Dab, Din

etc.

“Hab Dab and David Din

Ding the deil oʹer Dabson’s Linn.”

“Hab Dab” means Halbert Dobson; “David Din” means David Dun; and “Dabson’s Linn,” or Dob’s Linn, is a waterfall near the head of Moffat Water.

Dobson and Dun were two Cameronians who lived for security in a cave in the ravine. Here, as they said, they saw the devil in the form of a pack of dried hides, and after fighting the “foul fiend” for some time, they dinged him into the waterfall.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.