Silly Questions about the Borders

Every place has stories.

Ours — between the Tweed, the Cheviots and the long shadow of the Middle March — has more than most.

Old stone.

Old quarrels.

Old habits that refuse to die.

And woven through all of it are the questions folk mutter in pubs, in lay-bys, on hill walks, or over the fence while pretending to check their sheep — questions they think are too daft to ask aloud.

Things like:

• Why don’t we speak French?
• Did the Vikings really leave Lindisfarne in ruins?
• Why are the Border hills dotted with tiny churches?
• Were monks ever warm?
• Why do our villages look like they’ve moved uphill and downhill several times?
• Could a reiver outrun a horse?
• Why does every ruin come with at least one ghost?
• And many, many more

These are the questions I’ve always asked — out loud, and that seems to alarm people — this series is my attempt to answer them.

Not with dry academic footnotes (though the history’s sound),

but with humour, common sense, and a healthy dose of Borders realism.

Each post takes one question and follows wherever it leads:

part history, part folklore, part observation, part mischief — always rooted in the land on both sides of the Tweed.

If you live here, you’ll recognise the places.

If you don’t, you’ll recognise the people.

The Borders has a way of being universal.

New questions are welcome — in fact, they’re encouraged.

There’s no such thing as a daft one, only the ones nobody’s asked yet.

Read More & Get Involved

👉 Read the latest Silly Questions on Substack first.

Free to subscribe, easy to read, and guaranteed to contain at least one mildly outrageous claim about reivers.

Subscribe here: FenwickMckie@substack.com

👉 Send me a question Fenwick@FenwickMcKie.com

What have you always wondered about the Borders but never dared ask?

Your question might become the next article.

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A print and ebook edition of the first twenty Silly Questions is planned for release. Subscribers get updates first.