Scotts of Buccleuch, whose seat was at Branxholme, near Hawick. They were one of the most powerful families in the Borders. Wardens of the Scottish Middle March, as well as inveterate reivers and raiders, squabbled with their neighbors when they were not raiding across the border. Their most notable feud was with the Kerrs of Cessford and the Ferni-hurst, the most prominent family in the area east of the teviot. Local surnames [including Halls, Robsons, Burns, Youngs, Collingwoods, Pringles and oth-ers] and place names such as Kers-mains and Kersknowe still testify to their former influence. The remains of the principal seat of the Kerrs, Cressford Castle, stands on a ridge above the ham-let of the same name near Morebattle. The ruins of a central tower and the foundations of outbuildings with a gate-house can be seen enclosed within a strong earthwork and stone wall. It is

Teviotdale — Battle Harden / Romantic Reiver Country (cont.)

THE BORDER REIVER

Teviotdale...one of three areas along

the English/Scottish border occupied by

the Halls. - The Steel Bonnets

G. MacDonald Fraser

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difficult to believe that in 1523 this was described by an English commentator as one of the strongest castles in Scotland. In that year, however, it was unsuccess-fully besieged by the Earl of Surrey com-manding a full army supported by siege artillery. It was finally taken and de-stroyed during the English invasion of 1544.

Teviotdale was always vulnerable to raid-ing across the Cheviots from Redesdale and Tynedale, as well as to more system-atic devastation in the time of war. Sto-ries of the Border raids and reiving in this area profoundly influenced one of Scot-land’s greatest writers. Sir Walter Scott, the “Author of Waverley,” is closely asso-ciated with this area. The tales about local people during reiving days of the ‘steel bonnets’ fired his imagination as did the near by remains of Smailholm Tower, perched grim and gaunt on its volcanic craigs and visible for miles around.

Teviotdale provided him with the setting for The Lay of the Last Min-strel (1805), his first great epic poem, which established him as a literary figure before he turned to writing novels. It is not often read today; its chivalrous view of Border society in the 16th century is too idealized to ring true, while the supernatural element in the poem, which abounds with ghosts, gob-lins and warlocks, is unconvincing. Nevertheless, the descriptive pas-sages relating to the Border landscape that Scott knew so well still come over as effective and powerful.

The dangers of being too close to Eng-land can be appreciated in the area where Teviot and Tweed meet. A huge mound of glacial debris delays the junc-tion of these two powerful streams.

Around the mound are traces of defen-sive ditches. This was the site of Rox-burgh Castle, one of the strongest me-dieval fortresses in the Borders. The castle was alternately in English and Scottish hands: it was while besieging it that James II was killed by the bursting of one of his own guns in 1460.

Below the mound of Roxburgh Castle lies the site of the medieval town of Rox-

burgh. Once one of Scotland’s most important burghs, situated at the first bridge over the Tweed above Berwick, it succumbed, like the castle, to succes-sive English attacks. A suburb of the town developed at Springwood Park, south of the Teviot, and some of the 14th-century houses have recently been excavated. If you climb to the summit of the mound, you will find only a few stumps of walling; they are not the re-mains of the medieval castle but of a 16th-century fort built by forces of Pro-tector Somerset. From the top, you can look across the river to the magnificent country mansion of Floor Castle. The original building was completed by Wil-liam Adam in 1721. Floors were modi-fied and extended in the 19th century and transformed from plain Georgian to ornate Gothic in style; its scale becomes almost palatial.

North of Tweed, near the entrance to Floors Castle, stands the site of the mercat cross of Wester Kelso, a burgh set up by the monks of Kelso in an en-terprising effort to siphon off some of the trade of Roxburgh. Although cattle fairs continued to be held on this site into the 18th century, this burgh too has vanished. In this case, it may not have been invading English armies that were to blame. Possibly Wester Kelso was devastated by a fire in 1684. Today the center of gravity of Kelso has shifted further east to the area immediately around the ruined abbey. Badly dam-aged by English forces in the early 16th century and then used as a convenient stone quarry after the Reformation, just enough remains of the abbey to indicate how fine the original building must have been.

