Another walk of three miles along the still beautiful banks of the Wansbeck brings us to Bothal, another little village of great beauty, embowered and almost hidden amongst luxuriant woods. Its curious name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon _bottell_, a place of abode (as in Walbottle). The name conjures up memories of the knights of old, their loves and their fortunes, fair or disastrous; for the best-known version of "The Hermit of Warkworth" tells us that it was a Bertram of Bothal who was the luckless hero of that tale, though another version avers that he belonged to the house of Percy.
Wansbeck's fellow stream, the Coquet, has its birth amongst some of the wildest scenery of the Cheviot Hills, where the heights of Deel's Hill and Woodbist Law look down on the now silent Watling Street and the deserted Ad Fines Camp. In its windings along the bases of the hills it is joined by the Usway Burn, said to be named after King Oswy, between which and the little river Alwine lies the famous Lordship of Kidland, once desolate on account of the thieving and raiding of its neighbours of Bedesdale and Scotland.
Hodgson, in his "Northumberland," says of this region, "All the said Kydlande is full of lytle hilles or mountaynes, and between the saide hilles be dyvers valyes in which discende litle Ryvvelles or brokes of water, spryngynge out of the said hilles and all fallynge into a lytle Rever or broke callede Kidlande water, w'ch fallethe into the rever of cockette nere to the towne of alwynntonn, w'tin a myll of the castell of harbottell." The reasons for the desolation of Kidland are graphically set forth:--"In somer seasons when good peace ys betwene England and Scotland, th'inhabitantes of dyv'se townes thereaboutes repayres up with theyr cattall in som'ynge (summering) as ys aforesaid, and so have used to do of longe tyme. And for the pasture of theyr cattall, so long as they would tarye there they payed for a knoweledge two pens for a household, or a grote at the most, though they had nev' so many cattalles. And yet the poore men thoughte their fermes dere enoughe. There was but fewe yeres that they escaped w'thout a greatter losse of their goodes and cattalles, by spoyle or thefte of the Scottes or Ryddesdale men, then would have paide for the pasture of theyr cattail in a much better grounde. And ov' (over, besides) that, the saide valyes or hopes of Kidlande lyeth so distant and devyded by mounteynes one from an other, that such as Inhabyte in one of these hoopes, valeys, or graynes, can not heare the Fraye outcrye, or exclamac'on of such as dwell in an other hoope or valley upon the other side of the said mountayne, nor come or assemble to theyr assystance in tyme of necessytie. Wherefore we can not fynde anye of the neyghbours thereabouts wyllinge cotynnally to Inhabyte or plenyshe w'thin the saide grounde of Kydland, and especially in wynter tyme."