Chapter VII: The Kingdom of Alban (2)

The succession to the throne of Alban now fell to Kenneth, the son of Malcolm and brother of Dubh, and his first act seems to have been to retaliate upon the Britons for the death of his predecessor, but this he did not effect without loss. He is said by the Pictish Chronicle to have immediately laid waste the territory of the Britons to a great extent, while a party of his foot-soldiers were cut off with great slaughter in the moss of the Cornag, the water which gives its name to Abercorn.[521] His attention, however, was soon directed to the more important field of Northumbria. When the kingdom came to an end in 954, and the government of an earl substituted, the first earl appointed was Osulf, who ruled over both provinces, but he was succeeded in 966 by Oslac, and soon after Northumbria was divided into two earldoms, Oslac ruling at York and the southern parts, while Eadulf, called Yvelchild, was placed over the Northumbrians from the Tees to Myrcforth, or the Firth of Forth.[522] Immediately after the unsatisfactory expedition against the Strathclyde Britons, the Scots are recorded in the Pictish Chronicle to have laid waste Saxonia or the northern part of Northumbria as far as Stanmore, Cleveland, and the pools of Deira, that is, the part of Northumbria which had been placed as a separate earldom under Eadulf; and in order to protect himself against the Britons, Kenneth fortified the fords of the river Forth, which at this time separated his kingdom from that of Strathclyde.[523] In the following year Kenneth repeated his invasion of Northumbria, and is said to have carried off a son of the king of the Saxons, by whom Earl Eadulf is probably meant. We now lose the invaluable guidance of the Pictish Chronicle, which appears to have been compiled in Kenneth’s reign, at Brechin, as it breaks off with the intimation that this king gave the great city of Brechin to the Lord,[524] and leaves the years of his reign unfilled up, while it contains no record of his death; but, on the other hand, we recover the Irish annalist, Tighernac, the hiatus in whose annals terminates with the year 973. In 975 he tells us that Domnall, son of Eoain, king of the Britons, went on a pilgrimage. The Welsh Chronicle, the Brut y Tywysogion, which records the same event, calls him Dunwallaun, king of Strathclyde, and states that he went to Rome.[525] He is the same Domnaldus who was king of the Cumbrians when Eadmund ravaged the country in 945, and was the son of that Eugenius, king of the Cumbrians, who fought in the battle of Brunnanburg. Kenneth too appears to have had to contend against the claims of the sons of Indulph to succeed to their father in preference to that form of the law of Tanistry which had hitherto regulated the succession, by which it alternated between the two branches of the Scottish royal family; for Tighernac records that Amlaiph or Olaf, the son of Indulph, king of Alban, was slain in the year 977, by Kenneth, son of Malcolm.[526] The English chroniclers, however, add some events to the reign of Kenneth, of a much more questionable character, the chief of which is that the district of Lothian was ceded to Kenneth by King Eadgar, to be held by him as a fief of the English crown. This statement first appears in the Tract on the arrival of the Saxons, attributed to Simeon of Durham. It is there said that when Eadgar set the two earls, Oslac and Eadulf, over Northumbria, giving the latter the territory from the Tees to the Firth of Forth, these earls, with the bishop, brought Kenneth, king of the Scots, to King Eadgar, and when he had done homage to him, Eadgar gave him Lothian and sent him home with honour.[527] This Chronicle was made use of by John Wallingford, who wrote nearly a century later, and thus elaborates the story:—‘Kenneth, the king of Scotland, hearing from common report, and the praises of the two earls, Oslach and Eadulf, and Elfsi, bishop of Durham, of the greatness of King Eadgar, desiring greatly to see him, asked and obtained a safe-conduct to London, that he might converse with him. Thus conducted at the command of the king by the two earls and the bishop, Kenneth, the king of Scotland, came to London, and was honourably received by King Eadgar, and treated with high consideration. While they were conversing familiarly and pleasantly together, Kenneth suggested to Eadgar that “Louthion” was a hereditary possession of the kings of Scotland, and therefore ought to belong to him. King Eadgar being unwilling to do anything hurriedly, for fear of repenting of what he had done afterwards, referred the cause to his counsellors.

‘These men having been well instructed in the wisdom of their ancestors ... unless the king of Scotland should consent to do homage for it to the king of England ... and chiefly because the means of access to that district for the purposes of defence are very difficult, and its possession not very profitable.... Kenneth, however, assented to this decision, and sought and obtained it on the understanding that he was to do homage for it; and he did homage accordingly to King Eadgar, and further was obliged to promise under pledges, in solemn form, that he would not deprive the people of that region of their ancient customs, and that they should still be allowed to use the name and language of the Angles. These conditions have been faithfully observed to the present day, and thus was settled the old dispute about Louthion, though a new ground of difference still often arises.’[528]

The older English chroniclers know nothing whatever of this cession of Lothian by King Eadgar to Kenneth, and it is quite inconsistent with the account given by Simeon of Durham himself of how the Scottish kings acquired it. The Saxon Chronicle, though it mentions the cession of Cumbria to Malcolm, has no hint of this transaction, while the Pictish Chronicle presents us with a totally different picture of the relations between Kenneth and the two earls who shared the Northumbrian territories between them. There he appears only as endeavouring to wrest the country north of the Tees from one of them. We may therefore dismiss this tale as having no foundation in fact, and as one of those spurious narratives arising out of the controversy as to the dependence of Scotland. That the kings of Alban of the line of Kenneth mac Alpin asserted some claim to the territory south of the Firth of Forth seems however to have some foundation, otherwise it is difficult to account for the fact that they no sooner become possessed of the Pictish throne than, instead of consolidating their power over the Pictish kingdom, they at once attack Saxonia or the Northumbrian districts on the south side of the Firth of Forth. Kenneth, the founder of their house, is said to have invaded it six times. Giric is said to have conquered Bernicia. We find Constantin, son of Aedh, in alliance with the northern Saxons, and in conjunction with Anlaf Cuaran invading Northumbria. Malcolm, son of Donald, overruns the country as far as the Tees. Edinburgh and the district around it are given up by the Angles to Indulph, and Kenneth, of whom we are treating, twice repeats a similar invasion; but if these invasions of Northumbria were connected with any supposed claim to its possession, it was not Lothian alone but the whole of Bernicia that they claimed. Upon what right such a claim could have been based, whether upon the extent to which the previous kings of the Picts had obtained possession of part of that territory, or whether upon some ground peculiar to their dynasty, and involving, as Wallingford asserts, the assertion of a hereditary right, it is difficult to say. There is no doubt that not long before the accession of Kenneth mac Alpin to the Pictish throne the kingdom of Northumbria seems to have fallen into a state of complete disintegration, and we find a number of independent chiefs, or ‘duces’ as they are termed, appearing in different parts of the country and engaging in conflict with the kings and with each other, slaying and being slain, conspiring against the king and being conspired against in their turn, expelling him and each other, and being expelled. Out of this confusion, however, one family emerges who appear as lords of Bamborough and for a time govern Bernicia. Galloway, with which Kenneth’s family was connected, and out of which he emerged to claim the Pictish throne, was nominally a part of Bernicia, and under Anglic rule; and it is not impossible that among the chiefs who at this time appear to have asserted their position against the king of Northumbria, and to have practically ruled over different districts, one of Scottish descent, either from his connection with Galloway or from some connection in the female line with the Northumbrians, may have for the time obtained such a right to the rule over Bernicia as might give rise to a claim on the part of his descendants;[529] but be this as it may, we may hold it as certain that no cession of any part of this territory, in addition to what had been acquired by Indulph, had been made at this time to Kenneth son of Malcolm.

