Black Morrow, also known as Black Murray and Outlaw Murray, is the name given to a late 15th century Scottish outlaw. A popular ballad makes the bandit as living in Ettrick Forest, while a recorded oral tradition, a wood in Kirkcudbrightshire.[1] In the tradition, the outlaw is described as a Romani or Scottish Traveller, Moor, a Saracen or, more commonly, an Irishman or from Ireland.[2][3][4][5] The folklorist David MacRitchie took a strong interest in the ethnicity of the outlaw because of his dark skin, and the story is commonly quoted in modern Afrocentrist literature. Others however (e.g. John Mactaggart) have disputed whether the bandit was dark skinned, or a "Blackimore".
The story as a ballad, appears as "An Old Song Called Outlaw Murray" in the Glenriddel Manuscripts (XI, 61) published in 1791. It also appears in Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, a collection of ballads compiled by Walter Scott (1803). Aytoun's Ballads of Scotland (1859) in a note appended to the ballad mentions an earlier manuscript: "written between the years 1689 and 1702" which contains the song. While the latter manuscript is presumed lost, "it is clear that the ballad was known before 1700; how much earlier it is to be put we can neither ascertain nor safely conjecture".[6] According however to Scott, the ballad or dancing song "appears to have been composed about the reign of James V", while the story itself takes place during the late 15th century.[7] Note that the ballad doesn't describe the bandit as a Gypsy, Saracen or Moor, nor even as Black Murray, only as Outlaw Murray.
A different story related to the ballad[8] is found in Crawford'sThe Peerage of Scotland (1716) who mentions George Mackenzie, as having written down an oral tradition in 1680.
Unlike the ballad, the tradition describes the bandit as a Moor, who was accompanied by Saracens:
Sometimes it [the crest] represents some valiant Act done by the Bearer ... the Lord Kirkcudbright [his ennobled descendant], does bear a naked Arm, supporting on the point of a sword a Mores [Moor] head; because Bomhie [the ancestral estate] being forfeited, his Son kill'd a More, who came in with some Sarazens to infest Galloway; to the Killer of whom the King had promised the Forfeiture of Bomhie.
—The Science of Heraldry, George Mackenzie
Crawford considered this band of Saracens and Moors, to be Gypsies, despite Mackenzie not describing them as such.[9]
Black Murray
It remains unclear when Outlaw Murray began to be called Black Murray (Black Morrow) because neither does the recorded tradition call him this; the folklorist David MacRitchie in 1894 traced the name Black Murray to two literary sources (the earliest from 1824), arguing they were local Kirkcudbrightshire versions of the original Mackenzie/Crawford tradition:
Kirkcudbright tradition tells of a certain "Blackimore" "Black Morrow", or "Black Murray", who inhabited a wood near that town, still known as the "Black Morrow Wood" ... It is clear that the "Blackamoor" of both versions, stated in each to have been killed by young Maclellan, is the same as the chief of the "Moors" or "Saracens" whom Sir George Mackenzie speaks of as remembered in tradition as far back as 1680.[10]
The author of The History of Galloway (1841) suggests Morrow or Murray is a corruption of Moor, "who from his swarthy complexion was called Black Morrow".[4] However, in the ballad, Murray is the surname of the bandit which is unlikely to have derived in etymology from the word Moor. The meaning and origin of "Black" is also disputed (see below).
Story
The ballad is different to the Mackenzie/Crawford tradition, although both take place during the late 15th century and the outlaw, or bandit, lives in a Scottish forest (but in the ballad, the outlaw owns an entire stronghold in the woodland). Both are also connected to the names Murray, or Morrow. Walter Scott describes the Outlaw Murray of the ballad: "as a man of prodigious strength, possessing a batton or club, with which he laid lee (i.e. waste) the country for many miles round". This closely resembles the bandit of the Mackenzie/Crawford tradition, but the forest of the ballad is Ettrick Forest, not a wood in Kirkcudbrightshire. Another difference is that in the Mackenzie/Crawford tradition, the bandit is slain by a Maclellan clansman (i.e. William Maclellan), but in the ballad the bandit is not murdered. In a local Kirkcudbrightshire version, MacLellan deliberately replaced spring-water in a well with spirits in order to get bandit drunk. MacLellan is said to have murdered the outlaw for a £50 reward and carried his head to the King; the head became a family crest as a Moor's head.[11]
Origin of "Black" in name
The word "Black" in Black Murray (Black Morrow) via the early 19th century local Kirkcudbrightshire versions of the tradition, derives from either:
The dark skin complexion of the Moor bandit (hence the terms "Blackimore" and "Blackamoor").
