Chapter V: The Four Kingdoms (2)

Bede ranks Osuiu as the seventh king of the nations of the Angles who possessed imperial power, and sums up the result of his reign by saying that ‘he held nearly the same dominions for some time as his predecessors, and subdued and made tributary the greater part of the nations of the Picts and Scots which possess the northern part of Britain.’[328] He thus not only freed his own kingdom from the incursions of the Mercians, and found himself at last in the full and quiet possession of it, but he materially added to his dominions. In the south he obtained possession of Mercia for three years, and in the north extended his sway not only over the Britons but over the Picts and Scots; and thus commenced the dominion of the Angles over the Britons of Alclyde, the Scots of Dalriada, and the southern Picts, which was destined to last for thirty years. By the fall of Penda and the defeat and slaughter of his British allies, the Britons of Alclyde naturally fell under his sway. Tighernac records the death of no king of Alclyde during this period till the year 694, and the Ulster Annals, after recording in 658 the death of Gureit or Gwriad, king of Alclyde,[329] have also a blank during the same time. The Scots of Dalriada naturally fell under his dominion along with the Britons, and we have the testimony of Adamnan that they were trodden down by strangers during the same period. But while these nations became tributary to the Angles during this period of thirty years, the mode in which the king of Northumbria dealt with the Picts shows that their dominion over them was of a different kind, and that they viewed that part of the nation which was subject to them as now forming part of the Northumbrian kingdom. The way for this was prepared by the accession of Talorcan, son of Ainfrit, to the throne of the Picts on the death of Talore, son of Wid, or Ectolairg mac Foith, as Tighernac calls him, in 653.[330] Talorcan was obviously the son of that Ainfrait, the son of Aedilfrid, and elder brother of Osuald, who on his father’s death had taken refuge with the Picts, and his son Talorcan must have succeeded to the throne through a Pictish mother. At the time, then, when Osuiu thus extended his sway over the Britons and Scots there was a king of the Anglic race by paternal descent actually reigning over the Picts. Tighernac records his death in 657,[331] and Bede tells us that within three years after he had slain King Penda, Osuiu subjected the greater part of the Picts to the dominion of the Angles.[332] It is probable, therefore, that he claimed their submission to himself as the cousin and heir on the paternal side of their king Talorcan, and enforced his claim by force of arms. How far his dominion extended it is difficult to say, but it certainly embraced, as we shall see, what Bede calls the province of the Picts on the north side of the Firth of Forth, and, nominally at least, may have included the whole territory of the southern Picts; while Gartnaid, the son of Donnell or Domhnaill, who appears in the Pictish Chronicle as his successor, and who from the form of his father’s name must have been of pure Gaelic race, ruled over those who remained independent.

But while Osuiu’s dominion now remained on the whole free from all disturbance from hostile invasion or internal revolt, it was not destined to continue long without being shaken by dissensions from another quarter, and one of those great ecclesiastical questions soon arose, which, in its results, materially affected the current of our history. The Church which Osuald had established in Northumbria, and which had now existed as the national form of religion for thirty years, was an offshoot from the Scottish Church which owned the monastery of Hii or Iona as its head, and followed the customs and rules of that Church; but the great extension of Christianity from Northumbria over the southern states of the Angles which followed the death of Penda, brought it more directly in contact with the southern Church, which owned Saint Augustine as its founder, and conformed in its customs to the Roman Church from which he had derived his mission.

Colman, who had succeeded Finan in 660 as bishop of Lindisfarne, at this time presided over the Scottish Church of Northumbria. Wilfrid was at the head of the Roman party. The points on which the churches differed were the proper time for keeping Easter, the form of the tonsure, and other questions concerning the rules of ecclesiastical life—questions then thought, and especially the first, as of vital importance. Osuiu, Bede tells us, having been instructed and baptized by the Scots, thought nothing better than what they taught, but his son Alchfrid, who then governed Deira, having been instructed in Christianity by Wilfrid, a most learned man, who had first gone to Rome to learn the ecclesiastical doctrine, and spent much time at Lyons with Dalfin, archbishop of Gaul, and receiving from him also the coronal tonsure,[333] had given him a monastery which had been founded at Ripon for the Scots, who quitted it rather than alter their customs.

In order to settle this dispute, a great council was held in 664 at Strenaeshhalc, now Whitby, the details of which belong more to the history of the Church. Suffice it to say that it led to Osuiu submitting with his nation to Wilfrid, and conforming to the Roman customs, while Colman withdrew with his Scots and those who adhered to him, and went back to Scotia to consult with his people what was to be done in this case.[334] He went first to Hii or Iona on leaving Lindisfarne in 664, taking with him part of the relics of Saint Aidan, and having the rest interred in the sacristy of the church at Lindisfarne, and in 668 passed over to Ireland accompanied by the sons of Gartnaith, who took with them the people of Skye, that is the Columban clergy there, and returned two years afterwards.[335]

On the departure of the Scots, the episcopal see was removed from Lindisfarne to York, where it had been originally placed by Paulinus, and Wilfrid was made bishop of York, but did not obtain possession of the diocese till 669, when we find him administering the bishopric of York, and of all the Northumbrians, and likewise of the Picts, as far as the dominions of King Osuiu extended,[336] an expression which undoubtedly implies that the Picts were not merely tributary to the Angles, but that their territory formed at this time a constituent part of Osuiu’s dominions.

[Sidenote: A.D. 670.
Death of Osuiu, and accession of Ecgfrid his son.]