The largest of the Border burghs, Hawick, is located at the juncture of Slitrig Water and the River Teviot. The name derives from the Anglican settles of southeastern Scotland, who crossed the national border between Anglo-Saxon England and Celtic Scotland in waves of migra-tion during the 6th and 7th centuries AD. The Anglo-Saxon word wic means a settlement, and Hawick means “hedge settlement.”

A church was founded here in 687AD, and the Motte Hill is thought to be the site of a feudal manor court. Excavations in 1912 re-vealed a number of objects in the ditch around the moat that dated to the 12th century. At the time King William the Lion

granted Richard Lovel, the towns of Hawick and Branxholme, and per-haps the moat is what is left of this former lord’s castle.

Hawick was also the scene of a shocking display of the “might makes right” mentality characteris-tic of the Middle Ages chivalry. Wil-liam Douglas, known as the “Knight of Liddesdale,” had ambitions in the Borders area that were blocked by Alexander Ramsay, recently ap-pointed sheriff (judge) of Teviotdale. Ramsay held his sheriff court in the parish church of Hawick on 20 June

1342. In the course of the proceedings, a band of Douglas’s men attacked and seized Teviotdale’s sheriff. Douglas carted the captive sheriff off to Hermitage Castle in Liddesdale. The prisoner did not live long in Douglas’s dungeons. But Douglas, whose fighting prowess made him too valuable an ally to King David II, was pardoned for the murder.

Like many of the towns, abbeys and cas-tles in the Borders, Hawick has suffered from intermittent warfare between Scots and English. The town was burned down by the English raiders early in the 14th century, and again in 1570, when a puni-tive expedition, commanded by the Earl of (continued page 7)

Teviotdale — Battle Harden / Romantic Reiver Country (cont.)

Volume 11, Number 4

“The Halls of Teviotdale were witnesses to and participated in the history of the re-gion.” - Editor

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Reivers roots may not be Scottish at all

No-one did more to blacken Scotland’s name than the 70 lawless clans of Bor-ders "mafia" who specialized in murder, kidnapping and cattle-rustling for more than three centuries.

Bloodshed and blackmail, the hallmarks of the Border Reivers, have always been blamed on their Celtic or Pictish ancestry, adding to the reputation of the Scots as a violent and intolerant people.

But that reputation could yet be scuppered by mod-ern science, which is al-ready indicating that Arm-strongs, Douglases, Elliotts, Grahams, Rutherfords and other families who ren-dered the Borders ungov-ernable up to the end of the 16th century, were not

necessarily descended from Scotland’s earliest settlers.

The first results from the Border Reiver DNA Project, set up by a computer soft-ware consultant from Boston, Massa-chusetts, shows the gangsters who perfected protection rackets long be-fore Chicago was built may well have

had their roots in Scandi-navia, Eastern Europe or even North Africa.

James Elliott, the project administrator, has spent the last few months ana-lyzing the results of 600 DNA profiles taken from males with Reiver sur-names, including a direct descendant of Johnnie Armstrong, the most notorious bandit of them all.

It all started when Mr. Elliott, the grand-son of Scots-Irish emigrants from Ul-ster, set out to solve the mystery of his own tribal identity.

He explained: "Boston is one of the most Irish cities in America, yet I never felt Irish because I was neither Gaelic

nor Catholic. And I couldn’t identify with the colonial founders of Boston, who were mostly English and had been there for centuries."

His own DNA test placed him in the same general group as the Celts, along with 70 per cent of men in Europe. But his closest "relatives" seemed to come from very different places.

Mr. Elliott’s nearest matches in a leading DNA database consisted of five Siberians, a Hungarian and an Icelander.

Close matches in a German databank with 25,000 worldwide profiles were from Turkey, Syria, Ukraine and several other European locations. Then a further test indicated he was 11 per cent East Asian genetically.

"I started the Border Reiver project with the Elliotts and expanded it steadily from there", he said. "I soon realized many of these families had a history of chaos and dislocation similar to my own.

"They had been pushed back and forth between Scotland and England, then ejected to Ireland to serve as a buffer between the Irish and their English land-lords, and finally to America.

"Here, too, they became people of the borderland between European and native American, between patriot and loyalist and between Union and Confederate."

The 600 profiles assembled by Mr. Elliott and his colleague David Strong currently represent 75 different families.

But Mr. Elliott says a few are Borders families who co-existed with the Reivers and had observed them, policed them, or had been their victims.