But if Kenneth did not add permanently to his kingdom on the south, we find that the districts beyond the Spey, on the north, had again fallen under the dominion of the Norwegian earl of Orkney. The earl who ruled at this time was Sigurd ‘the Stout.’ He was the son of Hlodver, the previous earl of Orkney, whose father Thorfinn, called the ‘Skull-cleaver,’ was the son of Earl Einar, and by his marriage with Grelauga, daughter of Dungadr or Duncan, the jarl of Caithness, had brought that district to the Norwegian earls of Orkney. But although they appear to have claimed Caithness as now forming an integral part of their dominions as Norwegian earls, and maintained possession of it as such, the kings of Alban seem also to have asserted a right to a sovereignty over it as one of the dependencies of their kingdom. By Grelauga Earl Thorfinn had five sons, three of whom were successively earls of Orkney. Havard, the eldest son, succeeded him, and was slain by his wife; and we find that when Liotr, the second brother, was earl of Orkney, another brother, Skuli, went to Scotland, and obtained a right to the earldom of Caithness from the king of the Scots. This led to a conflict between the brothers, in which Skuli was supported by the Scottish king and a Scottish earl called Magbiodr, and a battle ensued in which the Scots were defeated and Skuli slain. Earl Liotr then took possession of Caithness, and remained at war with the Scots, when Earl Magbiodr again came from Scotland with an army, and met him at Skidamyre in Caithness, where a hotly-contested battle took place, in which Liotr was victorious, but was mortally wounded. Hlodver, the only surviving brother, succeeded to the earldom, but died of sickness, and was buried at Hofn in Caithness. Sigurd, his son, succeeded him about the year 980, and was, we are told, a powerful man and a great warrior. He kept Caithness by main force from the Scots, and went every summer in war expeditions to the Sudreys or Western Isles, to Scotland, and to Ireland.[530]

Soon after Sigurd’s succession we find Finleikr, a Scotch jarl, entering Caithness with a large army, and challenging Earl Sigurd to meet him in battle at the same Skidamyre in Caithness where Magbiodr had met the former earl. He was no doubt the Finlaic, son of Ruaidhri, Mormaer of _Moreb_ or Moray, whose death Tighernac records in the year 1020, and Magbiodr was probably the Maelbrigdi who is mentioned as his brother, and had been the previous Mormaer.[531] Sigurd drew an army together, but it was inferior in numbers until he obtained the aid of the ‘Bondir’ or allodial possessors of Orkney, by restoring to them the full right to their allodial lands, which had been taken from them by Earl Einar, and then went to battle with Earl Finleikr, whom he entirely defeated. Sigurd seems to have followed up his victory by overrunning the provinces north of the Spey, as we find him in 989 in possession of the four provinces of Moray, Ross, Sudrland or Sutherland, and Dali.[532] The district to which the name of Dali is here given was probably that part of Argathelia which had borne the name of Dalriada, a name which still lingered in connection with it, and appears in the Irish annalists for the last time at this period; and the acquisition of this district by Sigurd seems to have brought him in contact with the rulers of the Western Isles, who had hitherto possessed it. These were also Norwegians; and the kings of Norway appear to have claimed tribute from the islands, and to have attempted from time to time to maintain a direct dominion over them by means of jarls or earls, while at other times they appear under the rule of a Danish king of the Isles. In 973 we find a king Maccus or Magnus, whom Florence of Worcester calls king of many islands; and in the Irish Annals he is called son of Aralt, who was son of Sitriucc, lord of the Danes of Limerick.[533] He died about 977, and we then find his brother Godred or Goffraigh, son of Aralt, called king of Innis Gall or the Western Isles. These kings were descended from Inguar or Imhair, the ancestor of the Danish kings of Dublin, termed from him Hy Imhair; and thus, while the Danes gave kings to Dublin, Waterford, and Northumbria, the Norwegians gave earls to Orkney, which they colonised, and possessed the Innse Gall, Sudreys, or Western Isles,—the island of Man appearing to have been a bone of contention between the two.[534]