In the following year, Osuiu the king of the Northumbrians, died, and was succeeded in both Bernicia and Deira by his son Ecgfrid, whose accession was soon followed by an attempt on the part of the Picts to throw off the Anglic yoke. The account of this insurrection is preserved to us alone by Eddi, in his Life of St. Wilfrid, who wrote a few years before Bede compiled his history. [Sidenote: A.D. 672. Revolt of the Picts.] He tells us that ‘in the first years of his reign the bestial people of the Picts, despising their subjection to the Saxons, and threatening to throw off the yoke of servitude, collected together innumerable tribes from the north, on hearing which Ecgfrid assembled an army, and at the head of a smaller body of troops advanced against this great and not easily discovered enemy, who were assembled under a formidable ruler called Bernaeth, and attacking them made so great a slaughter that two rivers were almost filled with their bodies. Those who fled were pursued and cut to pieces, and the people were again reduced to servitude, and remained under subjection during the rest of Ecgfrid’s reign.’[337] Such is Eddi’s account, from which it appears to have been an insurrection of the southern Picts who were under the Anglic yoke, in which they were aided by the northern part of the nation who remained independent. The two rivers may have been either the Forth and the Teith, which join their streams a little above Stirling, or the Tay and the Earn, which unite in the Firth of Tay at Abernethy, having a low-lying plain forming the parish of Rhynd between, and the battle probably took place in the second year of Ecgfrid’s reign, as Tighernac records in that year the expulsion from the kingdom of Drost, who had succeeded his brother Gartnaith as king of the Picts.[338] Eddi then tells us that Ecgfrid attacked and defeated Wlfar, king of the Mercians, and drove him from his kingdom, an event not narrated by Bede, but which must have happened before Wlfar’s death in 675, and adds that ‘Ecgfrid’s kingdom was thus enlarged both in the north and the south, and that, under Bishop Wilfrid, the churches were multiplied both in the south among the Saxons, and in the north among the Britons, Scots, and Picts, Wilfrid having ordained everywhere presbyters and deacons, and governed new churches.’[339] It was probably at this time that the monastery of Aebbercurnig or Abercorn was founded in that part of Lothian which extends from the Esk to the Avon as a central point for the administration of the northern part of his diocese, which included the province of the Picts held by the Angles of Northumbria in subjection.

[Sidenote: A.D. 678.
Wilfrid expelled from his diocese.]

In 678 Bede tells us that a dissension broke out between King Ecgfrid and Bishop Wilfrid, who was driven from his see. His diocese was divided into two; Bosa was appointed bishop of the province of Deira, having his episcopal seat at York; and Eata over that of the Bernicians, and his seat either in the church of Hagustald or Hexham, or in that of Lindisfarne. Three years afterwards Wilfrid’s diocese was still further divided and two additional bishops added—Tunberct for the church of Hagustald, Eata remaining at Lindisfarne, and Trumuin over the province of the Picts which was subject to the Angles.[340]

[Sidenote: Expulsion of Drost, king of the Picts, and accession of
Brude, son of Bile.]

On the failure of these great attempts to recover their independence in 672, that part of the Pictish nation which had not been brought under subjection to the Angles appears to have expelled their unsuccessful monarch, Drost, the brother and successor of Gartnaith, son of Domnall, from the kingdom, and to have elected Bredei, son of Bile, to fill the vacant throne.[341] Bredei was paternally a scion of the royal house of Alclyde, his father Bile appearing in the Welsh genealogies annexed to Nennius as the son of Neithon and father of that Eugein who slew Domnall Breac in 642. His mother was the daughter of Talorcan mac Ainfrait, the last independent king of the Picts before they were subjected by Osuiu.[342] The object in placing him on the throne may have been to put the true successor of Talorcan, according to the law of Pictish succession, in competition with any claim the Anglic monarch may have had as representing him in the male line. Bredei began his reign in the extreme north, as eight years after we find the siege of Dunbaitte or Dunbeath, in Caithness, recorded in 680. In the following year he advanced beyond the range of the Mounth toward the south, as we have in 681 the siege of Dunfoither or Dunnotter, near Stonehaven; and in 682 we are told by Tighernac that the Orkney Islands were laid waste by Bruidhe.[343]

In the meantime the little kingdom of Dalriada was in a state of complete disorganisation. We find no record of any real king over the whole nation of the Scots, but each separate tribe seems to have remained isolated from the rest under its own chief, while the Britons exercised a kind of sway over them, and, along with the Britons, they were under subjection to the Angles. The most northerly part of Dalriada was the small state called Cinel Baedan, or Kinelvadon, which was a part of the larger tribe of the Cinel Eochagh, one of the three subdivisions of the Cinel Loarn, but separated from the rest by the great arm of the sea called Linnhe Loch. The head of this little tribe was at this time Fearchar Fada, or the Tall, the lineal descendant of Baedan, from whom the tribe took its name, who was son of Eochaidh, grandson of Loarn.[344] He appears to have commenced an attempt to throw off the authority of the Britons, and with it that of the Angles, but at first unsuccessfully. The first encounter with the Britons was in 678, when the Dalriads were defeated. At the same time the battles of Dunlocho, Liaccmaelain and Doirad Eilinn were fought, the latter of which can alone be placed with any certainty, Doirad Eilinn being obviously the island of Jura.[345]

[Sidenote: A.D. 684.
Ireland ravaged by Ecgfrid.]

Bede tells us that in the year 684 Ecgfrid sent Berct, his general, with an army into Ireland, and laid waste a part of the country, not even sparing the churches or monasteries, in spite of the advice of the most reverend father Ecgberct, an Anglic priest, who had been trained in Ireland, and lived much among the Scots and Picts; and we learn from the Irish Annals that the scene of this devastation was the plain of Breg, or the districts along the eastern shore from Dublin to Drogheda.[347] It seems difficult to suppose that Ecgfrid should have made so wanton an attack upon the Irish without some motive, and it seems probable that he either suspected that the Scots of Dalriada were obtaining help from their countrymen in Ireland, or wishing, by striking this blow, to prevent the Irish from supporting them in their attempt to recover their independence.

[Sidenote: A.D. 685.
Invasion of kingdom of Picts by Ecgfrid; defeat and death at
Dunnichen.]

Be this as it may, Bede tells us that in the following year King Ecgfrid led an army to ravage the province of the Picts, and that, the enemy feigning a retreat, he was led into the straits of inaccessible mountains and slain with the greatest part of the forces which he had taken with him, on the 20th day of May, in the fortieth year of his age,[348] that is, in the year 685. The continuator of Nennius tells us that Ecgfrid made war against the descendants of his father’s brother, who was king of the Picts, and called Bridei, and fell there with the whole strength of his army, the Picts with their king being victorious, and that from the time of this war it was called the battle of Lingaran. Tighernac places the devastation in Ireland in the year 685, and this battle, which he calls the battle of Duin Nechtain, in the year 686. He agrees with Bede in stating that it took place on the 20th of June, and adds that it was fought on a Saturday, but as the 20th of June fell on a Saturday in the year 685, it is evident that Bede’s date is the correct one. Simeon of Durham says that the battle was fought at a place called Nechtan’s Mere, and the Annals of Ulster add the further fact that Ecgfrid had burnt Tula Aman and Duin Ollaig.[349] Ecgfrid appears therefore to have crossed the Forth at Stirling, and advanced through Perthshire to the Tay, where he burnt the place called Tula Aman at the mouth of the river Almond where it falls into the Tay. He seems at the same time to have sent a detachment from his army into Dalriada, where he burnt Duinollaig, now Dunolly, the chief stronghold of the Cinel Loarn. He then followed the retreating army of the Picts along the level country bounded on the north-west by the range of the Sidlaw hills, and in attempting incautiously to penetrate through the mountain range at Dunnichen was surrounded and defeated, his army being almost entirely cut off and himself slain. There was a lake, now drained, called the Mire of Dunnichen, where the battle was fought, and has left its record in the numerous stone coffins which have been found in the neighbourhood.[350]

An Irish annalist has preserved to us the following lines, attributed to Riagal of Bangor:—

‘This day Bruide fights a battle for the land of his grandfather,
Unless the Son of God will it otherwise, he will die in it:
This day the son of Ossa was killed in battle with green swords,
Although he did penance, he shall lie in Hi after his death:
This day the son of Ossa was killed, who had the black drink.
Christ heard our supplications, they spared Bruide the brave.’[351]

[Sidenote: Effect of the defeat and death of Ecgfrid.]