"There has been strong interest in the project both from the United States and also from people in the British Isles," he said.

The analysis of the genetic composition of individual families, and of the Border Reiv-ers as a whole, has followed similar meth-odology to the recent BBC program, “The Blood of the Vikings.”

According to Mr. Elliott:, "So far we have discovered that, although a moderate majority of the Reivers’ descendents most likely have British Celtic ancestors, their ancestry as a whole is quite diverse. Many are clearly of Anglo-Saxon or Scandinavian

origin. Others exhibit DNA profiles that may once have been North African or Mid-dle Eastern or, like my own profile, bear an uncanny affinity with the people of eastern Europe or with the steppes of central Asia."

The study also suggests that the large number of Roman troops stationed along Hadrian’s Wall may have left a strong impact on the genetic heritage of the peo-ple of the Borders.

Searching for your Scottish Roots

THE BORDER REIVER

"So far, we have discovered that, although a moder-ate majority of the Reivers’ descen-dents most likely have British Celtic ancestors, their ancestry as a whole is quite di-verse……”

James Elliott

Source Acknowledgement: By WILLIAM CHISHOLM

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=993882004

Flowers of the Forest Ernest Edward Hall, b.Mar 26, 1909, passed away Nov 28 at the age of 95. His parents were Joseph and Minnie (Brittain) Hall, formerly of Darlington, in the county of Durham. Mr. Hall leaves his wife of 65 years, Char-lotte, 5 children and their spouses, 12 grandchildren and 28 great grandchil-dren.

“We as a family are saddened by his passing, but we celebrate the life that he lived. I know that he will be reunited with the family that has gone before him.” Maureen Hall, granddaughter

Camrose, Alberta, Canada

The Border Reiver DNA Project has already identified a number of Border riding families with the Sarma-tians, Vikings and others ……

Editor

NOTE: The border region between Scotland and England has been a melt-ing pot since before The Middle Ages. It is a contention of the Elliott (And Border Reivers) DNA Project that many of these clans have multiple progenitors, possibly of quite different ancestry, and that many of them may also share some of the same ancestors. The Lowland Scots were a mixture of eight main groups - Picts, Gaelic Scotti, Brythonic Celts, Irish emi-grants, Angles, Saxons, Norse and the descendants of the soldiers who manned the frontier forts of Roman Britain, that included the Sarmatians. Editor

7

Surrey, burned several Border towns and castles that had harbored fugitives from the failed Northern Rising against Queen Elizabeth.

Hawick’s position as the centre of the surrounding farms of Teviotdale meant that whatever the ravages done by Eng-lish raiders, the town would be rebuilt. When peace came with the Union of Crowns in 1603, a long period of stabil-ity culminated in the laying of founda-tions for the boom industry of knitwear in 1771. The importance of textile manufacturing to the initial stages of the Industrial Revolution placed a pros-perous future before Hawick. Hawick today commemorates the violent former days of English-Scottish warfare each June in its Common Riding. The story that lies behind this annual event dates to 1514, following the Battle of Flodden,

when English raiders made frequent sorties into the Borders. Hawick’s “callants” surprised the English party and captured their banner. Today the riding is led by a cornet, who bears a replica of the banner.

The countryside of Teviotdale is dotted with attractive villages. Many, like An-crum, were local market centres in the 16th century and proudly display their scarred and battered mercat crosses. Some have fine parish kirks, such as the one at Bowden that was rebuilt in the 17th century to incorporate a laird’s loft with a burial vault below.

At Linton near Morebattle, the church is first recorded in 1160. Although rebuilt several times since then, it still incorpo-rates a Norman sculptured panel over the doorway. Traces of earlier Christian-

ity can also be found. The church at An-crum has a hogback tombstone dating from Viking days. Others can be seen in the churches at Nisbet and Lempitlaw, east Kelso in what is undoubtly one of the most fascinating parts of the Borders to explore. [Next Issue: Liddesdale — Heart of Border Reiver Country]

Teviotdale — Battle Harden / Romantic Reiver Country (cont.)

