I love it! Not having looked in for a while, this thread reminds me why I joined the forum in the first place and is a great welcome back.
I haven't read the whole thread, but will when I get the chance this evening.
Laughed out loud at your biblical post, Goatboy, even though a bit doric-centric! There again, if the lawyer who translated the bible into the doric had his practice somewhere like Cothal-Fintray, he probably had plenty time on his hands.
Toddy, one of your posts considers the words "weans" and "bairns"
"... Bairn meant a pre pubertal child of either sex. Used to matter more because they were under the age of majority and were not legally bound in some matters.
The names are just used for children now."
... of interest to me right now, as I'm studying documents relating to C16 Scottish/English Borders -well, actually undertaking a work displacement activity at this very moment- where use of the word "bairn" has drawn my attention, as used in the likes of "Kinmont's Bairns", "Hobbie Noble's Bairns", etc.
These weren't bairns in the way we'd understand the term, and there may be a purposeful sense of the grotesque at play here, as this is use of language by those who brought the terms "gang", "hot-pursuit", "blackmail" and "kidnap" into the English language [along with the wonderfully descriptive word "nutshawed" for the treatment of a stud bull too dangerous to steal], ran protection rackets on a scale that would shock Al Capone, and referred to the then living descendant of Sir Henry Percy as... wait for it... "Cauldspur" [who "Little Jockie Elliot gaed a clank atop the stoup t'wald gar his erse atwust"]!
These "bairns", had you caught sight of them bearing down on your house before your head had time to clear of sleep, was a sight you probably wouldn't forget in a hurry... if you survived to remember it, as they were a just a tad hyperactive!
Your definition of "bairn", "because they were under the age of majority and were not legally bound in some matters." is food for thought, as it brings to mind James VI forcing the Border Lairds to swear to keep the peace on behalf of their families, tenants, servants, and those under their protection, and accept liability if they failed to do so. It couldn't have been an easy task for lairds like Sir James Johnstone, as when you look at the Annandale village of Wamphray in 1590 when James Johnstone was West March Warden, now a scatter of farm hooses and a Post Office [closed], there resided there The Gang o' Wamphrey, The Auld Gang o' Wamphray, Kirkhill's Bairns and The Lads o' Wamphray, all of which comprised of Johnstones.
It sheds an entirely different light when you realise the cynicism by which the most notorious outlaws of their day, seemingly in competition for the post of Public Enemy No. 1, turned around the concept of patriarchal dependency and that of being legally responsibile.
Ill Willed Sandy, Ill Will Elliot, Nebless Clemmie Croser, Archie "Fire-the-braes" Armstrong, The Laird's Bairns of Graham of Netherbie, and someone known only as No Guid Priest all had their "Bairns", as did Kinmont Willie Armstrong... and The Bairn's Bairns may have been the gang belonging to Kinmont's son, Jock.
A man's greatest fear though, would probably come in the form of Davy the Lady, or another notorious outlaw known as Buggerback!