At the time that Sigurd came into contact with Godred or Godfrey mac Aralt he had entered into a short struggle with the Danes of Dublin for the possession of Man and the Isles. In 986 the Ulster Annals tell us that the Danes came with three ships to ‘Airer Dalriatai,’ or the coast lands of Dalriada, but that the attack was successfully resisted, the Danes were taken, 140 of them were hung, and the rest thrust through, and in the same year I Columcille was plundered by the Danes on Christmas Eve, and the abbot slain, with fifteen of the brethren. In the following year a battle is fought at the Isle of Man against Gofrath mac Aralt and the Danes, in which a thousand of them were slain, and in the same year a great slaughter was made of the Danes who had pillaged Iona.[535] Godred or Gofra had, however, now to encounter Sigurd, earl of Orkney. The events of this war are partly detailed to us in the Nial Saga in connection with the adventures of Grim and Helgi, the sons of Nial of Iceland. The narrative commences with the sons of Nial leaving Iceland in a ship with Olaf Ketilson of Elda, and Bardi the White. They are driven southward by a strong north wind, and so thick a mist came over them that they knew not where they were till the shoal water showed them they must be near land. They ask Bardi if he knows what land they would be nearest, who says that with the wind they had had it might be the Islands of Scotland or Ireland. Two nights after they enter a fiord, when they see land on both sides and breakers within. Here they anchor, and next morning are attacked by thirteen ships coming out of the fiord commanded by Griotgard and Snaekolf, sons of Moldan, from Duncansby in Caithness. The battle is then described, and they are hard bestead, when, looking to seaward, they see ten vessels coming from the southward round the promontory. They row hard towards them, and in the first of the ships they see a man by the mast clad in a silken kirtle, with a gilded helmet and gold-studded spear. This was Kari Solmundson, one of Earl Sigurd’s courtiers, who had been taking scat or tribute from the Sudreys from Earl Gilli. The battle is then renewed, and the sons of Earl Moldan are both slain. The sons of Nial then accompany Kari to Hrossey or the Mainland of Orkney, where he presents them to Sigurd, and tells him he found them fighting in the fiords of Scotland with the sons of Earl Moldan. These fiords of Scotland must be the numerous sea lochs which intersect the west coast; and as the fiord in question lay between Orkney and the Sudreys, had land on both sides, and a fleet coming from the south would be seen passing on looking to seaward, the description seems to answer to Loch Broom in the north-west of Ross-shire. The sons of Nial are passing the winter with Sigurd, when he receives news that two Scotch earls, Hundi and Melsnati, had entered the Norwegian territory on the mainland and slain Havard of Threswick, Sigurd’s brother-in-law, who was probably its Norwegian governor. This territory, we are told, consisted of the rikis or provinces in Scotland of Ros, Moray, Sudrland, and Dali, Caithness being considered as belonging to Orkney and not to Scotland. Earl Sigurd collects a large army and lands in Caithness, and a great battle takes place between him and the earls at Duncansness, when the Scots are defeated, Earl Melsnati slain, and Earl Hundi driven to flight, who is pursued till they learn that Earl Melkolf is collecting another army at Duncansby, when, finding themselves not in a position to meet a second army, the Norwegians return to Orkney. In the following summer Kari goes on an expedition with the sons of Nial, makes war in many places, and is everywhere victorious. They encounter Godred, king of Man, and vanquish him. Kari then goes to Norway with the scat or tribute to Earl Hakon of Norway. In the following summer they make a second expedition and harry all the Sudreys. Thence they go to Kintyre, land there, fight with the landsmen and carry off plunder. Then they go south to Wales, hold on for the Isle of Man, again meet Godred, fight with him, and slay Dungall, his son. Thence they go north to Koln or Colonsay, where they find Earl Gilli, and stay with him a while. Then Earl Gilli accompanies them to the Orkneys to meet Earl Sigurd, who gives him his sister Nereide in marriage, and he returns to the Sudreys and the sons of Nial to Iceland.[536] Such is a short outline of this curious narrative, from which we may gather that the tenure by which Earl Sigurd held his mainland possessions, extending to the river Spey, was a very precarious one, and appears to have been more an assertion of dominion over the native Mormaers, who took every opportunity to throw off the yoke. In the Western Islands we find an Earl Gilli having his principal seat in Colonsay, and paying scat or tribute to Sigurd, while Godred, who is obviously the Gofraigh mac Arailt, the Danish king of Innse Gall of the Ulster Annals, has his residence in Man. We also see that the Earl of Orkney paid scat or tribute to Earl Hakon of Norway. The name Gilli indicates that he was a native,[537] and not a Norwegian, and that the Sudreys did not so much differ from the mainland possessions in being merely subject and tributary to the Norwegians as in being actually colonised by them. The Ulster Annals record in 989 the death of Gofraigh mac Arailt, king of Innse Gall in Dalriatai, the Dali of Nials Saga, which gives us the date of the conclusion of this war, by which the temporary occupation of the Western Isles by the Danes of Dublin appears to have been brought to an end.[538]

If Kenneth was thus unable to extend his territories either south of the Firth of Forth or beyond the Spey on the north, we may well suppose that during a long reign of twenty-four years he could do much to consolidate the power of the Scots within these limits. Of the two great branches of the descendants of Kenneth mac Alpin who gave kings alternately to Alban, the senior house, of which he was the head, seems to have had its main interest in the provinces north of the Tay, while the junior house was more particularly connected with that of Fife and the other provinces south of it. We find the kings of the former house invariably confronted with the people called the Men of Moerne or the Mearns (viri na Moerne), as those of the latter were with the Men of Fortrenn (firu Fortrenn). Thus Donald, son of Constantin, is slain at Dun Fother, or Dunotter. His son Malcolm, too, is killed by the men of the Moerne at Fetteresso, and Kenneth, son of Malcolm, founds the church of Brechin in this part of the kingdom. On the other hand, the two conflicts which Constantin, son of Aedh, had with the Northmen—one against the Norwegians in his third year, and the other against the Danes in his eighteenth year—are fought by the men of Fortrenn. After the reign of Constantin we hear no more of the men of Fortrenn, who had now apparently become merged in the general population; but Kenneth, like his father and grandfather, is doomed to find his end in the same quarter. Tighernac, in recording his death in 995, merely tells us that he was slain by his own subjects, to which the Ulster Annals add the significant expression ‘by treachery.’[539] We have not now the assistance of the Pictish Chronicle, but the later chronicles tell us that he was slain in Fotherkern, now Fettercairn, in the Mearns, by the treachery of Finvela, daughter of Cunchar, earl of Angus, whose only son Kenneth had killed at Dunsinnan;[540] and this is confirmed by St. Berchan, who places his death on the moorland plain at the foot of the Mounth or great chain of the so-called Grampians.

He will bend his steps, no neighbourly act,
To Magsliabh at the great Monadh.
The Gael will shout around his head.
His death was the end of it.[541]

[Sidenote: A.D. 995-997.
Constantin, son of Cuilean, king of Alban.]

He was succeeded by Constantin, the son of his predecessor Cuilean, but his accession was not unopposed, as he had barely reigned two years when we are told by Tighernac that a battle took place between the men of Alban in the year 997, in which Constantin mac Cuilindain was slain with many others.[542] The later chronicles say that he was slain at Rathinveramon, or the fort at the mouth of the river Almond, by Kenneth, son of Malcolm.[543] Fordun places this battle on the banks of the Almond in West Lothian, and says that this Kenneth was an illegitimate brother of the deceased king.[544] This latter statement may be true, as we have no other clue to his identity, but St. Berchan clearly places the battle on the Tay.

