Introduction to the Valleys

The 'Heart of the Forest' - the head of the Yarrow and Ettrick Valleys and the surrounding 'mountains' - is unique. Once part of the great Ettrick Forest, this last stronghold kept its wilderness status and trees long after the rest of the Forest had been 'tamed'.

The 'Heart of the Forest' was, and still is, a beautiful place that the world seems to have passed by but in fact the area is steeped in history, myth and legend. Its contribution to the cultural and literary life of Scotland enormous: Merlin, Arthur, Wallace, Bruce, the Black Douglases, plundering Reivers and fleeing Covenanters - all knew its hills, rivers and valleys. Here Scotland's kings hunted wolf, deer and, sometimes, men. Monks cut down its oaks to build their abbeys and yet other trees were felled for fuel and to clear land for grazing. Despite this gradual disappearance of wooded land, the spirit of 'The Forest' lives on in the imagination of the people, and has inspired great oral traditions and ballads as well as poetry and prose.

By kind permission of Frank Harkness