The name of the wood where the outlaw lived in Kirkcudbrightshire: "Black Morrow (Plantation)".[12]
The crimes, evil nature or grim personality of the bandit.
MacRitchie argued for the first view, and that the outlaw was dark skinned. In contrast John Mactaggart who popularized the story in his The Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia (1824) argued Black Murray derived his name from his bad deeds (analogous to "Black Douglas") and not swarthy skin, going as far as to deny the bandit was ever a Moor in the first place:
Tradition has him as a Blackimore ... So goes tradition—but my opinion, if it be worth any thing, is, that he was no Blackimore; he never saw Africa; his name must have been Murray, and he must have been too an outlaw and a bloody man, gloomy with foul crimes, Black prefaced it, as did Black Douglas, and that of others; so he became Black Murray.[8]
The bandit as a dark skinned Moor or Saracen, could though explain the Moor's head that appears on the crest of the Arms of Lord Kirkcudbright, and in consequence the modern crest badge used by Clan MacLellan (the blazon for which is an arm supporting on the point of a sword, a Moor's head).[13] Yet another theory links the bandit to the name of the Kirkcudbrightshire wood he lived of the same name (Black Morrow Plantation), but it could alternatively be argued the wood took its name from the outlaw, rather than vice versa.
↑ Child 2003, p.189,:"A such he seems to turn up again in Galloway where he haunts a forest of Kirkcudbrightshire, called Black Morrow wood, from which he sallies out 'in the neighboring country at night, committing horrible outrages."
↑ Crofton 1888,:"Sir George M'Kenzie, who died in 1691, has recorded a tradition that between 1452 and 1460 a company of Saracens or Gypsies from Ireland infested the country of Galloway, in Scotland, and the King promised the barony of Bombie to whomsoever should disperse them and bring in their captain dead or alive. The laird of Bombie's son, a Maclellan, killed the captain, and took his head on a sword to the king. Thereafter Maclellan took for his crest a Moor's head, and for a motto 'Think on'."
↑ Child 2003, p.187: "It is true that the dramatis personae introduced seem to refer to the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century."
↑ MacRitchie 1894, p.22: "From these accounts, then, it appears that a tradition was prevalent in Galloway two centuries ago, according to which that district had been ravaged, two centuries earlier, by a band of Moors or Saracens, styled 'Gypsies' by a writer of the year 1716."
Child, F. J. (2003) [1894-1898]. "The Outlaw Murray". The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. Vol.5. Dover Publications.
MacRitchie, D. (1894). Scottish Gypsies Under the Stewarts. Edinburgh: David Douglas.
Related Research Articles
Kirkcudbright is a town, parish and a Royal Burgh from 1455 in Kirkcudbrightshire, of which it is traditionally the county town, within Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland.
Kirkcudbrightshire, or the County of Kirkcudbright or the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright is one of the historic counties of Scotland, covering an area in the south-west of the country. Until 1975, Kirkcudbrightshire was an administrative county used for local government. Since 1975, the area has formed part of Dumfries and Galloway for local government purposes. Kirkcudbrightshire continues to be used as a registration county for land registration. A lower-tier district called Stewartry covered the majority of the historic county from 1975 to 1996. The area of Stewartry district is still used as a lieutenancy area. Dumfries and Galloway Council also has a Stewartry area committee.
David MacRitchie was a Scottish folklorist and antiquarian. He proposed that stories of fairies originated with an aboriginal race that occupied the British Isles before Celts and other groups arrived.
