The Saxon Chronicle tells us that in the year 945 ‘King Eadmund harried over all Cumberland, and gave it all up to Malcolm, king of the Scots, on the condition that he should be his co-operator both on sea and on land.’ It has usually been assumed that this refers to the district in England afterwards called Cumberland alone, but the people termed by the same chronicle the Strathclyde Welsh had now come to be known under the Latin appellation of ‘Cumbri,’ and their territory as the land of the Cumbrians, of which ‘Cumbraland’ is simply the Saxon equivalent. Their king at this time was Donald, the son of that Eugenius or Owin, who was at the battle of Brunanburh. He is called king of the Northern Britons, and his kingdom extended from the Derwent in Cumberland to the Clyde. Accordingly we find in the British annals that at this time Strathclyde was ravaged by the Saxons.[510] There can be little question that the tenure by which the Cumbrian kingdom was held by Malcolm was one of fealty towards the king of England, and this seems to be the first occasion on which this relation was established with any reality between them, so far at least as this grant is concerned.
In the following year Eadmund died, and is succeeded by Eadred Aetheling, his brother, who, the Saxon Chronicle tells us, ‘reduced all Northumberland under his power; and the Scots gave him oaths that they would all that he would.’ The next year ‘Wulstan, the archbishop, and all the Northumbrian Witan swore fealty to the king; and within a little space belied it all, both pledges and also oaths;’ as did also the Scots, for in 948 ‘king Eadred harried over all Northumberland because they had taken Eric for their king. And when the king went homewards, the army within York overtook him, and there made great slaughter. Then was the king so indignant that he would again march in, and totally destroy the country. When the Northumbrian Witan understood that, they forsook Eric, and made compensation for the deed to King Eadred.’ Upon this the irrepressible Anlaf Cuaran again appeared on the scene, and came in the year 949 to Northumberland. This was the seventh year of the reign of Malcolm, the son of Donald; and we are told by the Pictish Chronicle that in that year he laid waste the Anglic territories as far as the river Tees, and carried off a multitude of men with their flocks, and that he did this at the instigation of Constantin, though some say that he made this plundering raid himself, having requested the king to surrender the kingdom to him for one week for the purpose; but he seems at all events to have retained in his penitential cell a sufficient interest in secular matters to incite Malcolm to support the attempt by his son-in-law Anlaf upon Northumberland by this expedition.[511] Anlaf only possessed Northumberland three years when the Northumbrians expelled him in 952,[512] and again received Eric Bloody Axe, and two years after expelled him, and submitted to Eadred, who in 954 ‘assumed the kingdom of the Northumbrians.’ This terminated the kingdom. Eadred committed the government to an earl, and Northumbria from a kingdom thus became an earldom, and remained so from henceforth. Anlaf Cuaran, on this his last expulsion, took refuge in Ireland, and spent the rest of a long life in incessant wars in that country as king of the Danes of Dublin, till at last, in the year 980, he was defeated in a great battle at Tara with the king of Ireland, in which his son Ragnall was slain, together with all the nobles of the Galls of Dublin, and Anlaf, son of Sitriuc, high king of the Galls, went on a pilgrimage to Hi-Choluimcille, where he died.
In the year 954 the Ulster Annals record that Maelcolam, son of Domnall, king of Alban, was slain. The Pictish Chronicle tells us that the men of Moerne slew him at Fodresach, now Fetteresso, in the parish of Fordun, Kincardineshire;[513] but the later chronicles remove the scene of his death farther north, and state that he was slain at Ulurn by the Moravienses, or people of Moray. St. Berchan, however, places it with the Pictish Chronicle in the parish of Fordun, when he says—
The succession to the throne now fell, according to the system of alternate succession which prevailed in the line of the Scottish kings, to Indulph, the son of his predecessor Constantin, and during his reign of eight years only two events are recorded, the first of which is, however, one of great significance. We are told by the Pictish Chronicle that in his time Duneden, or Edinburgh, was evacuated by the Angles and surrendered to the Scots, who still possessed it when the chronicle was compiled.[514] The surrender of Edinburgh implied that of the district between the Esk and the Avon, of which it was the principal stronghold, and the tenure of which by the Angles had always been very uncertain and precarious. From the Avon to the Forth the territory was still probably claimed by the Britons of Strathclyde. The other event recorded in the Pictish Chronicle is that a fleet of the Sumarlidi, or ‘Summer Wanderers’—a term applied to those Norwegian pirates who went out on plundering expeditions in summer, spending the winter at home or in a friendly port—had made a descent upon Buchan, and were there cut off.[515] This Norwegian fleet in question was probably that of the sons of Eric Bloody Axe, who had gone on his death from Northumberland to Orkney.[516] The later chronicles state that Indulph was slain by the Norwegians at Inverculen, but if this is the same event the Pictish Chronicle gives no countenance to the statement, and St. Berchan distinctly implies that he died at St. Andrews. In his metrical account of his reign he alludes to this unsuccessful attempt upon his territories, and to his acquisition of Duneden, when he says—
As his death is not recorded by the Pictish Chronicle or by the Ulster Annals, it is probable that he had followed his father’s example and retired to the monastery of Kilrymont, committing his kingdom to Dubh,[517] the son of Malcolm, who would have been entitled to succeed him on his death, but his family do not appear to have acquiesced in this, and there is some appearance that the principle of lineal succession was now coming into conflict with the form of Tanistic succession which had hitherto prevailed. The acquisition first of the Cumbrian kingdom and afterwards of part of Lothian would, no doubt, aid this. The latter was the acquisition of Indulph himself, and his son would naturally claim it as his inheritance accordingly. Dubh had not been three years on the throne when we find a battle fought at Drumcrub, in Stratherne, between him and Cuilean, the son of Indulph, who appears to have been supported by the lay abbot of Dunkeld and the governor of Atholl. In this battle Cuilean was defeated and his two supporters slain.[518]
Two years after Cuilean succeeds in expelling Dubh, and in the same year the Ulster Annals record his death.[519] The later chronicles relate a strange story that Dubh was slain in Forres, that his body was hidden under the bridge of Kynlos, and that the sun did not shine till it was found. These chroniclers usually remove the scene of the battles in which these kings were slain from their southern localities to the northern districts of Scotland. It is, however, possible that in this case, when Dubh was expelled from the kingdom, he may have taken refuge in the country beyond the Spey, and had been slain at Kynlos, while the fact that an eclipse of the sun was visible there on the 10th of July 967 may have given rise to the tradition. Of Cuilean’s reign, which lasted four years and a half, we know nothing further than that he and his brother Eochodius or Eocha were slain by the Britons in the year 971.[520] The later chronicles are here in accord with the older, for they state that he was slain in Laodonia or Lothian, that is probably the part of Lothian which his father had acquired from the Angles, by Andarch, son of Donvald, on account of his daughter. St. Berchan names these two kings Dubh or black and Fionn or white, and considers that during Dubh’s life they reigned jointly.
