The Reivers have contributed some of the most feared terms to the English language.

They gave us the term "BEREIVED", now known to us as bereaved. A visit from the Reivers often left a victim dead in their wake.

They also gave us "BLACKMAIL". Reivers preyed on their neighbours, protection money paid by one clan to a larger Reiver clan came to be known as blackmail.

The distinctive armour breastplate and steel helmet worn by Border Reivers gave them a "nickname" - "The Steel Bonnets".

They relied on their horses to move swiflty around the borders. If a Reiver's wife wanted to let her man know it was time to take to reiving again she would serve him a platter with a pair of spurs laid upon it.

On 2nd of April 1581, a widow, Isabell Routledge was visited by 30 Elliots. They wrecked her home in the English West March. Her 4 oxen were taken and her horse stolen.

Reiver family names included those of the Armstrongs, Nixons, Douglases, Nobles Pringles, and Routledges and Radcliffes. There were about 77 famillies involved.
In his book about the Reivers, the author George MacDonald Fraser noted that U.S. President Richard Nixon physically resembled the typical border male of the period.

Dickie Armstrong of Dryhope visited Hecky Noble. Dickie's 100 followers stole all Hecky's cattle. They also killed his son John and burned alive Hecky's pregnant  daughter-in-law.

When King James VI of Scotland succeeded Queen Elizabeth I to the English throne in 1603, the two kingdoms came under a single ruler. The Act of Union would come much later, but having one monarch spelt the end of the Reivers. Each kingdom had relied on the Reivers to carry out a war by proxy against the other's border country. The need for a royal "blind eye" was suddenly gone. James ruthlessly set about the task of imposing his law and order on the region. With no refuge from the law and many Reivers publicly hanged as a warning, peace came to the border country within ten years. The reiving way of life came to a bloody close.