A Leaning Gravestone

Image: © Ian Dodds Taken: 29 Mar 2022

Although it felt quite sturdy I thought I had better get a picture of this grave in case it starts to lean even more. It is one of the few readable stones in the grounds of the ruined West Calder Auld Kirk and is written in the usual style, save for getting unusually religious towards the bottom and the fourth line : 'Bain Fewer Blackbwrn'. 'Bain' is simply the surname of one of the couple who are buried here and is a continuation from the previous line. And there is a settlement called Blackburn three to four miles from West Calder, so that takes care of everything apart from 'Fewer'. The history of the letters u, v and w seems a bit complicated, and at various points in history they have been interchangeable in various Germanic languages, of which English is one. It might sound silly, but if you think about it English has all sorts of examples of words that use the same consonant to indicate different sounds - we just get used to 'cell' and 'call' being pronounced differently, and it was obviously the same in earlier times, just with slightly more rules to learn. So did Mr James Bain die of fever in Blackburn, or was he from Little Blackburn (the farm is still standing) which might possibly have also been called 'Fewer Blackburn' back then (my preferred theory), or does it mean something else entirely?!

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