The effect of this crushing defeat of the Anglic army, accompanied by the death of their king, was to enable those who had been under subjection to them at once to recover their independence; and Bede thus sums it up:—‘From that time the hopes and strength of the Anglic kingdom began to fluctuate and to retrograde, for the Picts recovered the territory belonging to them which the Angles had held, and the Scots who were in Britain and a certain part of the Britons regained their liberty, which they have now enjoyed for about forty-six years.’[352]

The difference in the expressions used with regard to the Picts and those employed towards the Scots and Britons shows that while the latter were merely tributary to the Angles, the former had actually been incorporated with their kingdom; but the result secured the full independence of both, which they had retained during the forty-six years which elapsed from the death of Ecgfrid to the termination of Bede’s history; and thus terminated the thirty years’ subjection of the Picts, the Scots of Dalriada, and the Britons of Alclyde, to the Angles; and as, after the defeat of Aedan with his army of Scots and Britons at Dawstane, it was said that no Scot durst after that attack the kingdom of the Angles, so now we are told that the Angles never afterwards were in a position to exact a tribute from the Picts.[353]

[Sidenote: Position of the Angles and Picts.]

Some portion of this period of forty-six years elapsed before the mutual relations of the Angles and Picts on the one hand, and the Scots and Britons on the other, became fixed within definite limits, and their internal government completely reorganised. The Angles by this defeat lost the Pictish territory Osuiu had added to their kingdom thirty years before; but the previous boundaries of the Northumbrian kingdom seem to have been retained, and we are told by Bede that Aldfrid, the successor of Ecgfrid, ‘nobly retrieved the ruined state of the kingdom though within narrower bounds.’[354] The whole Pictish nation north of the Firth of Forth, which Bede terms the Province of the Picts, was now once more independent, but the kingdom of the Angles still extended, nominally at least, to the Avon; and though we are told that ‘among the many Angles who there either fell by the sword or were made slaves, or escaped by flight out of the country of the Picts, the most reverend man of God, Trumuini, who had received the bishopric over them, withdrew with his people that were in the monastery of Aebbercurnig’ or Abercorn, Bede adds that it was ‘seated in the country of the Angles, but close by the arm of the sea which divides the territories of the Angles and the Picts.’[355]

Seven years after the battle of Dunnichen, Bruide, son of Bile, the king of the Picts, died.[356] He is termed by Tighernac king of Fortrenn, from which it would appear that after the re-establishment of the Pictish kingdom in its independence he had made the district of Fortrenn his principal seat, to which he was no doubt led by his paternal connection with the Britons, and this term of Fortrenn now came to be used as synonymous with the kingdom of the Picts.

Adamnan held the abbacy of Hii or Iona at the time that Bruide died, and the Irish Life of Adamnan contains the following strange legend:—‘The body of Bruide, son of Bile, king of the Cruithnigh, was brought to Ia (Iona), and his death was sorrowful and grievous to Adamnan, and he desired that the body of Bruide should be brought to him into the house that night. Adamnan watched by the body till morning. Next day, when the body began to move and open its eyes, a certain devout man came to the door of his house and said, “If Adamnan’s object be to raise the dead, I say he should not do so, for it will be a degradation to every cleric who shall succeed to his place, if he too cannot raise the dead.” “There is somewhat of right in that,” said Adamnan, “therefore, as it is more proper, let us give our blessing to the body and to the soul of Bruide.” Thus Bruide resigned his spirit to heaven again, with the blessing of Adamnan and the congregation of Ia. Then Adamnan said—

Many wonders doth he perform,
The King born of Mary:
He takes away life (and gives)
Death to Bruide, son of Bile;
It is rare,
After ruling in the kingdom of the north,
That a hollow wood of withered oak (an oak coffin)
Is about the son of the king of Alcluaith.’[357]

He was succeeded by Taran, son of Entefidich, who seems to have belonged to a different section of the Picts, and not to have been generally accepted by the nation, as in the year following his accession we have again a siege of Dun Foither or Dunnotter, and after a short reign of four years he is driven from the throne.[358] Taran was succeeded by Bridei, son of Dereli. In the year following Tighernac records a battle between the Saxons and the Picts, in which Brechtraig, son of Bernith, is slain. Bede in his Chronicle also records that Brerctred, a royal commander of the Northumbrians, was slain by the Picts,[359] and we are told in the Ulster Annals that, a year after, Taran took refuge in Ireland. Brechtraig appears to have been the son of that Bernaeth who headed the insurrection of the Picts in 672, and seems to have made an effort to recover the influence of the Angles over the Picts, which was successfully resisted. Aldfrid, King of Northumbria, died in 705, and was succeeded by his son Osred, a boy of eight years old; and in the following year Tighernac records the death of Brude, son of Dereli,[360] who was succeeded by his brother Nectan, son of Dereli, according to the Pictish law of succession. Five years after his accession, the Picts of the plain of Manann, probably encouraged by the success of the neighbouring kingdom of the Picts in maintaining their independence against the Angles, rose against their Saxon rulers. They were opposed by Berctfrid, the prefect or Alderman of the Northumbrians, whose king was still only in his fourteenth year. The Picts, however, were defeated with great slaughter, and their youthful leader Finguine, son of Deleroith, slain. The Saxon Chronicle tells us that this battle was fought between Hæfe and Cære, by which the rivers Avon and Carron are probably meant, the plain of Manann being situated between these two rivers.[361] These Picts appear to have been so effectually crushed that they did not renew the attempt, and we do not learn of any further collision between the Picts and the Angles during this period.

[Sidenote: Position Scots and Britons.]

