A History of Dumfries and Galloway (1900) 12+

📒 "One of two different objects, it seems to me, ought to be kept in view in compiling a summary of the history of any province. On the one hand, a writer may devote himself to collecting and repeating the traditions lingering among the people, and transcribing events from the narratives of former chroniclers, without making too searching inquiry into the evidence on which they rest. On the other hand, he may venture to reject such local lore as will not endure critical analysis, and, working in the light of the research which during the last two centuries has been so patiently and fruitfully directed on the records of the past, apply himself to sift what is authentic from what rests only on hearsay, and confine himself to preparing what shall be a concise and trustworthy, even though it may be a dry, narrative of such events as are capable of historic proof. It is the latter of these objects that I have set before me. The time is not unfitting for an impartial and dispassionate review of the course of events and social change in Dumfriesshire and Galloway, concise enough to be within reach of those connected with the south-west, conscientious enough to be relied on as a text-book for easy reference, and leaving undisturbed, save where necessity arises for dispelling fallacy, the accumulations of fable and tradition which have gathered over the past. The ballad literature of the south-west is so profuse and picturesque, and so closely woven into the true story of our countr...