A great battle shall be fought in Alban
With the shame of his head colours shall be changed.
The leader of the hosts was he
At Sruthlinn, or the Pool, which is called Toe.

The allusion in the second line is to the epithet given him of Constantin the Bald, and by the name Toe the Tay is meant.

Tighernac likewise records in the year 997 the death of Malcolm, son of Donald, king of the Northern Britons.[545] He was, no doubt, the son of that Donald who was king of the Cumbrians, when his kingdom was overrun by King Eadmund and bestowed upon Malcolm, king of Alban, and this shows that though the sovereignty was now vested in the Scottish kings, the line of provincial kings still remained in possession of their territory.

[Sidenote: A.D. 997-1004.
Kenneth son of Dubh, king of Alban.]

Constantin’s successor was Kenneth, son of Dubh, who was the son of Malcolm, and the elder brother of Kenneth, son of Malcolm, the predecessor of Constantin. He is termed by St. Berchan

The Donn, or brown, from strong Duncath,

which is probably the fort on one of the Sidlaw hills in the parish of Fearn, Forfarshire, now called Duncathlaw, which connects him with the same part of the kingdom with which the branch of the descendants of Kenneth mac Alpin to which he belonged were peculiarly connected. In his fourth year Aethelred, king of England, appears to have attempted to wrest the Cumbrian kingdom from him, as the Saxon Chronicle tells us that in the year 1000, ‘the king went to Cumbraland and ravaged it very nigh all, and his ships went out about Chester, and should have come to meet him but could not,’ while St. Berchan implies that he had successfully resisted the attempt.

He will scatter hosts of the Saxons.
After the day of battle he will possess.

Five years after this, we are told by the Ulster Annals that a battle took place between the men of Alban among themselves, in which Kenneth, son of Dubh, the king of Alban, fell.[546] This expression, ‘a battle among the men of Alban themselves,’ usually implies a war of succession, and the later chronicles tell us that he was slain by Malcolm, the son of Kenneth, in Moeghavard[547] or Monzievaird in Stratherne, and St. Berchan confirms this when he says

Eight years and a half, bright the deeds,
To the Donn in their sovereignty
’Twas shut till they came against him.
Alas! the Gael again,
The Gael gathered around him,
The day on which he will be killed by us
At his stone of blood between two glens,
Not far from the banks of the Earn.

St. Berchan’s expression, ‘Alas! the Gael again,’ seems to imply that on this occasion Malcolm, son of Kenneth, brought against him the men of Moerne, who appear to have occupied an important position in the population of the kingdom of Alban throughout the entire history of her kings.

-----

Footnote 481:

If Donald was under age in 878 when the succession, according to this
law, opened to him, it is probable that the cause of the revolution
was his arriving at an age sufficient to satisfy the requirements of
the law, which demanded that the throne should only be filled by an
adult. Kenneth dying in 860, supposing him born in 800, and his son
Constantin in 830, Donald could not have been born before 860, but if
born in 864, he would be twenty-five in 889.

Footnote 482:

See _Collectanea de Rebus Albanicis_, pp. 65, 66; also Anderson’s
edition of the _Orkneyinga Saga_, p. 204. Thorstein died in 875, and
Sigurd could not have become earl till after the battle of
Hafursfiord, which made Harald Harfagr master of Norway. The
chronology of Harald Harfagr’s reign can be tolerably well made out
from his Saga. He was born in 853, and became king at the age of ten
in 863. When old enough to marry, he vows, at the instigation of his
bride, not to cut his hair till he became master of all Norway, and
this is accomplished by the battle of Hafursfiord. His hair had then
been uncut ten years. After he had ruled over all Norway for ten years
he is said to have been forty years of age. He was therefore twenty
years old when he made the vow, and thirty when he fought the battle
of Hafursfiord, which places it in the year 883, and some years after
Sigurd became earl of Orkney. The following passage in the Pictish
Chronicle under the reign of Donald appears to refer to this invasion:
‘Normanni tunc vastaverunt Pictaviam.’

Footnote 483:

This account of Sigurd’s death, which is more detailed than that in
the Orkneyinga Saga, is taken from the Flatey book (see Anderson’s
Orkneyinga Saga, p. 204). The word Bakki means in Icelandic the bank
of a river; and Ekkialsbakki has usually been assumed to be the river
Oikell, which separates Sutherlandshire from Ross-shire. Dr. Anderson,
whose opinion is entitled to weight, takes this view, and fortifies it
by a very plausible identification of Sigurd’s grave on its north
bank. The place he mentions is, however, not on the north bank of the
river Oikell, but on the Dornoch Firth, and he is obliged to admit
that this identification of Ekkialsbakki is inconsistent with other
passages. A comparison of the accounts of Sigurd’s conquest shows that
it must have been at or near the southern boundary of Moray; and the
passage in chapter lxxii., where Swein Asleif’s son goes to Moray, and
thence by Ekkialsbakki to Atholl, points to the Findhorn, which is
remarkable for a high bank, has an estuary which ships could enter,
and would be the natural route to Atholl. The resemblance between the
name Oikell and Ekkial is merely accidental. The battle may have been
fought near Forres, and the sculptured pillar known by the name of
Sweno’s Stone a record of it. Its connection with the name Sweno is no
older than Hector Boece, and it seems to tell the tale. On one side
are two figures engaged in apparently an amicable meeting, and above a
cross with the usual network ornamentation. On the other side we have
below a representation which it is difficult to make out, but it seems
to show a number of persons as if engaged in council, the background
probably representing the walls of some hall or fortification. Above
we see a party of horsemen at full gallop, followed by foot-soldiers
with bows and arrows. Above that we have a leader having a head
hanging at his girdle, followed by three trumpeters sounding for
victory, and surrounded by decapitated bodies and human heads. Above
that we have a representation of a party seizing a figure in Scottish
dress; and below it a party, in which in the centre is a figure in the
act of cutting off the head of another, and above all a leader riding
on horseback, followed by seven others. Something to this effect seems
represented, and its correspondence with the incidents in this tale is
striking enough. When digging into a mound close to the pillar in 1813
eight human skeletons were found (Stuart, _Sculptured Stones_, p. 9),
and in 1827 there was dug out of a steep bank above the Findhorn a
coffin of large dimensions, composed of flagstones, containing the
remains of a human skeleton.—_N. S. A._ vol. xiii. p. 222.

