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Warfare and disease on the Borders reinforced an ideology of personal sovereignty and promoted trust in eldritch allies of the unseen world.
The region of the Anglo-Scottish Borders had always been unique, and steeped in conflict. The Border was initially established by the Romans in the construction of Hadrian’s Wall. The Roman-Britons south of the Wall were a hardened breed of warriors who ardently secured the outer limit of the empire against the most implacable of enemies. North of the Wall, however, the independent Britons were somewhat unified in their anger at the imposition of Imperial power, and they revelled in their independence.
With the withdrawal of Rome in the 5th century, these two factions blended and merged into an extraordinary culture which not only bred a fierce independence, but reignited an awareness of the native British identity which is still evident today.
The social changes which swept Europe during the Dark Ages and made manifest in the early Medieval period, would ironically calcify the ancient culture of the Borders, yet retain their inimitable ethnicity, causing them to evolve as a contemptuous society and eminently contemporary.
In Europe many of the Medieval social revolutions were bound to the emergence of a politically active Catholic Church. Medieval European Christianity has always been the provenance of the Church and the Royal Courts, the common people were viewed simply as a human economy for both, a commodity to be exploited and controlled.
As unjust as this treatment was, the product of such disenfranchisement had the beneficial consequence of the common society being essentially ignored. This marginalization allowed them to preserve elements their unique ethnic spirituality. When wars or disease ravished the land, the control of the Church wavered and the people, distraught and confused, naturally returned to the comfort of their old beliefs. When peace was finally re-established the yoke of the Church was returned, supported by a complicit nobility.
By the 12th century the European ideals of the juxtaposition between the universal Church and the emerging concept of the Nation State migrated to the nascent kingdoms of Britain. These uniting social principles were embraced and grafted into the evolution of British feudalism, primarily in the kingdom of England with the rise of the Plantagenets, and to a lesser extent in Scotland under David I where the impact of the European model was somewhat diminished by the cultural diversity of the nation itself.
The Borders specifically suffered the imposition of continuous conflict and wars for hundreds of years as the Nation States of England and Scotland struggled back and forth, trying to claim a further mile or two of territory for their respective kingdoms. Peace was never truly established until the early 17th century Pacification of the Borders under the unification of the crowns, in the person of James VI and I.
The Borderers learned, through the constant tragedies of warfare and disease, that they could rely only upon themselves. That self-reliance grew into a sense of independence, not a national independence per se, but a personal independence that was elevated to a certain sanctity. In truth this concept already existed from ancient times deriving from the Brittonic concept of personal sovereignty, but the vicissitudes of conflict revived this ideal and it became enshrined as a central pillar of Border ideology.
Subsequently, the imposition of the Church’s religion never truly took hold in the Borders until after the pacification and the rise of religious political intrigues which plagued both England and Scotland in the 17th and 18th centuries. There is a record of the Border’s attitude to religion which refers to Baptism in the region; it is said that the Border Reiver would baptize all but their child’s right hand, the implication being that they could abide eternity without a right hand, and therefore were free to raid cattle in life.
This comical depiction reveals more of the Border’s religious life than would at first appear. There is an irreverence of the Church’s doctrine and a willingness to discount what they perceived as irrelevant to the realities of their actual existence. This caricature also indicates that, when confronted with the Church’s teaching, their own cultural beliefs take precedence.
Outsiders had constantly ignored the Borderer’s culture, repudiated them as thieves and bandits and had proven themselves untrustworthy in both politics and religion. Due to their distrust of the Church’s message and rancour over the impact of foreign politics, many Borderers chose to adhere more strongly to their old beliefs. They could trust their own sense of spirituality, rites and customs, and the spirits that peopled their philosophies were of the same land and had suffered the same condemnations.
Interaction with ancestors and spirits reminds one that comfort and consolation are ever present.
Border ballads reveal a sympathy for the religious plight of these spirits, spirits whom the Church would have characterised as demons and embodiments of evil. The Borderers and their spirits understood one another, were born from the same land and suffered the same vitriolic castigation expressed from outsiders.
This is the local consolidation in the Borders of what has come to be known academically as the Fairy Faith. Unlike the religion of the Church, which demanded obedience to a distant and mysterious God, the Fairy Faith as it manifests among the Borderers dwells alongside and regularly communicates with the spirits inhabiting overlapping otherworldly realms.
The Fairy Faith is a symbiotic spirituality, an interchange of wisdom and power interpenetrating every aspect of a person’s life. No matter how remote, how seemingly empty a place may be, the Borderer perceives an exciting and active space, filled with vibrant and intelligent beings.
A person is never alone, never lost and never isolated. Magic is a reality and eldritch potentiality dynamically swirls and eddies around every individual. Interaction with ancestors and spirits reminds one that comfort and consolation are ever present. Personal sovereignty is confirmed and empowered and a person is regarded or rebuked only in that person has acted with either integrity or dishonour. The ethical and spiritual responsibility belongs to the individual alone, and is never dictated by an outside force whether divine or temporal.