Guid Nychburris

I took Mae to see the "Riding of the Marches" on Saturday. Before we came to Dumfries, I only had a vague idea of what that meant but it seems common in most towns around here and in the Scottish Borders. It involves riding around the town boundaries on horses and usually some kind of symbolic pairing of a couple of lucky young people. In Dumfries you have the Cornet and the Lass and the Queen of the South and it all comes under the auspices of some kind of society called the "Guid Nychburris" (Think drunken young farmers rather than anything as sinister as the Masonic Lodge).

Apparently the "Riding of the Marches" goes back to mediaeval times when its purpose was to dissuade any greedy local landowners from encroaching on the town boundaries and I'm only guessing that the Cornet, Lass and Queen of the South has something to do with fertility. Whether this is the fertility of the land or the population, I couldn't say as nobody says much about it.

Anyway here's some pictures (they are not very good as we met up with Liza, Mae's Child minder who made me nervous by telling the story of when when her sister's horse (minus her sister) came galloping along the footpath we were standing on, so I had one eye looking through the camera, one eye on the horses and an arm around Mae. I'm no expert but I think some may have been already under the influence judging by the whooping and yelling.)

G.

PS. Happy Birthday Sharon