Scholars hare argued for ages over the extend of Viking settlement in Galloway, with theories verging from the view that they were everywhere to the view that some were invited in and settled only in particular places to protect the locals from attack from wilder Norsemen.
Today the quiet village of Borgue, near Kirkudbright, is pretty and peaceful. But it is speculated that the name comes from the Old Norse language.
There is no better explanation of the history of the region than “Galloway, a Land Apart,” by Andrew McCulloch, 2000, published by Birlinn Limited, 579 pages, ISBN 1 84158 027 9.
It seems there may still be Vikings at Borgue, and McCulloch quotes on page 72, an 18th century source, “Heron, R. Observations made in a journey through the western counties of Scotland in the Autumn of 1792, 2 vols (Perth, 1793).
Heron wrote:, volume two page 204: “It is worthy of notice that the inhabitants of the district of Borgue...were long regarded by other people in the district as a sort of peculiar, insulated tribe. The families of the farmers had been settled there for many generations...were all mutually related by intermarriage [and] a person of singular appearance of manners was commonly said by the people of the country to be a Borgue body...I take them to have been a more unmixed race either of Danes or Anglo-Saxons than remained in any other part of this country.”
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