Bye attour my Gutcher has
A heich house and a laich ane,
A' forbye my bonie sel,
The toss o' Ecclefechan.
A heich house and a laich ane,
A' forbye my bonie sel,
The toss o' Ecclefechan.
- Robert Burns, "The Lass O'Ecclefechan"
Not one person has asked me about Ecclefechan, but obviously that won't stop me answering their questions. Although mostly associated with Thomas Carlyle - and I'd like to think that to all my readers he is a man who needs no introduction - the other notable resident of the graveyard is Archibald Arnott, one of the physicians who was attending Napoleon on St Helena when he died and possibly - but probably not - the man who took the former Emperor's death mask; at least not the one from which the copy was made that we've all seen in the Musée de l'Armée.
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| Nothing to do with Ecclefechan |
As luck would have it I have a friend who lives nearby, but when I asked her about the place her only reply was the enigmatic "Ecclefechan tarts are tasty". She didn't mention the blended whisky named after the village at all.
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| She forgot the Fechan whisky |
Ecclefechan tarts were briefly promoted by my then employer ( a large supermarket chain ) one Xmas a few years ago, as a sort of alternative to mince pies. They were indeed tasty, but didn't seem to catch on.
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