In 1810 a book was published titled Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, where the tale of "The Fairy Farewell" was told:
The sun was setting on a fine summer's evening, and the peasantry were returning from labour, when, on the side of a green hill, appeared a procession of thousands of apparently little boys, habited in mantles of green, freckled with light. One, taller than the rest, ran before them, and seemed to enter the hill, and again appeared at its summit. This was repeated three times, and all vanished. The peasantry, who beheld it, called it, "The Fareweel o' the Fairies to the Burrow Hill!"
From the early medieval days, the fairies were always said to be a diminishing race, similar to the elves in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. The Burrow Hill may have been either of the two prehistoric hill forts on Burrow Head, at the west end of Wigtown Bay. Such ancient hill forts as well as natural hills were habitually identified as fairy dwellings.