The Scots of Dalriada and a party of the British nation, we are told, recovered their freedom, the Angles still maintaining the rule over the rest of the Britons. The portion of their kingdom which became independent consisted of those districts extending from the Firth of Clyde to the Solway, embracing the counties of Dumbarton, Renfrew, Lanark, Ayr, and Dumfries, with the stronghold of Alclyde for its capital: but the Angles still retained possession of the district of Galloway with its Pictish population, and Whitehern as their principal seat, as well as of that part of the territory of the Britons which lay between the Solway Firth and the river Derwent, having as its principal seat the town of Carlisle, which Ecgfrid had, in the same year in which he assailed the Picts, given to Saint Cuthbert, who had been made bishop of Lindisfarne in the previous year, that is, in 684.[362]

Eight years after the death of Ecgfrid, Tighernac records the death of Domnal mac Avin, king of Alclyde. He was probably the son of that Oan or Eugein who slew Domnall Breac in 642,[363] and had, on the defeat and death of Ecgfrid, recovered his father’s throne. He was succeeded by Bile, son of Alpin, and grandson of the same Eugein.

[Sidenote: Contest between Cinel Loarn and Cinel Gabhran.]

Although the Scots of Dalriada had thus obtained entire independence, they did not immediately become united under one king. Their freedom from the yoke of the Britons and Angles was followed by a contest between the chiefs of their two principal tribes, the Cinel Loarn and the Cinel Gabhran, for the throne of Dalriada. On the death of Domnall Breac, when the Britons obtained a kind of supremacy over the Dalriads, his brother Conall Crandamna, and his sons Mailduin and Domnal Donn, appear to have been at the head of the Cinel Gabhran, but Fearchar Fata, the chief of the principal branch of the Cinel Loarn, had, as we have seen, taken the lead in the attempt to free Dalriada from the rule of strangers. The death of Domnall Donn, the son of Conall Crandamna, is recorded in 696, and that of Fearchar Fata in 697. The former was succeeded by Eocha, the grandson of Domnall Breac, who was slain in the same year, and the latter by his son Ainbhcellaig, who in the following year was expelled from the kingdom, after Duinonlaig or Dunolly had been burnt, and was sent bound to Ireland;[364] but none of these leaders of the Cinel Loarn or the Cinel Gabhran bore the title of king of Dalriada.[365] On the expulsion of Ainbhcellaig we find his brother Sealbach at the head of the Cinel Loarn, and in 701 he destroys Dun Onlaigh, and cuts off the Cinel Cathbath, a rival branch of the tribe of Loarn.[366] Three years after, the slaughter of the Dalriads in Glenlemnae, or the valley of the Leven, is recorded, but whether it was in the valley of the river Leven, which divides Lorn from Lochaber, and flows into Loch Leven there, or whether it was the Leven in Dumbartonshire, cannot be fixed with any certainty. In 707, Becc, grandson of Dunchada, was slain. He was the head of a branch of the Cinel Gabhran, who possessed the south half of Kintyre, and were descended from Conaing, one of the sons of Aidan, to whom it was given as his patrimony.[367]

[Sidenote: Conflict between the Dalriads and the Britons.]

The Dalriads appear soon after to have carried the war into the British territory, for we have, in 711, a conflict of the Dalriads and Britons at Loirgeclat, by which Loch Arklet, on the east side of Loch Lomond, is probably meant, in which the Britons are defeated. In 712 Sealbach besieges Aberte or Dunaverty, the main stronghold of the south half of Kintyre, the patrimony of the branch of the Cinel Gabhran of which the descendants of Conaing, son of Aidan, were the head. In 714 Dunolly is rebuilt by Sealbach, and three years afterwards there is again a conflict between the Britons and Dalriads, at the stone which is called Minvircc, and the Britons are again defeated.[368] In the valley at the head of Loch Lomond which is called Glenfalloch there is a place called Clach na Breatan, or the stone of the Britons, which is now at the separation of Dumbartonshire from Perthshire, but originally marked the northern boundary of the territory of the Britons, and was probably the scene of this conflict.

During the rest of the period of forty-six years which succeeded the defeat and death of Ecgfrid, no further collision between the Britons and the Dalriads is recorded, and each nation remained within the limits of its own proper kingdom.

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Footnote 283:

The oldest of the Latin Chronicles says that Fergus, first king of
Dalriada, reigned ‘a monte Drumalban usque ad mare Hibernie et ad
Inchegal’ (_Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 130), apparently excluding the
islands; but the tract _De Situ Albaniæ_, of the same date, has it ‘a
monte Brunalban usque ad Mare Hiberniæ,’ and adds, ‘Deinde reges de
semine Fergus regnaverunt in Brunalban sive Brunhere’ (_Ib._ p. 137).
Brunalban seems to be the district on the east side of the range now
called Breadalban, and Brunhere is probably Bruneire, and meant for
the district on the west side of the range. There are two glens both
called Glenlochy, the one proceeding from the range eastward to Loch
Tay, the other westward to Loch Awe, and the former is called in
charters Glenlochy Alban, to distinguish it from the other. We have
therefore the term Alban applied to the country beyond the frontier of
Dalriada, and the term Eire to Dalriada as being a colony of Scots
from Eire. The south part of Morvern was called Kinelvadon or
Cinelbhadon, from Badon, a son of Loarn, and therefore belonged to
Dalriada. On the shoulder of the hill in Mull called Benmore, which
forms the pass from the northern to the southern part of the island
and is called Mamchlachaig, there are two cairns. The one on the north
is called Carn Cul ri Alban, or the cairn with its back to Alban, and
the other Carn Cul ri Erin, or the cairn with its back to Eire. There
is a similar cairn on Iona and another on Colonsay, both called Carn
Cul ri Eirin, which seem to mark the boundary. If Iona was exactly on
the boundary which separated Dalriada from the Picts, it is obvious
how Bede’s statement that it was given to Saint Columba by the Picts
who inhabit the adjacent districts, is not inconsistent with that of
Tighernac, that it was immolated to him by the king of Dalriada. The
expression is ‘offeravit.’ See Reeves’s _Adamnan_, orig. ed., p. 434,
for a judicious examination of this point.

