ABSTRACT
For much of its history Scotland has contained two nations, the Celtic Highlanders and the Anglo-Saxon Lowlanders, enjoying different social organizations, different customs, different languages, and a mutual distrust. The Northeast was a border region for these two races. Geographically, it belongs to both Highlands and Lowlands for, though it is a continuation of the eastern coastal plain, it also lies to the north of the Highland Boundary Fault, and is set apart from the rest of the Lowlands by the Mounth. Once a Celtic territory, the Northeast became predominantly Anglo-Saxon by medieval times, though its western districts remained populated by Gaelic-speaking Highlanders. The consequent interaction between the two races had cultural, social, and political effects, and of these the political are the most immediately evident. As in other European border regions, the threatening proximity of an alien race animated the ballad society with continual political and military tensions.