Galloway is a region in southwestern Scotland comprising the historic counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire. It is administered as part of the council area of Dumfries and Galloway.
Lord Kirkcudbright was a title in the Peerage of Scotland. It was created for Sir Robert Maclellan of Bombie on a 1633 royal visit to Scotland by King Charles I of England. Maclellan had already been created a baronet of Nova Scotia in 1631.
Patrick Maclellan of Bombie Sheriff of Galloway, then the head of his family, the Clan MacLellan, and a staunch royalist declined an invitation to join William Douglas, 8th Earl of Douglas, along with the Earls of Ross and Crawford and Ormond in a powerful alliance against the young King James II of Scotland.
Gatehouse of Fleet is a town half in the civil parish of Girthon and half in the parish of Anwoth, divided by the river Fleet, Kirkcudbrightshire, within the district council region of Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, which has existed since the mid-18th century, although the area has been inhabited since much earlier.
"The Raggle Taggle Gypsy" (Roud 1, Child 200), is a traditional folk song that originated as a Scottish border ballad, and has been popular throughout Britain, Ireland and North America. It concerns a rich lady who runs off to join the gypsies (or one gypsy). Common alternative names are "Gypsy Davy", "The Raggle Taggle Gypsies O", "The Gypsy Laddie(s)", "Black Jack David" (or "Davy") and "Seven Yellow Gypsies".
Galwegian Gaelic is an extinct dialect of Scottish Gaelic formerly spoken in southwest Scotland. It was spoken by the people of Galloway and Carrick until the early modern period. Little has survived of the dialect, so that its exact relationship with other Gaelic language is uncertain.
Threave Castle is situated on an island in the River Dee, 2.5 kilometres (1.6 mi) west of Castle Douglas in the historical county of Kirkcudbrightshire in the Dumfries and Galloway region of Scotland.
The Clan MacLellan is a Scottish clan of the Scottish Lowlands. The clan does not currently have a chief therefore it is considered an Armigerous clan.
Blackamoor is a type of figure/visual trope in European decorative art, typically found in works from the Early Modern period, depicting a man of African descent, usually in clothing that suggests high status. Common examples of items and objects decorated in the blackamoor style include sculpture, jewellery, and furniture. Typically the sculpted figures carried something, such as candles or a tray. They were thus an exotic and lightweight variant for the "atlas" in architecture and decorative arts, especially popular in the Rococo period.
The Merry Men are the group of outlaws who follow Robin Hood in English literature and folklore. The group appears in the earliest ballads about Robin Hood and remains popular in modern adaptations.
Clan Mackie is a Lowland Scottish clan. The clan does not have a chief recognised by the Lord Lyon King of Arms therefore the clan has no standing under Scots Law. Clan Mackie is considered an armigerous clan, meaning that it is considered to have had at one time a recognised chief, or a chief who possessed the chiefly arms of the name; however, no one at present is in possession of such arms.
Colvend and Southwick is a community council area and civil parish within the Stewartry area of Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. It is also part of the Church of Scotland parish of Colvend, Southwick and Kirkbean. It is in the historic county of Kirkcudbrightshire.
Events from the year 1597 in the Kingdom of Scotland.
The plantation of Ulster in the 17th century led to many Scottish people settling in Ireland. These are the surnames of the original Scottish settlers from 1606 to 1641, who would go on to become the 'Scotch-Irish'.
Sir William MacLellan, son of Patrick MacLellan of Bombie and Margaret Of Lennox was the Husband of Lady Marion Carlyle.
Kirkcudbright Tolbooth is a historic municipal building in Kirkcudbright in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. Built between 1627 and 1629 to serve the town as a centre of commercial administration, a meeting place for the council, and a prison, it was used for all these roles until the late eighteenth century when the council moved much of its business to new, larger premises they had constructed across the street; the tolbooth remained in use as a prison until the early nineteenth century, after which it remained in council ownership and was put to a variety of uses.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