Footnote 284:

This account is taken from the Tract ‘On the Men of Alban’ (_Chron.
Picts and Scots_, p. 308). The Cinel Comgall, from whom Cowall takes
its name, formed properly a fourth tribe, being descended from a
brother of Gabran, but they appear to have been incorporated with the
Cinel Gabran. The Cinel Loarn consisted of three smaller tribes—the
Cinel Fergus Salach, the Cinel Cathbath, and the Cinel Eachadh, to
whom the three subdivisions of Lorn—Nether Lorn, Mid-Lorn, and Upper
Lorn—may be severally assigned. Dr. O’Donovan identified Dunmonaidh,
the traditionary capital of Dalriada, with Dunstaffnage, but evidently
upon mere conjecture. Dr. Reeves, in his edition of _Adamnan_, rightly
identifies it with Dunadd.

Footnote 285:

Eis quæ arduis atque horrentibus montium jugis, ab australibus eorum
sunt regionibus sequestratæ (B. iii. c. iv.).

Erat autem Columba primus doctor fidei Christianæ transmontanis Pictis
ad aquilonem (B. v. c. ix.).

Footnote 286:

Ut, ubi res perveniret in dubium, magis de feminea regum prosapia,
quam de masculina regem sibi eligerent; quod usque hodie apud Pictos
constat esse servatum.—Bede, B. i. c. 1.

Footnote 287:

_Chron. Picts and Scots_, pp. 40, 45, 126.

Footnote 288:

_Ibid._ pp. 319, 328, 329.

Footnote 289:

Brude mac Bile and Talorcan mac Ainfrait. This will appear afterwards.

Footnote 290:

M‘Lennan, _Primitive Marriage_, p. 129.

Footnote 291:

Cæsar says of the Britons of the interior, ‘Uxores habent deni
duodenique inter se communes, et maxime fratres cum fratribus,
parentesque cum liberis; sed, si qui sunt ex his nati, eorum habentur
liberi, quo primum virgo quæque deducta est.’—(B. v. c. 14.) Dio, as
reported by Xiphiline, attributes a similar custom to the Caledonians
and Mæatæ, when he says that they have wives in common, and rear the
whole of their progeny. It is obvious that such a custom must have
given rise to the feeling, that the only certainty of a child
belonging to a particular family was to look to the mother, not the
father, as the link which connected him with it; and that the Pictish
system would naturally spring out of it; but it is probable Cæsar and
Dio represented a custom as it appeared to them, without understanding
it.

Footnote 292:

When the father of the children adopted was king in a nation where
male succession prevailed, the eldest son appears to have remained in
the father’s tribe, and succeeded to his throne, while the children
adopted alone non-Pictish names. We shall find this to be the case
where the kings were of foreign race.

Footnote 293:

584 Mors Bruidhe mac Mailchon Righ Cruithneach.—_Tigh._

Footnote 294:

599 Bas Gartnaidh regis Pictorum.—_Tigh._

Footnote 295:

In the Latin lists this king is confounded with the older Nectan, and
called the son of Irb and the founder of Abernethy.

Footnote 296:

Bamborough is about sixteen miles south-east of Berwick. The Holy
Island is about nine miles from Berwick, and is four miles long and
two broad. The channel between it and the mainland is left dry at low
water.

Footnote 297:

A.D. 606 Bas Aedhan mac Gabhrain anno xxviii. regni sui, aetatis vero
lxxiv.—_Tigh._

Footnote 298:

Nectan is said to have reigned 20 years, and Cinioch 19; together 39
years. Tighernac, however, records the death of the previous king
Gartnaidh in 599, and of Cinadon in 631, giving an interval of only 32
years. Cinioch therefore began to reign in 612, and as Tighernac does
not record the death of Nectan as king of the Picts, he must then have
been displaced.

Footnote 299:

Majore potentia cunctis qui Brittaniam incolunt, Anglorum pariter et
Brettonum populis, præfuit (B. ii. c. v.). Nemo Anglorum ante eum
omnes Britanniæ fines, qua vel ipsorum vel Brettonum provinciæ
habitant, sub ditione acceperit (B. ii. c. ix.).

Footnote 300:

In the foundation charter of Holyrood by David I., he called it
‘Ecclesia Sancti Crucis Edwinesburgensis.’ Simeon of Durham calls it
Edwinesburch.

Footnote 301:

It is called ‘Lothene’ in the Saxon Chronicle, and appears to be meant
by Lethead in the ancient poem in _Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 127.
Florence of Worcester calls it ‘Provincia Loidis,’ and the Chronicle
of Melrose the same. It appears, as we shall see, under the name of
‘Regio Loidis’ in 654. In its limited extent it was the district
between the Avon and the Lammermoors. In the foundation charter of
Holyrood, David the First grants to its monks the tenth of all the
marine animals which might be thrown ashore ‘ab Avon usque ad
Colbrandspath,’ with the tenth of his pleas and other dues within the
same limits; and in a charter of Rolland, son of Uchtred, some lands
in Lauderdale are described as ‘usque ad divisas de Laodonia versus
Lambermor.’ This district now consists of the three counties of East,
Mid, and West Lothians. Simeon of Durham refers to it in its large
extent when he has ‘pervenit apud fluvium Twedam, qui Northymbriam et
Loidam disterminat.’—Sym. Dun. Surtees ed., p. 127.

Footnote 302:

A.D. 627 Cath Airdcoraind in Dalriada [Lachtnene mac Toirbene Abbach]
victores erant in quo cecidit Fiachna mac Demain la Conadh Cerr Ri
Dalriada.—_Tigh._ The words within brackets belong to another year and
have dropped in by mistake.

Footnote 303:

A.D. 629 Cath Fedhaeoin in quo Maelcaith mac Scandail Rex Cruithnin
victor erat. Dalriada cecidit. Concad Cer Rex Dalriada cecidit et
Dicuill mac Eachach Rex Ceneoil Cruithne cecidit et nepotes Aidan, id
est, Regullan mac Conaing et Failbe mac Eachach [et Osseric mac
Albruit cum strage maxima suorum]. Eochadh Buidhi mac Aidan victor
erat.—_Tigh._ The words in brackets do not belong to this event. The
Ulster Annals add, ‘Mors Eochach Buidhe regis Pictorum filii Aedain,
sic in libro Cuanac inveni.’ In the tract on the battle of Magh-Rath
we are told that Eochadh Buidhe married the daughter of Eochaidh
Aingces Ri Bretain. This is a Gaelic and not a British name, and a
king of the Picts of Galloway may be meant, through whose daughter
Eochadh Buidhe acquired his right.

Footnote 304:

Bas Cinaetha mac Luchtren regis Pictorum.—_Tigh._

Footnote 305:

Quamvis nomen et professionem haberet Christiani, adeo tamen erat
animo ac moribus barbarus, ut ne sexui quidem muliebri vel innocuæ
parvulorum parceret ætati.—B. ii. c. 20.

