Hi All,

Does anyone know anything about John and Jean Lang who wrote "Stories of the Border Marches" circa 1914? I believe that John was brother of Andrew and eminated from Selkirk.

One of the stories that John and Jean wrote was "In the Days of the '15" contained within the above book. Does anyone know where John and Jean Lang got their information from to write this story? Where is the inn that was mentioned?

Many thanks,

Scarrowman

Hi Scarrowman and welcome to our wee forum! I've added links to your post so that if anyone is interested they can read the story you mentioned (and others from the same book).

As for the inn, I assume its the one mentioned in the first paragraph:



Looking at the map, the road mentioned probably followed the same route as the current A69; this road crosses from Northumberland in to Cumbria at Temon Bridge to the north of Denton Fell (shown on the 1:25,000 OS map at NY618638). Of course the inn could have been anywhere along that route, but hopefully this is a good starting point!

As for the authors, I'm afraid I don't know much about them, but I do believe they were related to Andrew; as Andrew lived from 1844-1912 and the above book was written c.1914, its more likely that John was his son rather than brother. So chances are John collected stories from various sources like Andrew did... tho there's also the possibility some were already known by Andrew and/or John!

Hi Bruce,

Many thanks for your post.

I've got a copy of a jointly written book by Andrew/John Lang book which was completed by John after Andrew's death. In the front of the book, John mentions that Andrew was his brother.

Reading the story "In the Days of the '15", it almost seems that John has some inside information from relatives/descendants of the Jacobites. Would be great if we could find some letters or notes on this story.

regards,

Scarrowman

ok it looks like John and Andrew were brothers (Andrew being the oldest of eight children; his maternal grandfather was the notorious Patrick Sellar!)... anyway, this now makes me wonder which one Jean was married to as I have seen at least one book credited to Andrew and Mrs. Lang with no indication as to her first name!

Andrew collected stories on various subjects (many of which made up his series of Fairy Books), but most of these appear to have already been written down; as has been said of him:



Chances are John did something similar and that's maybe how he got hold of the stories that made up Stories of the Border Marches; however without a proper bio its almost impossible to say for definite!