Dule trees, or dool trees, in Scotland were used as gallows for public hangings. They were also used as gibbets for the display of the corpse for a considerable period after such hangings. These "trees of lamentation or grief" were usually growing in prominent positions or at busy thoroughfares, particularly at crossroads, so that justice could be seen to have been done and as a salutary warning to others. Place names such as Gallows-Hill, Gallows-See, Gallows-Fey and Hill of the Gallows (Tom Nan Croiche) record the site of such places of execution.

In Scots, dule or duill (many other spellings). In Middle English, dule, duyl, and variants of doole, dole, and dool. These words sorrow, grief, or mental distress, and derive from Old French dol, doel, from Vulgar Latin dolus ("pain, grief"); compare also to modern French deuil ("mourning"). Doomsdales, variously written as 'Dimmisdaill' or 'Dymisdale' were the route to the Gallows Hill. Examples are recorded from Inverness and the Scottish Borders.

In Scottish Gaelic, the gallows were known as croich, a term ultimately derived from Latin crux ("cross").

A predecessor of such trees was the Roman furca, a device for punishing or hanging slaves. The binomial expression 'furca and fossa' refers to high justice, which included the capital penalty. The furca refers to the gallows for hanging men; the fossa ('pit') was a ditch for the drowning of women. Together, they were 'pit and gallows'.^{[citation needed]}

With the introduction to Scotland of the feudal system in the 12th century, pre-feudal Celtic tenures were transformed into holding from the Crown, and a number of these were held directly or in chief of the Crown and were held in liberam baroniam (in free barony), with high justice (i.e., with pit and gallows). In Scotland, trees were often used as gallows. These dule trees were also known as the 'Grief Tree', the 'Gallows Tree', the 'Justice Tree' and the 'Tree'. It is said that King Malcolm Canmore legislated in 1057 that every barony was to have a tree for hanging convicted men and a pit of water for the execution of convicted women.

These baronies belonged to the same order as earls, and these earls and barons together formed the order of the three estaits of the Scots Parliament known as the baronage of Scotland. The barons sat in the Scots Parliament until 1587, when they were relieved from attendance, which was burdensome and costly. The right of pit and gallows was removed in 1747 by the Heritable Jurisdictions (Scotland) Act 1746, lesser powers continued to the twentieth century.

Dule trees were also used by Highland chieftains, who would hang their enemies or any deserter, murderer, etc. from them. Highland clan chiefs also therefore had the power of 'life or death' over their clansmen in times gone by. The high ground on which these trees grew often became known as "gallows hills".

It is not clear whether the moot hills (justice hills) were also the site of the gallows. Some of the place names suggest that they could have been, and many were certainly in a prominent position for the display of a corpse to warn others of the consequences of wrongdoing.