"champion brave", was extremely popular in southern Scotland for around fifty years after his death. Grierson eventually entered folk memory, and was the subject of a strange custom recorded in Galloway and Dumfriesshire in the 19th century. Alexander Fergusson, who published a biographical sketch of him in 1886, recalled that as late as the 1840s some families, including Fergusson's own, used to commemorate Lag's deeds yearly in November by getting someone to dress as the "Laird of Lag", a "beast as hideous as the ingenuity of the performer intrusted with the part could make it" and which was used to frighten the children of the household. The conventional "beast" walked on all fours and had a long snout made from a large wooden kitchen pestle, with which the performer would "smell out Covenanters under the sideboard and other likely places": Fergusson said that anything "more striking, not to say appalling, to young minds can hardly be imagined". Arms References Kidd, Charles, Williamson, David (editors). Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage (1990 edition). New York: St Martin's Press, 1990, Robert Grierson, First Baronet (1655/6 – 1733) External links Video and narration on Lag Tower and the Griersons Video and narration of Sir Robert Grierson and Lag Tower Video and narration of Cruel Lag and the Wigtown Martyrs Video and narration - Dunscore Churchyard and Sir Robert Grierson 1655 births 1733 deaths Baronets in the Baronetage of Nova Scotia Members of the Convention of the Estates of Scotland 1678 Members of the Parliament of Scotland 1681–1682 Members of the Parliament of Scotland 1685–1686