45
and before the demise of Joceline, the bishop of Glasgow, in 1199 (s).
Now, the phrys of the British speech, and the kindred phreas of the Scoto-Irish,
signify shrubs; and the Dun-fres must consequently mean the Castle among the
shrubberies or copsewood.
If a town, indeed, existed here in a prior age to the building of the
castle, then would the name of the place be Drum-frys, in the British
speech, or Drum-freas, in the Scoto-Irish. Thus, then, does the question,
as to the proper name of the shire-town, turn upon the fact whether it was
built before or after the existence of the castle; and the probability is,
that the site of the town may have had a name before a castle was here
erected. Yet Dum-fries cannot be agreeable to any analogy, and can
merely be supported by established usage; though the Dun and Drum, as
the prefix in several names of the North-British topography, have been
often changed the one for the other; as Dun-crub, the seat of Lord Rollo,
was anciently called Drum-crub; and Drum-pellier, in Old Monkland parish,
is Dumpelder in Pont's map of Clydesdale. By the same spirit of topogra-
phical metathesis, Dun is very often converted into Dum; as Dunbarton into
Dumbarton, and Dunblane into Dumblane. Thus, then, was Dun-fries
changed by colloquial use into Dumfries. Doctor Archibald, who wrote
an account of the curiosities of Dumfries-shire, says, indeed, that the latter
part of the name of the town is derived from the Freez well near the
place (t). But the shrubbery gave a name to the well, rather than the well to
the town. Baxter, who is never at a loss for some plausible conjecture, will have
Dumfries to be merely, " Opidum Frisonum, vel Brigantum (u)." But of such
excursive intimations there is no end !
A still more erratic writer insists that the Castrum puellarum is a mere
translation of Dun-fres; Dun, signifying Castellum, and Free, or Fre, virgo
nobilis, in the Icelandic tongue. What confusion of conceits is here, in thus
mingling the Celtic Britons, who long lived on the Nith, with the Gothic
Icelanders, who never inhabited Dumfries-shire! This was the name given
(s) William granted to Joceline " toftum ilium apud Dunfres, quod est inter Vetus Castellum et
Ecclesiam.'' Chart. Glasg., 33; but the Celtic people, who remained till recent times on the banks
of the Nith, did not build castles, especially of stone and lime. Whence, we may suppose, that this
old castle was not older than the reigns of Alexander I. or David I. The town was then, and probably
had been, a burgh, in the royal demesne at least, during those reigns, and may have arisen under the
protection of the King's castle. Camden said, Dumfreys had to show an old castle in it. The Stat.
Account, v. 141, 143, speaks of the old castle at Dumfries, The epithet old would apply to a
dilapidated castle, either from time or chance.
(f) MS. among Macfarlane's Col. in the Advocates' Library.
(u) Glossarium Antiquitatum.