The Yarrow Water is a river in the Borders in the south east of Scotland. It is a tributary of the Ettrick Water (itself a tributary of the Tweed) and renowned for its high quality trout and salmon fishing. The name "Yarrow" may derive from the Celtic word garw meaning "rough" or possibly share a derivation with the English name "Jarrow".
The valley was the birthplace of Mungo Park and has inspired several well-known songs and poems. Its traditions and folk tales were well documented by Walter Scott, who spent part of his childhood nearby, and in adult life returned to live in the vicinity at Abbotsford House, near Melrose.
Read more about Yarrow Water: Geography and History, Folk Tales
Famous quotes containing the words yarrow and/or water:
““O haud your tongue, my father dear,
An’ dinna grieve your Sarah;
A better lord was never born
Than him I lost on Yarrow.”
—Unknown. The Dowie Houms o’ Yarrow (l. 53–56)
“The point of the dragonfly’s terrible lip, the giant water bug, birdsong, or the beautiful dazzle and flash of sunlighted minnows, is not that it all fits together like clockwork--for it doesn’t ... but that it all flows so freely wild, like the creek, that it all surges in such a free, finged tangle. Freedom is the world’s water and weather, the world’s nourishment freely given, its soil and sap: and the creator loves pizzazz.”
—Annie Dillard (b. 1945)