Secretary:

Debbie Hall Tel: (330) 270-0387 5695 Cider Mill Crossing Youngstown, OH 44515 E-mail: DAHSIGN1@aol.com

Treasurer:

Henry R. Dorton Tel: (502) 737-7053 172 Timbercrest Drive Elizabethtown, KY 42701 E-mail: Rmblr57602@aol.com

Membership Secretary:

Sharon Hall Tel: (828) 652-1278 3429 Mentlink Way Nebo, NC 28761 E-mail: ladyblue12@hotmail.com

North Carolina Commissioner:

Jim & Sharon Hall Tel: (828) 652-1278 3429 Mentlink Way Nebo, NC 28761 E-mail: hamtone@hotmail.com ladyblue12@hotmail.com

President

Atlas D. Hall Tel: (606) 889-9827 50 Burchett Trir. Ct. Prestonburg, KY 41653-1948 E-mail: adjehall@bellsouth.net

Executive Vice-President:

Jay Hampton Tel: (708) 301-8331 14439 Bell Road Lockport, IL 60441 E-mail:

Vice-President—Eastern Region:

John A. "Skip” Hall Tel: (330) 270-0387 5695 Cider Mill Crossing Youngstown, OH 44515 E-mail: Skipten29@aol.com

Vice-President—Western Region:

David H. Hall Tel: (541) 855-9551 8917 John Day Drive Gold Hill, OR 97525-9612 E-mail: borderreiver@starband.net

Kentucky Commissioner:

Goshen Hall 988 Puncheon Road Kite, KY 41828 E-mail:

Pennsylvania Commissioner:

Ruth Ann Shaw 1597 Frey Road Felton, PA 17322-8016 E-mail: halescots@cplx.net

California/Arizona Commissioner:

Jack H. Hall, Jr. Tel: (760) 949-6999 114460 Courtside St. Victorville, CA 92392 E-mail: JHHALL6980@aol.com

Clan Hall Society Officers 2003 –2004

Volume 11, Number 4

Source Acknowledgement: Discover Scotland, Vol 4 Part 45, Teviot-dale, by Ian Whyte, pg. 1248—1260, 1986. The Borders 1, by Alan Spence, ISBN 0-85976-360-9. The Borders Book, Edited by Donald Omand, ISBN 1-874744-73-4. The Border [from a soldier’s point of view], by Brig.Gen. William Sitwell, 1927. Border Art [map], http://www.dunmaps.demon.co.uk/bordermap.html

Visit us on the Web at: http://tartans.com/clans/Hall/hall.html

The Border Reiver Voice of Clan Hall Society

David H. Hall, FSA (Scot.), Editor 8917 John Day Drive

Gold Hill, OR 97525-9612

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tion is even more interesting given the current events centered in the Middle East

My recently processed DNA, with FamilyTreeDNA in the Border Reiver Project, for mtDNA and 37 Y-chromosome DNA markers indicate I’m of the British / Celtic descen-dants, with 12—25 markers match-ing with Elliotts and Armstrongs in the database. Also, I have an 11 of 12 marker match with one of our members. I encourage members of Clan Hall Society to participate in the Border Reiver DNA Project, so we can benefit from this tool in researching our family roots.

Teviotdale—Battle Harden / Roman-tic Reiver Country is the first of three articles that will be featured in future TBR issues. Overviews of the historical regions in the Borders, noted in The Steel Bonnets, by G. MacDonald Fraser, where Halls resided during the turbulent years of

the Border Reivers will be pre-sented.

Lastly, I am reading a fascinating book new book by James Webb, a Marine and former Secy. of the Navy under President Reagan, about the history of the Scots-Irish people/Clans who lived along the Scottish/English border and moved to the Appalachian Mts. He talks about their and why we have such great leaders and fighting men in America. Born Fighting, How the Scots-Irish Shaped America,ISBN:0-7679-1688-3. Avai lable at www.Amazon. COM for $17.13.

Happy [Hogmanay] New Year !

borderreiver@starband.net

Editor’s Notes As the holiday Season approaches Pam and I send you best wishes for a wonderful holiday and a great

New Year.

In this issue of TBR, the three featured articles are connected and are based on information I have been researching for most of the year. The Border Reiver DNA Project identifies po-tential connections be-tween Sarmatians (Iranian origins) and Border Scots-Irish families. This is an intriguing basis for our heritage that we are inter-twined with the early his-tory of Britain during the Roman occupation, and how Celts influenced tradi-tions and culture of the Border riding families.

This 200 year-old connec-

David Hall, Editor