He terms the latter ‘Dubh of the three black divisions,’ which implies that he had the support of only three of the provinces. Of Fionn or Cuilean he says—
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 was succeeded by Constantin, the son of his predecessorpredecessor 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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.’
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.
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
Fotherdun in this poem is now Fordun, the name of the parish in which Dun Fother, or Dunotter, is situated. By “gentibus”“gentibus” probably Norwegians are meant.
485. A.D. 900. Domhnall mac Constantin Ri Alban moritur.—An. Ult. The later chronicles transfer his death to Forres, in Morayshire.
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-Imhairh-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.
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.
488. Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 136.
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.
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.
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.’
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.’
493. Munch, Chronicle of Man, p. 33.
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.
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.
496. 912 Reingwald rex et Oter Comes et Oswl Cracabam irruperunt et vastaverunt Dunbline.—Sim. Dun.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
502. Flor. Wig. Chron. ad an. 937.
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.
504. Johnstone, Ant. Celto-Scandicæ, p. 32.
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.
506. Hacon the Good’s Saga.
507. Et in senectute decrepitus baculum cepit et Domino servivit et regnum mandavit Mail(colum) filio Domnail.—Pict. Chron.
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.
509. Cum exercitu suo Malcolaim perrexit in Moreb et occidit Cellach.—Pict. Chron.
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.
511. 949 In this year came Olaf Cuaran to Northumberland.—Sax. Chron.
‘In‘In viio 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.
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.
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.
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.
515. Classi Sumerlidionum occisi sunt in Buchain.—Pict. Chron.
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.’
517. Dubh is an epithet meaning black. The version of the Pictish Chronicle in the Irish Nennius calls him Cinaed vel Dubh.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
526. 977 Amlaim mac Illuilb Ri Alban domarbadh la Cinaeth mic Maelcolaim.—Tigh.
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.
528. Chron. Joh. Wallingford, ap. Gale, p. 545. Some of the sentences are imperfect in the original.
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—
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?
530. Orkneyinga Saga and Olaf Tryggvasonar Saga. See Collectanea de Rebus Albanicis, pp. 330-333, and Mr. Anderson’s edition.
531. A.D. 1020. Findlaec mac Ruaidhri Mormaer Moreb a filiis fratris sui Maelbrigdi occisus est.—Tigh.
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.
533. See Wars of the Gaedhil with the Gaill, pp. 271, 272.
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.
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.
987 Cath Manann ria mac Aralt et rias na Danaraibh, ubi mille occisi sunt. Great slaughter of the Danes who ravaged I, of whom 360 were slain.—An. Ult.
536. Nials Saga in Collectanea de Rebus Albanicis. Dasent’s Saga of Burnt Njal.
537. Gilli is apparently the prefix Gille, which enters into so many Gaelic names. King Harald Gilli was so called because, being born in Ireland, he originally bore the name of Gillechrist.
538. A.D. 989 Gofraigh mac Arailt, Ri Insi-Gall domarbh in Dalriatai.—An. Ult.
539. A.D. 995 Cinaeth mac Malcolaim Ri Alban a suis occisus est. Tigh. (per dolum—An. Ult.)
540. Interfectus est a suis hominibus in Fotherkern per perfidiam Finvelæ filiæ Cunchar comitis de Engus, cujus Finvelæ unicum filium predictus Kyneth interfecit apud Dunsinoen.—Chron. Picts and Scots, pp. 175, 289.
541. Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 96.—It is curious that on this and the occasion when the men of Moerne slay his father, St. Berchan uses the expression, ‘the Gael will shout around his head.’
542. A.D. 997 Cath etir Albancho itorchair Constantin mac Cuilindain Ri Alban et alii multi.
543. Interfectus a Kynnet filio Malcolmi in Rathinveramon.—Chron. Picts and Scots, pp. 175, 289.
544. Fordun’s Chronicle, vol. ii. p. 168.
545. A.D. 997 Maelcolaim mac Domnall Ri Breatan Tuaiscert moritur.—Tigh.
546. A.D. 1005 Cath etir firu Alban imonetir itorcair Ri Alban .i. Cinaed mac Duib.—An. Ult.
547. Interfectus a filio Kinet in Moeghavard.—Chron. Picts and Scots, pp. 175, 289. The later Chronicles term this king Girus or Grig, son of Kenneth, son of Dubh. The Albanic Duan calls him simply Macdhuibh, but Flann Mainistrech has Cinaet mac Duib, the oldest authority thus confirming the Annals of Ulster.