Footnote 484:

_War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill_, p. 29. The death of Donnchadh,
king of Cashel, which took place in 888, fixes the date. ‘In hujus
regno bellum est factum in Visibsolian inter Danarios et Scottos.
Scotti habuerunt victoriam. Oppidum Fother occisum est a gentibus.’
This place, called Visibsolian, or Visibcolian, may be Collie, near
Dunkeld. Oppidum is, in this chronicle, the Latin rendering of Dun,
and the place where he was slain—for this seems what is meant by
‘occisum est’—was Dun Fother. That this place was in Kincardineshire,
and has improperly been supposed to mean Forres, is apparent from St.
Berchan, who says

‘Nine years to the king
Traversing the borders,
One after another in every place;
With Galls, with Gael.
He will disperse the Gael for a purpose
At the end over Fotherdun.
Upon the brink of the waves he lies
In the east in his broad gory bed.’

Fotherdun in this poem is now Fordun, the name of the parish in which
Dun Fother, or Dunotter, is situated. By “gentibus” probably
Norwegians are meant.

Footnote 485:

A.D. 900. Domhnall mac Constantin Ri Alban moritur.—_An. Ult._ The
later chronicles transfer his death to Forres, in Morayshire.

Footnote 486:

Cujus tertio anno Normanni prædaverunt Duncalden omnemque Albaniam. In
sequenti utique anno occisi sunt in Sraithherni Normanni.—_Pict.
Chron._ A.D. 904. Imhair Ua h-Imhair domarbadh la firu Fortrenn agus
ar mar nimbi (slain by the men of Fortrenn, and great slaughter around
him).—_An. Ult._ See also _Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 405. The
passage in the Pictish Chronicle, taken in conjunction with that in
the Ulster Annals, shows that the seat of the men of Fortrenn was in
Stratherne. The Cronicum Scotorum has in this year ‘Ead Ri
Cruithentuaithe do tuitim fri da h-Imhair ocus fri Catol. go .d.
cedoibh’ (fell by the two grandsons of Imhair and by Catel, along with
500 men). This king of ‘Cruithentuaithe,’ or Pictland, was probably
the chief of the men of one of the provinces slain in the previous
attack.

Footnote 487:

In vi. anno Constantinus rex et Cellachus episcopus leges
disciplinasque fidei atque jura ecclesiarum evangeliorumque pariter
cum Scottis in Colle Credulitatis, prope regali civitati Scoan
devoverunt custodiri. At hoc die collis hoc meruit nomen, id est,
Collis Credulitatis.—_Pict. Chron._ The expression ‘pariter cum
Scottis’ has an obvious relation to the expression in the cause
assigned by the same Chronicle for the downfall of the Picts, ‘Sed et
in jure æquitatis aliis æqui parari noluerunt.’ The scene of this
solemn assembly, and its object, throws light upon Bede’s account of
the assembly in which Nectan, king of the Picts, issued a decree
affecting the church in 710.

Footnote 488:

_Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 136.

Footnote 489:

In the Tract ‘De Situ Albaniæ’ (_Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 136) four
interpretations of this name are given. First, because it was the
‘margo’ or border region of the Scots or Irish, for all the Scots and
Irish—Hibernenses et Scotti—are generally called Gaithel from their
first leader Gathelus; or secondly, because the Gwyddyl
Ffichti—Scotti-Picti—first inhabited it after coming from Ireland; or,
third, because the Irish inhabited it after the Picts; or, fourthly,
because this part of the region of Scotia borders upon the region of
Hibernia. The first is probably the true origin of the name.

Footnote 490:

The Pictish Chronicle gives us at this time Dubucan, son of
Indrechtaig, mormair Oengusa, who seems to have been succeeded by
Maelbrigde, son of Dubican. In the Book of Deer we obtain a glance
into the internal organisation of Buchan, which bears out this
statement. In the eighth century we had a Ri Athfotla, or king of
Atholl, now we have in the Pict. Chron. a Satrapas Athochlach.

Footnote 491:

Einar appears to have died about the same time as King Harald
Haarfagr, who died in 936. The Ynglinga Saga, the Landnamabok, and the
Orkneyinga Saga in the Flateybok, conjoin the expeditions of Thorstein
the Red and Sigurd, and make them conquer these districts together;
but it is hardly possible to place Sigurd so early, and the Laxdaela
Saga makes Thorstein conquer them alone, without any mention of
Sigurd. Now Thorstein died in 875, and if Sigurd died in the same
year, Einar became earl two years after, which would make him rule
from 876 to 936, a period of fifty-nine years, which is hardly
credible. Harald Haarfagr succeeded his father in 863, when only ten
years old, and his mother’s brother acts as regent. He then, after
attaining puberty at least, commences a war with the petty kings of
Norway, and finally subdues them all, and after a great battle at
Hafursfiord becomes king of all Norway, which, as we have seen, took
place in 883. The Northmen then fly from his power and take possession
of Orkney and Shetland. They winter there, and in summer maraud in
Norway. Harald goes every summer to the Isles, and the Vikings fly
before him. At last one summer he makes a great expedition, and sweeps
the Shetlands, Orkneys, and Western Isles as far as Man, of the
Vikings, and plunders in Scotland. In this expedition he gives Orkney
to Earl Rognwald, who transfers it to Sigurd, who becomes rich and
powerful, conquers these districts in Scotland, and dies. Now all this
could not have taken place between 873 and 875. Harald is said to have
been about forty when Einar became earl of Orkney, which would place
the commencement of his rule in 893, and make him earl for forty-three
years, which is much more probable; and this brings Sigurd’s conquest
and death to the first years of Donald’s reign, when, the Pictish
Chronicle tells us, ‘Normanni tunc vastaverunt Pictaviam.’

Footnote 492:

In the Felire of Angus the Culdee, in his notice of S. Donnan of Egg,
the scholiast says that when Donnan went to the island of Egg, he went
with his people to the Gallgaidhel (i n-Gallgaedelaib), and took up
their abode there.—Reeves’s _Columba_, orig. ed. p. 304. The Four
Masters have, at 1154, mention of the fleet of ‘Gallgaedhel, Arann,
Kintyre, Mann, and the coasts of Alban.’ The Ulster Annals have, at
1199, ‘Rolant mac Uchtraigh Ri Gallgaidhel. He was Lord of Galloway.’

