Crichope Linn

Crichope Burn, which, rising in a moss near the northern extremity of the parish, forms, not far from its source, a beautiful cascade, the ` Grey Mare's Tail,' over a precipice of nearly 100 feet in sheer descent. Half a mile lower down the water has, in the course of ages, hollowed out to itself a narrow passage through a mass of red freestone, where a peculiarly romantic linn is upwards of 100 feet from top to bottom, and, although 20 feet deep, is yet so straight at its head that one might easily clear it, but for the yawning gulf below and the din of the water running its dark course. ` Inaccessible in great measure to man, this linn,' says the Old Statistical, ` was deemed the habitation of imaginary beings, and at the entrance there was a curious cell, the " Elf's Kirk," which, proving a good freestone quarry, has lately been demolished, and from the haunt of elves has been converted into abodes for men. In the days of the Covenanters, the religions, flying from their persecutors, found a safe hiding-place in Crichope Linn; and a chair, cut out by nature in the rock, was in later times the resort of a shoemaker, and ever since has borne the name of the "Sutor's Seat."' By Sir Walter Scott, in his Old Mortality. This place was chosen for Balfour of Burley's lair.