It is the second fastest rising river in Scotland, and it runs through the village of Ettrickbridge some dozen miles downstream, and the old town of Selkirk.

"Laverlaw", the fictional estate of Sandy Arbuthnot, Lord Clanroyden, in the works of John Buchan, is set near Ettrick.

Robert Louis Stevenson's hero David Balfour in Kidnapped hails from the fictitious village of "Essendean" in Ettrick Forest.

It is also mentioned in the traditional Scottish folksong, "Ettrick Lady", recorded by The Corries.

His seminal work, Human Nature in its Fourfold State, was widely read throughout Scotland by people of all classes and is still in print today.