Craig Brown quotes "The Retoured
Extent of 1628," "an unimpeachable authority." For the Crown charter
of 1609, we have only to look up "Dodbank" in the Register of the Great
Seal of 1609. The charter is of November 24, 1609, and gratifies
"Robert Scott of Satscheillis" (father of the Captain Walter Scott who
composed the Metrical History of the Scotts in 1688) with the lands,
which have been occupied by him and his forefathers "from a time past
human memory." Thus, writes Mr. Craig Brown to me, "Scott of Satchells
was undoubtedly Scott of Dodhead also in 1609."
In "The Retoured Extent of 1628," "Dodhead or Dodbank" appears as
Harden's property. Thus in 1628 the place was "Dodhead or Dodbank," a
farm that had been tenanted by Scotts "from beyond human memory." But
Mr. Craig Brown proves from record that one Simpson farmed it in 1510.
So where does Jamie Telfer come in?
The farmers were Scotts, it was to their chief, Buccleuch, that they
went when they needed aid. {101a}
Thus vanishes the hero of the ballad, Jamie Telfer in the Fair Dodhead,
and thus the ballad is pure fiction from end to end.
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