Footnote 493:

Munch, _Chronicle of Man_, p. 33.

Footnote 494:

It is a very common mistake, and repeated by most writers without
consideration, that the name Sudreys belonged to the islands south of
the point of Ardnamurchan. Nothing can be more unfounded, as a mere
superficial examination of the subject would show.

Footnote 495:

Et in suo octavo anno cecidit excelsissimus rex Hibernensium et
archiepiscopus apud Laignechos id est Cormac mac Cuilennan. Et mortui
sunt in tempore hujus Donevaldus rex Britannorum et Duvenaldus filius
Ede rex eligitur.—_Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 9. Cormac, king of
Ireland, was slain in 908, which fixes the eighth year of king
Constantin.

Footnote 496:

912 Reingwald rex et Oter Comes et Oswl Cracabam irruperunt et
vastaverunt Dunbline.—_Sim. Dun._

Footnote 497:

913 Bellum navale oc Manainn ittir Barid mac n-Octir et Regnall h.
Imair ubi Bare pene cum omni exercitu suo deletus est.—_An. Ult._

Footnote 498:

The Pictish Chronicle records this battle shortly thus, and claims the
victory for the Scots:—‘In xviii. anno bellum Tinemore factum est
inter Constantinum et Regnall et Scotti habuerunt victoriam.’ The
Northumbrian and the Irish accounts differ both as to the scene and
the result of the battle. The anonymous author of the history of St.
Cuthbert, attributed to Simeon of Durham, has—‘Regenwaldus rex venit
cum magna multitudine navium occupavitque terram Aldridi filii
Eadulfi. Fugatus igitur Eldredus in Scottiam ivit, Constantini regis
auxilium quæsivit, illum contra Regenwaldum regem apud Corebriege in
prælium adduxit. In quo prælio, nescio quo peccato agente, paganus rex
vicit, Constantinum fugavit, Scottos fudit,’ etc. Thus making Regnwald
land in Bernicia, drive the lord of Bamborough to Scotland, who
obtains assistance from Constantin, returns, and he and the Scots are
beaten at Corbridge on the southern river Tyne. On the other hand, the
Tract on the Wars of the Gaedhil with the Gaill says that they went
from Munster into Alban, and there gave battle to Constantin, in which
both Regnall and Otter were slain (p. 35). The Ulster Annals say they
were the Galls of Loch da Caech, expelled from Erin, and invaded the
people of Alban, who prepared to meet them with the assistance of the
Northern Saxons, and describes the battle as in the text. The author
has endeavoured to reconcile the two accounts by placing the scene of
the battle at the northern Tyne in East Lothian. The feature of St.
Columba’s crozier being used as a standard is taken from the
‘Fragments of Annals,’ _Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 406. See also
Reeves’s _Adamnan_, ed. 1874, Introduction, p. xcix.

Footnote 499:

Mortuo Guthredo, rex Elfridus Northanimbrorum regnum suscepit
disponendum. Postquam enim Sanctus Cuthbertus ei apparuerat, paterno
regno, id est, occidentalium Saxonum, et provinciam orientalium
Anglorum et Northanimbrorum post Guthredum adjecit.—Sim. Dun. _Hist.
Ec. Dur._ c. xxix.

Footnote 500:

The question of the independence of Scotland, and the bearing of these
passages upon it, has been very ably discussed on the English side by
Mr. Freeman in his _History of the Norman Conquest of England_, vol.
i. pp. 60, 133, and 610; and on the Scottish side by Mr. Robertson, in
his _Scotland under her Early Kings_, vol. ii. p. 384. It is
unnecessary for the author to do more than refer to this discussion,
and to add his opinion that Mr. Freeman has failed on the whole
successfully to meet Mr. Robertson’s criticism. Mr. Robertson was not
the first to see the fatal objection to the statement in the Saxon
Chronicle that Regnwald, king of Northumbria, took Eadward for his
father and lord in 924, while he died in 921. Florence of Worcester
saw it before him, and places the event under the year 921.

Footnote 501:

Deinde hostes subegit, Scotiam usque Dunfoeder et Wertermorum
terrestri exercitu vastavit, navali vero usque Catenes depopulatus
est.—Sim. Dun. _de Gestis Reg._ Fugato deinde Owino rege Cumbrorum et
Constantino rege Scotorum terrestri et navali exercitu Scotiam sibi
subjugando perdomuit.—Sim. Dun. _Hist. de Dun. Ec._

The Pictish Chronicle has—‘In xxxiv. ejus anno bellum Duinbrunde ubi
cecidit filius Constantini.’ Though this is placed in the year of the
invasion of Scotland, Constantin’s son was slain in the battle of
Brunanburgh three years later, which seems to be the bellum Duinbrunde
of the Chronicle. Kerimor was the name of one of the quarters into
which Angus was divided, and is derived from Ceathramh, corrupted to
Keri, a quarter. The Saxon equivalent is Feorde, probably corrupted to
Werte.

Footnote 502:

Flor. _Wig. Chron._ ad an. 937.

Footnote 503:

This was Anlaf Cuaran, son of Sitriuc and son-in-law of Constantin.
Mr. Robertson, in a note to his _Scotland under her Early Kings_, vol.
i. p. 56, remarks on this account of Olaf’s descent, ‘that the name of
the _father_ of Sitric and his brothers is never mentioned by the
Irish annalists, who invariably call them Hy Ivar, or _grandsons_ of
Ivar;’ and adds, ‘If one of these Vikings, a Scottish lord of the
Gall-Gaidhel or Oirir Gaidhel, had married Ivar’s daughter, the
description in the Egills Saga would exactly apply to himself, his
wife, and his sons, and it would be only necessary to suppose that the
writer of the saga, aware of Olave’s descent from a Scottish Viking,
and a granddaughter of Ragnar Lodbroc, made him by mistake the _son_
instead of the _grandson_ of the Scot.’ The Tract on the _Wars of the
Gaidhil with the Gaill_ calls Sitriuc, however, Mac Imair, or son of
Ivar, but there is no improbability in supposing one of the Gall
Gaidhel to have married a daughter of Inguar or Imhair, and his sons
to have been adopted and naturalised as Danish vikings. Anlaf being
called by Florence of Worcester lord of many islands rather favours
the supposition.

