Borders and ballads projects

A skirmish between reivers

Reiver Productions is planning a living history project to give participants, dressed in period costume, a literal flavour of the sixteenth/seventeenth century, by providing the food of the period accompanied by the performers singing the ballads of the time.

Anyone wanting to participate in this proposed living history project should contact Reiver Productions.

However, the project will not, initially at least, be re-enacting a Border Reivers mealtime as the following description describes what was on offer at the home of a Reiver chief (possibly at the hold of Buccleuch at Branxholm) near the end of the Sixteenth Century:

Many servants brought in the meat, with blue caps on their heads, the table being more than half furnished with great platters of porridge, each having a little sodden meat. When the table was served, the servants sat down with us; but the upper mess instead of porridge, had a pullet with some prunes in the broth. The Scots, living then in factions, used to keep many followers and so consumed their revenues in victuals, and were always in want of money.