Linkumdoddie
A locality, possibly imaginary, used by Burns in the song 'Willie Wastle dwalt on Tweed', "The spot they ca'd Linkumdoddie' But the place where the singularly unprepossessing Mrs Wastle lived has been claimed to be 'five and a half miles from Broughton on the road to Tweedsmuir and Moffat''. On the opposite bank of the Tweed, where Logan Water joins the river, there once stood a thatched cottage called Linkumdoddie. At the end of the 18th Century, a weaver called Gideon Thomson lived there, but local history is silent about his wife. Burns stayed more than once at the Crook Inn, a few miles away from this place, when travelling between Dumfries and Edinburgh. Dick points out that a popular 17th Century rhyme is quoted in Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence Display'd published in 1694. A Linton preacher remarks: 'Our bishops thought they were very secure this long time, like "Willie, Willie Wastle, I am in my castle;
A' the dogs in the town, dare not ding me down."
Willie Wastle's Castle, Home, in the south-east corner of Roxburghshire, was besieged by Cromwell. The owner challenged Cromwell to do his worst. Cromwell did. The Castle was destroyed. The tune 'Sic a wife as Willie had' goes back to 180 Loyal Songs published in 1685, but bears no relation to Burns's tune: all of which suggests that Burns's brilliant comic song was inspired by some political 17th Century rant known to him but lost to us. Burns's song appeared in The Scots Musical Museum. The manuscript is in the British Museum.
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