Dule Trees and the Guil Tree

DULE is Scots ‘grief, sorrow, misery; suffering’ and a dule-tree is a ‘gallows tree’. [1] This term appears three times in our database of Carrick place-names: Dule Tree, Maybole; The Dool Trees, Straiton; and The Dule Tree (Kirkmichael). The Kirkmichael tree is famous from the folktale of John Faa who, along with his men, was hanged on it by the Earl of Cassillis.

These names, recorded by the Ordnance Survey in 1856, antedate the Scottish National Dictionary’s earliest citation by eight years. [2] We can push that antedating a little further back to 1828 thanks to Robert Chambers’ The Picture of Scotland, which includes the story of John Faa’s fateful wooing of the Countess of Cassilis:

Having brought them back to Cassilis, he hanged all the gypsies, including the hapless Sir John, upon “the Dule Tree,” a splendid and most umbrageous plane, which yet flourishes upon a mound in front of the Castle gate.

The Picture of Scotland, Volume 1, p. 291

PLANE is Scots ‘sycamore’. The Ordnance Survey Name Books inform us that the Maybole dule-tree was an ash and that the Straiton ones were “Two remarkable plane trees each about 17 feet in circumference at the base.” [3] The sturdy boughs of trees like these were well suited to their role as gallows.

Thanks to a bit of lexical idiosyncrasy, our database includes another plane-tree apparently associated with that task: the Guil Tree, Kirkmichael. The SND‘s entry for GUILTREE ‘a gallows’, cites Crawford’s Tales of my Grandmother as its only source. It treats guiltree as an error for dule-tree. Assuming it is an error, it’s one Crawford made five times in the text. The SND suggests possible confusion with GULE-TREE ‘barberry’ (where the first element is ‘gold’). However, as Guiltreehill appears in Tales of my Grandmother — “though mayest either take the burn of Darroch or the Guiltreehill” — it’s possible that the Guil Tree itself rather than gule-tree might have influenced his choice of words, especially considering how unsuitable the barberry (Berberis vulgaris) would be as a gallows.

I’m not aware of any evidence for the Guil Tree being used as a dule-tree but, as the picture above shows, it’s certainly up to the job. The OSNB entry for the tree makes no mention of hangings but does include a little folklore and etymology: [4]

A large Plane-Tree standing on the roadside; Contiguous to Guiltreehill farm steading. Tradition mentions it as having often given refuge to Sir William Wallace, when he was pursued by his enemies. The word ‘guil’ is Gaelic, signifying to weep or sorrow. This Tree gives the Name to several surrounding objects.

OS1/3/37/42

Leaving aside the fact that had it been around in Wallace’s time the tree would have struggled to provide much refuge, the entry is notable for treating the first element of the name as Gaelic rather than Scots. A glace at the forms on Roy’s Military Map (1752-1755) — Galtry Mill and, depending on how you read it, Gultryhill, Cuiltryhill, or Galtryhill — casts doubt on whether the name was formed from either guil or tree.

Our database includes forms of the name going back to the late 14th century, most of which are spelled Giltre or Gyltre which effectively rules out Scots guil. The second element of the name is likely Brittonic trev ‘farm’, first put forward by Brooke (1991, p. 320). James (2014, p. 26-7) proposes either gwel[t]- ‘grass, pasture’ or gweli- ‘a bed (with various extended senses)’ for the first element.

Brittonic trev ends up being spelled as tree in Kirroughtree (KCB & WIG), Ochiltree (WIG & AYR), and Treesmax (AYR) but as far as I’m aware Guil Tree is the only occasion where the element has migrated to an actual tree. [5] As the Name Book entry quoted above shows, it was assumed that the tree lent its name to Guiltree Hill, Guiltreehill, Guiltree Wood, and Guiltree Cottage.

This sort of reanalysis plays an large part in how people understand and interact with place-names. As soon as a name, or part of a name, becomes opaque there is a motivation to reanalyse it as something meaningful, which is why gathering early forms of names is so important. The purpose of assembling these historical forms isn’t to ‘correct’ the interpretation of Guil Tree as guil (whatever it might mean here) + tree but to show how this tree’s name fits into a changing linguistic landscape.

Notes

[1] A Dooll tree is an Old Scots term for ‘a tree serving as a goal’. Unfortunately, I doubt this sense is lurking behind any of our dule-trees.

[2] Ayr. 1864 J. Paterson Hist. Ayr. and Wgt. II. 272: “The tree [at Cassilis Castle] is called the “Dule Tree.” . . . Every baronial residence had its dule-tree.”

[3] Dule Tree, Maybole: OS1/3/46/69. The Dool Trees, Straiton: OS1/3/59/11.

[4] Part of the text is lost in the margin. I’ve taken the transcription from ScotlandsPlaces.

[5] Alternative etymologies are available for -tree in Kirroughtree. See BLITON.