Footnote 504:

Johnstone, _Ant. Celto-Scandicæ_, p. 32.

Footnote 505:

_Sax. Chron._ ad an. 937, Thorpe’s translation. The Ulster Annals have
the following: 937 Bellum ingens, lacrimabile et horribile inter
Saxones et Normannos crudeliter gestum est, in quo plurima millia
Normannorum, quæ non numerata sunt, ceciderunt; sed rex cum paucis
evasit .i. Amlaiph. Ex altera vero parte multitudo Saxonum cecidit.
Adalstan vero rex Saxonum magna victoria dilatus est. And the Annals
of Clonmacnoise, which now exist only in a translation made in 1627,
give particulars not to be found elsewhere. ‘Awley, with all the Danes
of Dublin and north part of Ireland, departed and went over seas. The
Danes that departed from Dublin arrived in England, and, by the help
of the Danes of that kingdom, they gave battle to the Saxons on the
plains of Othlyn, where there was a great slaughter of Normans and
Danes, among which these ensuing captains were slain—viz. Sithfrey and
Oisle, the two sons of Sittrick Galey; Awley Fivit, and Moylemorrey,
the son of Cossewarra, Moyle-Isa, Geleachan, king of the Islands;
Ceallach, prince of Scotland, with 30,000, together with 800 captains
about Awley mac Godfrey; and about Arick mac Brith, Hoa, Deck, Imar,
the king of Dannach’s own son, with 4000 soldiers in his guard, were
all slain.’ It must be borne in mind that there were two Olafs in the
battle—Olaf or Anlaf Cuaran, son of Sitriuc, King Constantin’s
son-in-law, and Olaf or Amlaibh, son of Godfrey or Guthfrith, king of
the Danes of Dublin.

Footnote 506:

Hacon the Good’s Saga.

Footnote 507:

Et in senectute decrepitus baculum cepit et Domino servivit et regnum
mandavit Mail(colum) filio Domnail.—_Pict. Chron._

Footnote 508:

952 Constantin mac Aeda ri Albain moritur.—_An. Ult._

Mortuus est autem Constantinus in x. ejus anno sub corona penitenti in
senectute bona.—_Pict. Chron._

Footnote 509:

Cum exercitu suo Malcolaim perrexit in Moreb et occidit
Cellach.—_Pict. Chron._

Footnote 510:

944 Strathclyde was ravaged by the Saxons.—_Brut of Tywysogion._

946 Stratclut vastata est a Saxonibus.—_An. Camb._

The life of St. Cadroë gives us almost a contemporary notice of the
Cumbrian kingdom. St. Cadroë was a native of Alban, and flourished in
the reign of Constantin who fought at Brunanburh, and left him to go
on a foreign mission. He came to the ‘terra Cumbrorum,’ and
Dovenaldus, the king who ruled over this people, received him gladly
and conducted him ‘usque Loidam civitatem quæ est confinium
Normannorum atque Cumbrorum.’—_Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 116. There
he is received by Gunderic, a nobleman, who takes him to King Erick at
York, who is no doubt Eric Bloody Axe, whom Aethelstan had settled in
the country.

Footnote 511:

949 In this year came Olaf Cuaran to Northumberland.—_Sax. Chron._

‘In vii^o anno regni sui predavit Anglicos ad amnem Thesis et
multitudinem rapuit hominum et multa armenta pecorum; quam predam
vocaverunt Scotti predam Albidosorum idem Nainndisi. Alii autem dicunt
Constantinum fecisse hanc predam querens a rege, id est Maelcolaim,
regnum dari sibi ad tempus hebdomadis, ut visitaret Anglicos. Verum
tamen non Maelcolaim fecit predam, sed instigavit eum Constantinus ut
dixi.’ The people plundered are here called Albidosi, that is
Nainndisi. The Pictish Chronicle was evidently translated into Latin
from a Gaelic original, and this latter word is evidently Na
Fhinndisi, the F when aspirated being silent. It means the White
Tisians, a white people of the Tees, and Albidosi is an attempt at a
Latin rendering. The Danes of Northumberland belonged to the branch of
the Northmen called Dubh Gall, or Dubh Gennti, that is black
strangers; but the followers of Eric Bloody Axe were Norwegians, who
were termed Fin Gall, or Finn Gennti, that is white strangers. Eric’s
people had therefore probably been settled on the Tees, and were the
objects of Malcolm’s attack, as they had been placed there to oppose
the Danes.

Footnote 512:

The Ulster Annals have in this year, ‘Battle against the men of Alban,
Britain, and Saxons, by the Galls,’ which seems to refer to the above
event; Eric’s people, or the Galls, opposing the people of Alban, the
Cumbrians, and the Bernicians.

Footnote 513:

A.D. 954 Maelcoluim mac Domhnaill Ri Albain occisus est.—_An. Ult._

Et occiderunt viri na Moerne Maelcolaim in Fodresach, id est, in
Claideom.—_Pict. Chron._ This word Claideom was evidently in the
original Claitheamh tir, or Sword land, a name given in one of the
Pictish traditions to Magh Gherghinn or Moerne.—_Chron. Picts and
Scots_, p. 319.

Footnote 514:

In hujus tempore oppidum Eden vacuatum est ac relictum est Scottis
usque in hodiernum diem.—_Pict. Chron._ In this chronicle ‘oppidum’ is
the usual rendering of the Gaelic Dun.

Footnote 515:

Classi Sumerlidionum occisi sunt in Buchain.—_Pict. Chron._

Footnote 516:

That this description applies to Eric’s followers appears from the
saga, which says that ‘King Eric had many people about him, for he
kept many Northmen who had come with him from the east, and also many
of his friends had joined him from Norway. But as he had little land
he went on a cruise every summer, and plundered in Shetland, the
Sudreys, Iceland, and Bretland, by which he gathered property.’ On his
death his sons go to Orkney, stay there in winter, and in summer ‘went
on viking cruises, and plundered in Scotland and Ireland.’

Footnote 517:

Dubh is an epithet meaning black. The version of the Pictish Chronicle
in the Irish Nennius calls him Cinaed vel Dubh.

