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.