Dule tree
These "trees of lamentation or grief" were usually growing in prominent positions or at busy thoroughfares, particularly at crossroads, so that justice could be seen to have been done and as a salutary warning to others.
[2][3] In Scots, dule or duill, also dole, dowle; dwle, dul, dull, duyl, duile, doile, doill, dewle, deull, and duel.
Medieval song (sung in the round) Paterson[7] is taken by the idea that dule-trees were places where a clan met to bewail any misfortune that befell the community.
Lawson also gives these details and states that the retainers used to assemble under the tree to make lamentation upon the death of their chief, implying it was an old custom and not a 'one off.
With an army of 12,000 men he required all earls, lords, barons, freeholders, and gentlemen to meet at Edinburgh with a month's supplies, and then to proceed to Teviotdale and Annandale.
Johnnie Armstrong commanded powerful forces and from the Scots border to Newcastle of England most estates were obliged to pay tribute to him.
[11] At Cessnock Castle near Galston, East Ayrshire is a dule tree, a gnarled specimen of Castanea sativa - sweet chestnut.
[12] The dule tree at Cassillis Castle in South Ayrshire was blown down in a great storm during the winter of 1939-40 and when the rings on its trunk were counted, it was found to be about 200 years old.
[13][14] On the Water of Minnoch is a deep pool known as the 'murder hole' in which a family from Rowantree dumped their victims; they were caught, confessed and were the last to be hanged on the dule tree.
[citation needed] The ancient sycamore that stands in the shadow of Blairquhan Castle, near Straiton, South Ayrshire is thought to be a dule tree, planted early in the 16th century during the reign of King James V of Scotland.
[16] The moss-covered trunk has a girth of 5.6 metres (18 feet 4 inches), and is completely hollow, with only a very thin outer shell of sound wood supporting the tree.
The once spreading crown was heavily pruned in 1997 in an effort to preserve the fragile shell and prevent the much-weakened trunk from total collapse.
'[17] An example may still exist at Bargany in South Ayrshire where a European ash (Fraxinus excelsior), served the role of the baronial dule tree.
[citation needed] In 1685 two Covenanters, Thomas Gordon and Alexander McCubbin, were hanged on an oak tree near Kirkpatrick Irongray in Dumfries and Galloway.
[19] Auchendrane castle also (Auchindraine) in South Ayrshire sits on the banks of the River Doon and had a famous dule tree, long ago blown down in furious gale.
A tree still marks the spot and it is recorded that the condemned men sometimes had to carry their own gibbet or gallows up the hill and the hole where the post was placed still exists.
Law Mount is a common name for small earth mounds, frequently in prominent positions, such as the example near Lambroughton, Stewarton in North Ayrshire.
[citation needed] Sir Walter Scott's Waverley novel Guy Mannering features a "Justice Tree" at the Castle of Ellangowan.
The living took pains to prevent the dead from wandering the land as lost souls – or even as animated corpses, for the belief in revenants was widespread in mediæval Europe.
[citation needed] A Scottish ballad, "The Wronged Mason," tells of one Lambert Lamkin who is hanged on the dule-tree of Balwearie Castle in Fife.
[28] "The Dule Tree" was published in 2004 by Finavon Print in association with the Elphinstone Institute, to mark the end of Sheena Blackhall's residency as Creative Writer in Scots at the University of Aberdeen.
The daughter was implicated with the rest of the family in their incestuous and cannibalistic activities and was hanged by locals from the bough of the tree she herself planted.