Footnote 306:

Viro strenuissimo de regio genere Merciorum.—_Ib._

Footnote 307:

Bede, ii. c. 20. The chronicle annexed to Nennius dates this battle in
630, and Tighernac in 631, when he has ‘Cath itir Etuin mac Ailli
regis Saxonum, qui totam Britanniam regnavit, in quo victus est a Chon
rege Britonum et Panta Saxano;’ but Tighernac dates Anglic events two
or three years before Bede.

Footnote 308:

Bede, _Hist. Ec._ B. iv. c. 1.

Footnote 309:

Adamnan, _Vit. Col._ Book i. c. 1.

Footnote 310:

632 Cath la Cathlon et Anfraith qui decollatus est, in quo Osualt mac
Etalfraith victor erat et Catlon rex Britonum cecidit.—_Tigh._

Footnote 311:

635 Cath Seghuisse in quo cecidit Lochene mac Nechtain Cennfota et
Cumascach mac Aengussa.—_Tigh._ Bellum Seguse in quo cecidit Lochne
mac Nechtain Ceannfotai agus Cumuscach mac Aengusso agus Gartnait mac
Oith.—_An. Ult._

Footnote 312:

678 Cath i Calitros in quo victus est Domhnall breacc.—_Tigh._ The
battle is entered under wrong year, being after Domnall Breac’s death;
but as Tighernac, who records his death at 642, repeats it at 686, it
may be held to have taken place eight years before his death. The
cause of these misplaced entries will be afterwards noticed.

Footnote 313:

Iisdem finibus regnum tenuit.—B. ii. c. v.

Footnote 314:

Pink. _Vit. SS._ p. 30. Adamnan, _Vit. S. Col._ B. iii. c. vi.

Footnote 315:

An ancient historical romance called the Battle of Magh Rath was
published in the original Irish, with a translation and notes, for the
Irish Archæological Society, by Dr. O’Donovan, which may be consulted
with advantage, but it contains the anachronism of Congal Claen
applying to Eochadh Buidhe as the then reigning king of Dalriada, who
had died eight years before. Mr. Burton has strangely misrepresented
the Dalriadic history, arising probably from a too superficial
examination of the Irish Annals, and a want of acquaintance with Irish
names and words, which he rarely gives correctly. In vol. i. p. 289,
he states of Aidan that by his descent from Riadha he belonged to the
race of the Hy Neill, but this is a mistake. The Dalriads belonged to
an entirely different branch of the Scots from the Hy Neill. He says
that Aidan justified Saint Columba’s prophetic fears by emancipating
his territory from dependence on the monarchs of Ireland, but it was
Saint Columba himself who effected this emancipation at the Council of
Drumceatt. He says that Domnall Brecc contemplated the subjugation of
Ireland, and implies that the Dalriadic kings put forward some
pretensions to the Irish throne, of which there is not the least
trace. The only successor of Domnall Brecc whom Mr. Burton notices is
Eocha, or Auchy as he calls him, son of Aodhfin, in 796, a fictitious
king who never existed.

Footnote 316:

638 Cath Glinnemairison in quo mundert Domnall Bricc do teichedh (the
people of Domnall Brecc fled) et obsessio Etin.—_Tigh._ The Ulster
Annals have Glenmureson. Glenmoriston in Inverness-shire is of course
out of the question, and the only name in a suitable situation is the
Mureston Water, in the parishes of West and Mid Calder, on the south
bank of the Almond, and between it and the Mureston Water are four
barrows or tumuli, near which, according to common tradition, a great
battle was fought in early times between the Picts and Scots.—_N. S.
A._ vol. i. p. 373. That Etin here is Edinburgh need not be doubted.

Footnote 317:

642. Domnall-brecc in cath Srathacauin in fine anni in Decembre
interfectus est xv. regni sui ab Ohan rege Britonum.—_Tigh._ The
Annals of Ulster have in the same year ‘Domhnall-breacc in bello
Sraith Cairinn in fine anni in Decembre interfectus est ab Hoan rege
Britonum.’ The upper part of the Vale of the Carron, through which the
river flows after rising in the Fintry hills, is called Strathcarron,
but it also bore the name of Strathcawin. Thus in the Morton
Chartulary there is a charter by Alexander II., which mentions ‘Dundaf
et Strathkawan que fuerunt foresta nostra’ (Ap. to Pref., vol. i. p.
xxxiv). Dundaf adjoins Strathcarron. The letter h in Ohan or Hoan is
redundant. The name is Oan, a form of Owen, or Eugein. There is in the
Welsh poem of the Gododin a stanza which obviously relates to this
event. It is repeated in the poem with some verbal variations, but it
may be thus rendered:—

I saw the array that came from Pentir (Kintyre);
It was as victims for the sacrifice they descended.
I saw the two out of their town they did fall,
And the men of Nwython brought destruction;
I saw the men beaten or wounded who came with the dawn,
And the head of Dyvnwal Vrych ravens devoured it.

The author is indebted to Professor Evans of New York for pointing out
that Pentir is the Welsh equivalent of Cindtire, or Kintyre, and for
correcting the erroneous rendering of the first lines in the _Four
Ancient Books of Wales_.—See _Archæologia Cambrensis_ for April 1874,
p. 122.

Now this Oan who slew Domnall Breacc is evidently the Eugein who
appears in the Welsh genealogies attached to Nennius as the ancestor
of the later kings of Alclyde—(see _Chron. Picts and Scots_, Pref.
xcv), and who was son of Beli, son of Neithon, who is obviously the
Nwython of the poem, and by his men the Strathclyde Britons are meant.
The Annals of Ulster have, at 649, ‘Cocat huae Naedain et Gartnait
meic Accidain’ (war of the grandson of Naedan and Gartnaidh son of
Accidan). The grandson of Naedan was no doubt Oan or Eugein, and his
opponent a Pict.

Footnote 318:

Flann Mainistrech and the Albanic Duan place five kings during this
period—Conall Crandomna, and Dungall or Dunchad mac Duban, who reign
jointly ten years; Domnall Donn thirteen years, Mailduin mac Conall
seventeen years, and Fearchan Fada twenty-one years—in all sixty-one
years, which brings us to the end of the century; but Tighernac
records the death of Conall Crandomna in 660, Mailduin mac Conall
Crandomna in 689, and Fearchar Fada in 697, simply, without adding to
their names the title Ri Dalriada. Conall Crandomna was brother of
Domnall Breacc, and his reigning jointly with Dungall or Dunchad, of
another line, shows how the little kingdom was broken up. Domnall Donn
and Mailduin were his sons, but Fearchan Fada was of the Cinel Loarn.

