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Barr

Tucked in a fold of the Carrick hills, Barr is an idyllic village that was once the site of the wonderfully named Kirkdandie Fair. It was the largest annual fair in Southern Scotland during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and was held on a strip of land where stood the long gone Kirkdandie (or Kirkdominae) Church. Its main claim to fame was the fighting that took place there every year, and it soon became known as the “Donnybrook of Scotland”. People even came over from Ireland to participate in the great pitched battles. So famous did it become that a ballad was written about it, describing at least 63 tents, the sound of pipes and people socialising, dancing, drinking and eating.

Above Barr is the estate of Changue (pronounced “Shang”), to which an old legend is attached. The cruel and wicked Laird of Changue was a smuggler and distiller of illicit whisky who enjoyed the fruits of his own still a bit to much and was therefore always penniless. One day, while walking through his estates, Satan appeared and offered him a deal. If he handed over his soul when he died, he would become rich. The laird, who was a young man, agreed, and duly prospered. But as he grew older he began to regret his rashness, and when Satan at last appeared before him to claim his soul - at the same spot where he had appeared all these years before - the laird refused to keep his side of the bargain.

Instead he challenged the Devil to fight for it. Drawing a large circle on the ground round both of them, he said that the first person to be forced out of it would be the loser. After a bitter struggle, the laird cut off the end of Satan’s tail with his sword, and he jumped out of the circle in pain. The laird had won. Up until the end of the 19th century, a great bare circle on some grassland was shown as the place where all this took place. It’s a wonderful story, but no one has ever managed to put a name or date to this mysterious laird. And it has often been pointed out that if Satan had bided his time, he would have had the soul of the laird in the usual way, so wicked was he.