Six Of The Best: Jon Tait

Northumberland-born, Carlisle-based writer Jon Tait has a new book on the border reivers, Raiders Along The Anglo-Scottish Border, released by Pen and Sword History . It’s available to purchase here.

Just as the history of Italian-American Cosa Nostra is littered with some great nicknames – Joe Bananas, Quack-Quack, Benny Squint, the Dapper Don, and so on – the local organised criminals on the border between England and Scotland pinned some great monikers on men from the family-based gangs that rode out committing offences such as cattle theft, kidnapping for ransom, protection racketeering, burglary, arson, witness intimidation, assault and murder in the turbulent times between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries.

While many were named after the farms they hailed from, or carried their father’s, grandfather’s or even mother’s names as an identifier before their Christian names in a place where many were off the same surnames, others had more creative designations.

Here Jon gives us his six of the best…

John ‘Deid for cold’ Graham
John lived at Stubleholme in north Cumbria. His house was burned down by the Scottish Armstrongs and Irvings of Hoddom in May 1528. He obviously felt the cold and liked to twine about it. If you’ve ever stood shivering in the rain on a hill in the lakes, you’ll sympathise with him. I’ll bet he wasn’t happy feeling the heat from the flames tightening the side of his face either.

Archie ‘Dogpyntle’ Elliot
They still use the terms pyntle and peezle for male genitals in the upland farms today. How Archie, who was on a raid that took eighteen cattle and other goods worth £14 from Archie Pott in Gilsland on a Tuesday night in 1595, got his nickname is a bit of a mystery. There has been plenty speculation that Archie’s brother George, ‘Buggerback,’ who was also on that raid, was homosexual due to his nickname. However, you can still hear terms such as ‘buggerlugs’ used as an endearing term in the region today, so this might not be the case at all.

‘Nebless Clem’ Crosier
Keep your neb oot. Neb being nose. Clem’s nose was either cut off – mutilation not being an unusual offence among the border thieves – or so big that it deserved an ironic name. Clem’s nickname is among the better-known ones, along with others such as ‘Ill-drooned’ Geordie Nixon, Archie ‘Fire-the-braes’ Elliot, John ‘Out-with-the-sword’ Turnbull and Geordie ‘Henharrow’ Armstrong of the Gingles.

John ‘Bid on him Jock’ Beattie
Jock was a Liddesdale man who went on the run with a couple of hundred others as a fugitive during the pacification in 1606 after not turning up at a Hawick court to hear the charges against him. Over 200 were hanged between 1605-09 for their offences.

John ‘the Pudge’ Robson
John was a Scottish Robson from Teviotdale who was on a raid into Redesdale in 1589 with Matthew Robson and Jock Hall of the Sikes when they stole 18 cattle and a horse from John Hall of Otterburn and Jenkin Brown of Hatherwick. Maybe the Pudge had put a bit of girth on around his belly?

Peter ‘the Fart’ Elliot
Peter, from Penchrist, was among a number of Scottish reivers who had been complained about numerous times at Jedburgh court, and not just for releasing his gasses with gusto on a raid. They’d been ‘arrested and charged to find sureties’ and were warned to ‘resist from all reiff (it’s the crime that the word ‘reiver’ comes from), theft, and reset of theft’ Also named in the 1586 document were characters such as Martin ‘the Black Baird’ Elliot, John ‘the Tinkler’ Scott, Tom ‘Lippy’ Rutherford, and Will ‘Stand in the rain’ Scott.