Footnote 319:

Bede, _Hist. Ec._ B. iii. c. iv. Tighernac has at 632 ‘Inis Metgoit
fundata est,’ but he antedates Anglic events three years.

Footnote 320:

Denique omnes nationes et provincias Brittaniæ, quæ in quatuor
linguas, id est, Brettonum, Pictorum, Scottorum, et Anglorum divisæ
sunt, in ditione accepit.—B. iii. c. vi.

Footnote 321:

Tighernac has at 639, recte 642, simply ‘Cath Osuailt contra Panta, in
quo Osualt cecidit,’ which rather implies that he was the attacking
party.

Footnote 322:

642, recte 645, Cath Ossueius inimun (between him) et Britones.

Footnote 323:

Bede, B. iii. c. xvi.

Footnote 324:

_Ib._ c. xvii.

Footnote 325:

Bede, B. iii. c. xxiv.

Footnote 326:

B. ii. c. xiv. There is a slight variation in the expression. In the
one case it is ‘regio quæ vocatur Loidis,’ and in this simply ‘regio
Loidis.’

Footnote 327:

Bede says that ‘prope fluvium Winuaed pugnatum est,’ and ‘Hoc autem
bellum rex Osuiu in regione Loidis tertio decimo regni sui anno,
decimo septimo die kal. Decembrium cum magna utriusque populi
utilitate confecit.’

The continuator of Nennius, ‘Et ipse (Osguid) occidit Pantha in Campo
Gaii et nunc facta est Strages Gai campi et reges Britonum interfecti
sunt qui exierant cum rege Pantha in expeditione usque ad urbem quæ
vocatur Judeu. Tunc reddidit Osguid omnes divitias quæ erant cum eo in
urbe, usque in Manau, Pende et Penda distribuit ea regibus Britonum,
id est, Atbret Judeu. Solus autem Catgabail rex Guenedote regionis cum
exercitu suo evasit de nocte consurgens; qua propter vocatus est
Catgabail Catguommed.’—_Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 13.

It is obvious that the event in the second sentence preceded the
first, and that it was a night attack.

Florence of Worcester says that Penda with thirty legions and an equal
number of noble chiefs entered Bernicia for the purpose of attacking
Oswy.

There is a very ingenious paper by Mr. D. W. Nash, in the _Cambrian
Journal_, vol. iv., Second Series, p. 1, in which, identifying this
battle with the battle of Catraeth, which forms the subject of the
poem of the Gododin, he was the first to point out the probability of
the scene of the battle being in the north. He identifies the town
Judeu with Bede’s Giudi, but supposes it to be the same as Jedburgh,
and endeavours to show from the poem itself that it relates to this
battle. The author concurs with him so far that the battle in which
Penda was slain took place in the north, and that by the ‘regio
Loidis’ Lothian is meant, and he can hardly doubt that the name ‘Gaius
Campus’ is merely a Latin rendering of Catraeth; but he cannot agree
in the identification with Jedburgh, because Catraeth was evidently on
the sea-shore, and Bede, whose authority cannot be questioned, places
Giudi in the Firth of Forth. He can discover no resemblance between
the incidents in the poem and this battle, though the locality may be
the same. Tighernac has at 656 ‘Cath Pante regis Saxonum in quo ipse
cum xxx regibus cecidit. Ossiu victor erat.’ The Chronicle annexed to
Nennius has in 656 ‘Strages Gaii Campi,’ and in 657, ‘Pantha occisio,’
thus placing the battle and the death of Penda in two different years,
but this is against all authorities.

Footnote 328:

Æqualibus pene terminis regnum nonnullo tempore coercens, Pictorum
quoque atque Scottorum gentes, quæ septentrionales Brittanniæ fines
tenent, maxima ex parte perdomuit, ac tributarias fecit.—B. ii. c. v.

Footnote 329:

658. Mors Gureit regis Alocluaithe.—_An. Ult._

Footnote 330:

A.D. 653 Bass Ferich mac Totalain et Ectolairg mac Fooith regis
Pictorum.—_Tigh._

Footnote 331:

A.D. 657 Bas Tolarcain mac Ainfrith Ri Cruithne.—_Tigh._

Footnote 332:

Idem autem rex Osuiu tribus annis post occisionem Pendan regis,
Mercionum genti, necnon et cæteris australium provinciarum populis
præfuit: qui etiam gentem Pictorum maxima ex parte regno Anglorum
subjecit.—B. iii. c. xxiv.

Footnote 333:

Bede, B. iii. c. xxv.

Footnote 334:

_Ib._, B. iii. c. xxvi. His expression is ‘in Scottiam regressus est.’
In another place (B. iv. c. iv.) he says ‘Interea Colmanus, qui de
Scottia erat episcopus, relinquens Britanniam, tulit secum omnes quos
in Lindisfarnensium insula congregaverat Scottos; sed et de gente
Anglorum viros circiter triginta, qui utrique monachicæ conversationis
erant studiis imbuti. Et relictis in ecclesia sua fratribus aliquot,
primo venit ad insulam Hii, unde erat ad prædicandum verbum Anglorum
genti destinatus. Deinde secessit ad insulam quandam parvam, quæ ad
occidentalem plagam ab Hibernia procul secreta, sermone Scottico
Inisboufinde, id est, insula vitulæ albæ, nuncupatur. In hanc ergo
perveniens, construxit monasterium, et monachos inibi, quos de utraque
natione collectos adduxerat, collocavit.’ It might be thought that by
the expression ‘in Scottiam regressus,’ Bede considered Hii or Iona as
being in Scottia, but Bede elsewhere uses Scottia invariably for
Ireland, and in narrating Saint Columba’s mission to Iona he says,
‘venit de Hibernia Britanniam.’ He therefore probably, when he says
Colman was de ‘Scottia,’ meant that he came from Ireland and returned
there eventually, merely visiting Iona on his way.

Footnote 335:

A.D. 668. Navigatio Colman Episcopi cum reliquiis sanctorum ad insulam
Vaccæ Albæ in quo fundavit ecclesiam et navigatio filiorum Gartnaith
ad Hiberniam cum plebe Scith.—_Tigh._

670 Venit gens Gartnait de Hibernia.—_Tigh._ For the Columban
settlements in Skye see Reeves’s _Adamnan_, edit. 1874, p. 274.
Colman’s course to Iona can be traced by the dedications. Menmuir and
Fearn in Forfarshire are dedicated to St. Aidan, and he is himself
patron saint of Tarbet in Easter Ross.

