has made the "Souters of Selkirk" famous throughout Scotland. The origin of the song seems to be lost. Whether it has reference, as the common tradition in Selkirk goes, to the part which a gallant band of Selkirk men played at the battle of Flodden Field, 1513, "when the flower of the Scottish nobility fell around their sovereign, James IV.," which Sir Walter Scott and Mr. Plummer assert,[102] or to "a bet between the Philiphaugh and Home families" on a match of football "between the souters (or shoemakers) of Selkirk against the men of Home," as Mr. Robertson in his "Essay on Scottish Song" declares, it is not easy to determine. At any rate, whether the song points to the historical event or not, the event itself is beyond dispute. Selkirk did "certainly send a brave band of eighty or a hundred men to Flodden Field to support the cause of James. No doubt a large proportion of these men were veritable _souters_, for the chief trade of the town in the sixteenth century was the making of "a sort of brogues with a single thin sole." This local manufacture seems to have given a name to the inhabitants of the burgh, who were called _souters_, pretty much as natives of Sheffield might be called _blades_, or Birmingham folk _buttons_. The people of Selkirk are not ashamed of the designation, but rather glory in perpetuating the name and the tradition on which it rests. "A singular custom," we are told, is observed at conferring the freedom of the burgh. Four or five bristles, such as are used by shoemakers, are attached to the seal of the burgess ticket. These the new-made burgess must dip in his wine and pass through his mouth, in token of respect for the Souters of Selkirk. This ceremony is on no account dispensed with.[103] [100] Selkirkshire, otherwise called Ettrick Forest. [101] Berwickshire, otherwise, called the Merse. [102] See "Border Minstrelsy." [103] Scott's "Border Minstrelsy," foot-note. WATT TINLINN. That the souters of that time knew how to fight and win renown by their valor and skill may be gathered from the story which the author of "The Lay of the Last Minstrel" tells us anent the reference to Watt of Liddelside in the fourth canto of the "Lay": "Now loud the heedful gateward cried, 'Prepare ye all for blows and blood! Watt Tinlinn from the Liddelside Comes wading through the flood. Full oft the Tynedale snatchers knock At his lone gate and prove the lock; It was but last St. Barnabright They sieged him a whole summer night, But fled at morning; well they knew In vain he never twanged the yew.'"