Footnote 518:

Bellum inter Nigerum et Caniculum super Dorsum Crup, in quo Niger
habuit victoriam, ubi cecidit Duchad abbas Duncalden et Dubdon
satrapas Athochlach.—_Pict. Chron._ A.D. 965 Battle between the men of
Alban among themselves, ‘ubi multi occisi sunt’ about Duncan, abbot of
Dunkeld.—_An. Ult._ Cuilean, a whelp, from Cu, a dog, here translated
Caniculus.

Footnote 519:

Expulsus est Niger de regno et tanist Caniculus brevi tempore.

A.D. 967 Dub mac Maelcolaim, Ri Alban, slain by the people of Alban
themselves.—_An. Ult._

Footnote 520:

Culen et frater ejus Eochodius occisi sunt a Britonibus.—_Pict.
Chron._

A.D. 971 Culen mac Illuilb Ri Alban slain by the Britons in
battle.—_An. Ult._

Footnote 521:

Statim predavit Britanniam ex parte. Pedestres Cinadi occisi sunt
maxima cede in Moin na Cornar.—_Pict. Chron._ Moin is a moss in
Gaelic, na the genitive of the definite article, and Cornar or Cornac
the river called by Bede the Curnig, which falls into the Firth of
Forth at Abercorn.

Footnote 522:

A.D. 966. And in the same year Oslac obtained an aldordom.—_Sax.
Chron._ Deinde sub Eadgaro rege Oslac præficitur Comes Eboraco et
locis ei pertinentibus; et Eadulf, cognomento Yvelchild, a Teisa usque
Myrcforth præponitur Northymbris.—_Libellus de adventu, Sax. Ch._ p.
212.

This word Myrcforth is in one MS. Myreforth, which reading has been
usually adopted, but the former is the correct form of the name. The
Firth of Forth is called in the Norse Sagas Myrkvafiord or the mirk or
dark firth, and Myrcford is the Saxon equivalent.

Footnote 523:

Scotti prædaverunt Saxoniam ad Stanmoir et ad Clivam et ad Stang na
Deram. Cinadius autem vallavit ripas vadorum Forthen. Post annum
perrexit Cinadius et prædavit Saxoniam et traduxit filium regis
Saxonum.—_Pict. Chron._ It was not Cumberland, but Saxonia, Kenneth
laid waste. Stanmore is at the head of the Tees, and separates Cumbria
from Northumbria. Cliva seems Cleveland, on the south of the Tees
farther east. Deram seems meant for Deira.

Footnote 524:

Hic est qui tribuit magnam civitatem Brechne Domino. The ‘Hic est’ is
a Gaelic idiom for _Is e_; and Brechne is in Gaelic the genitive of
Brechin.

Footnote 525:

975 Domnall mac Eoain Ri Bretain in ailitri.—_Tigh._ 974 Dunwallawn,
king of Strathclyde, went on a pilgrimage to Rome.—_Brut y Tyw. Chron.
Picts and Scots_, pp. 77, 124.

Footnote 526:

977 Amlaim mac Illuilb Ri Alban domarbadh la Cinaeth mic
Maelcolaim.—_Tigh._

Footnote 527:

Isti duo Comites cum Elfsio, qui apud Sanctum Cuthbertum episcopus
fuerat, perduxerunt Kyneth regem Scottorum ad regem Eadgarum, qui, cum
illi fecisset hominium, dedit ei rex Eadgarus Lodoneium, et multo cum
honore remisit ad propria.

Footnote 528:

_Chron. Joh. Wallingford_, ap. Gale, p. 545. Some of the sentences are
imperfect in the original.

Footnote 529:

We have too little information as to the internal condition of
Northumbria to enable us to decide this point. After Guthred’s death
in 994, we find Bernicia under these dukes or lords of Bamborough, and
they seem to have had some connection with Galloway. In 912 Athulf,
commander of the town called Bamborough, dies.—_Ethelwerd Chron._ In
the same year Regnwald, according to Simeon of Durham, occupies the
land of Aldred, son of this Athulf or Eadulf, who takes refuge with
Constantin and asks his assistance. Among the kings who are said, in
the Saxon Chronicle, to have chosen Eadward the elder for their father
and lord are Regnwald and the sons of Eadulf, that is this Aldred and
all those who dwell in Northumbria; but in a later Chronicle it is
‘Reginaldus rex Northumbrorum ex natione Danorum et dux
Galwalensium.’—_Flores Hist._ The lord of Bamborough in the one is the
lord of Galloway in the other. Then St. Berchan, in his metrical
account of the reign of Eochodius or Eocha, son of Run, king of the
Britons, and of the daughter of Kenneth mac Alpin, says—

The Briton from Clyde shall possess,
Son of the woman from Dun Guaire.

But Dun Guaire, as we learn from Nennius, was the name given by the
Celtic population to Bamborough. Simeon of Durham has in 801 ‘Edwine,
qui et Eda dictus est, quondam dux Northanhymbrorum, tunc vero per
gratiam Salvatoris mundi abbas in Dei servitio roboratus, velut miles
emeritus diem clausit ultimum in conspectu fratrum xviii. kal.
Februarii.’ Eda, the other name by which he was known, is the usual
Latin form of the Gaelic Aedh. Is it possible that he could have been
the Aedan, grandfather of Kenneth mac Alpin, whose son Conall appears
in Kintyre in 807, and that from him this claim to the northern part
of Northumbria was derived?

Footnote 530:

Orkneyinga Saga and Olaf Tryggvasonar Saga. See _Collectanea de Rebus
Albanicis_, pp. 330-333, and Mr. Anderson’s edition.

Footnote 531:

A.D. 1020. Findlaec mac Ruaidhri Mormaer Moreb a filiis fratris sui
Maelbrigdi occisus est.—_Tigh._

Footnote 532:

Nials Saga. _Coll. de Rebus Alb._ p. 337. The fiord in which the sons
of Nial fought with the sons of Moldan from Duncan’s Bay was probably
Loch Broom.

Footnote 533:

See _Wars of the Gaedhil with the Gaill_, pp. 271, 272.

Footnote 534:

It is necessary, in steering one’s way through the numerous invasions
of the Northmen, to distinguish clearly between Norwegians and Danes.
This is evidently done in the Pictish Chronicle, the Norwegians being
called Normanni, and the Danes, Danari.

Footnote 535:

986 The Danes come to Airer Dalriatai with three ships, and 140 of
them were hung, and the rest dispersed. I Columcille plundered by the
Danes on the eve of the Nativity, and the abbot and fifteen of the
clergy of the church were slain.—_An. Ult._