Footnote 336:

Wilfrido administrante episcopatum Eboracensis ecclesiæ, necnon et
omnium Nordanhymbrorum, sed et Pictorum, quousque rex Osuiu imperium
protendere poterat.—B. iv. c. iii.

Footnote 337:

Nam in primis annis ejus, tenero adhuc regno, populi bestiales
Pictorum feroci animo subjectionem Saxonum despiciebant, et jugum
servitutis a se abjicere minabantur, congregantes undique de utribus
et folliculis Aquilonis innumeras gentes, quasi formicarum greges in
æstate de tumulis ferventes, aggerem contra domum cadentem muniebant.
Quo audito Rex Ecgfridus humilis in populis suis, magnanimus in
hostes, statim equitatu exercito præparato, tarda molimina nesciens,
sicut Judas Maccabæus in Deum confidens, parva manu populi Dei contra
enormem et supra invisibilem hostem cum Bernhaeth subaudaci Regulo
invasit, stragemque immensam populi subruit, duo flumina cadaveribus
mortuorum replens, ita (quod mirum dictu est) ut supra siccis pedibus
ambulantes, fugientium turbam occidentes persequebantur, et in
servitutem redacti populi, usque ad diem occisionis regis, subjecti
jugo captivitatis jacebant.—Eddii _Vit. S. Wilf._ c. xix. The name
Bernhaeth has all the appearance of a Saxon name, and it is hardly
possible to avoid the suspicion that he is the same person as the
father of ‘Brectred dux regius Norndanhymbrorum,’ who was slain by the
Picts in 698, and who is called by Tighernac, filius Bernith. He may
have been the Anglic ruler over the subjected Picts who had joined
them, and may have provoked the insurrection in order to make himself
independent.

Footnote 338:

672 Expulsio Drosto de regno.—_Tigh._

Footnote 339:

Sicut igitur Ecgfrido Rege religioso regnum ad Aquilonem et Austrum
per triumphos augebatur: Ita beatæ memoriæ Wilfrido Episcopo ad
Austrum super Saxones et Aquilonem super Britones et Scotos, Pictosque
regnum ecclesiarum multiplicabatur; omnibus gentibus carus et
amabilis, ecclesiastica officia diligenter persolvebat et omnibus
locis presbyteros et diaconos sibi adjuvantes abundanter ordinavit,
inter seculares undas fluctuantes moderate novas ecclesias
gubernabat.—Eddii _Vit. S. Wilf._ c. xxi.

Footnote 340:

Trumuini ad provinciam Pictorum, quæ tunc temporis Anglorum erat
imperio subjecta.—Bede, _H. E._ B. iv. c. xii. Later writers who knew
of no Picts but those of Galloway have made it Trumuin’s diocese, but
there can be no doubt that Bede throughout refers to the province of
the Picts north of the Firth of Forth.

Footnote 341:

Bredei reigned twenty-one years, and died in 693, which places the
beginning of his reign in this year.

Footnote 342:

This is proved by the poem afterwards quoted, attributed to Adamnan,
in which he is called ‘the son of the king of Alcluaith;’ and in
another poem, attributed to Riagal of Bangor, he is said to fight for
the land of his grandfather. The continuator of Nennius calls him the
‘fratruelis’ of Ecgfrid, that is, the son or descendant of his
father’s brother; and Anfrait, the father of Talorcan, was the brother
of Osuiu, the father of Ecgfrid. It is curious to see how very little
of real Pictish blood he had.

Footnote 343:

A.D. 680 Obsessio Duinbaitte.—_An. Ult._ A.D. 681 Obsessio Duin
Foither.—_Ib._

A.D. 682 Orcades deletæ sunt la Bruidhe.—_Tigh._

Footnote 344:

The genealogy is given in the Tract on the Men of Alban.—_Chron. Picts
and Scots_, p. 316.

Footnote 345:

A.D. 678 Interfectio generis Loairn itirinn, id est, Feachair fotai et
Britones qui victores erant.—_Tigh._

In 683, however, he appears to have advanced more successfully, and to
have been enabled to act in concert with Bredei, as in that year we
have the sieges of Dunatt and Dunduirn recorded.[346] The one was
Dunadd, the principal seat of the Dalriads, and a strong fort in the
Moss of Crinan. The other was an equally strong position crowning an
eminence at the east end of Loch Earn, which was the principal
stronghold of the district of Fortrenn. We now find Bredei, called in
the Irish Annals king of Fortrenn, and this success seems to have
aroused King Ecgfrid of Northumbria to the necessity of once more
attacking and subduing the Picts.

Bellum Duinlocho et bellum Liaccmaelain et Doirad Eilinn.—_An. Ult._

Footnote 346:

A.D. 683 Obsessio Duinatt et Duinduirn.—_An. Ult._

Footnote 347:

Bede, _Hist. Ec._ B. iv. c. 26. A.D. 685. Saxones Campum Breg vastant
et ecclesias plurimas in mense Junii.—_An. Ult._

Footnote 348:

Siquidem anno post hunc proximo idem rex, cum temere exercitum ad
vastandum Pictorum provinciam duxisset, multum prohibentibus amicis et
maxime beatæ memoriæ Cudbercto qui nuper fuerat ordinatus episcopus,
introductus est, simulantibus fugam hostibus, in angustias
inaccessorum montium, et cum maxima parte copiarum quas secum
adduxerat, extinctus anno ætatis suæ quadragesimo, regni autem quinto
decimo, die tertiadecima kal. Juniarium.—B. iv. c. 62.

Footnote 349:

686 Cath Duin Nechtain xx^o die mensis Maii Sabbati dei factum est in
quo Ecfrit mac Ossu, rex Saxonum, xv anno regni sui consummato magna
cum caterva militum suorum interfectus la Bruidhi mac Bile rege
Fortrenn.—_Tigh._ At rex Ecgfridus anno quo fecerat hunc venerabilem
patrem ordinari episcopum, cum maxima parte copiarum quas ad
devastandam terram Pictorum secum duxerat, secundum prophetiam ejusdem
patris Cuthberti extinctus est apud Nechtanesmere, quod est stagnum
Nechtani, die xiii. Kal. Juniarum anno regni sui xv. cujus corpus in
Hii insula Columbæ sepultum est.—Sim. Dun. _de Dun. Ec._ B. i. c. ix.
Et combussit Tula Aman Duin Ollaigh.—_An. Ult._

Footnote 350: