“All round this monastery [Lindores, Fife,] was Earn-side-wood, where Wallace defeated the English. It was anciently four miles in length, and three in breadth; now there is nothing but some few shrubs to the east of the abbey.” Sibbald’s Hist. Fife, P. iv. sect. 9. p. 406.
It is added in a note: “Of this wood no vestige remains. The place where it is said to have grown lies along the shore of the Frith, a considerable way below the junction of the Tay and the Earn. The name seems to countenance the tradition, that the Earn alone once flowed by the bottom of the hills of Fife, and did not unite for several miles below this with the Tay, whose course was then along the foot of the hills, forming the northern boundary of the Carse of Gowrie, which lying thus betwixt two rivers, was frequently overflowed, and only became habitable, when, in a great inundation, the Tay burst into the Earn, where they now join.”
In A. Blair’s Relationes, this battle is said to have been fought on the 12th of June 1298.
Rycht weyll I wait, weschell is lewyt nayn,
Fra the Wood hawyn, to the ferry cald Aran.—V. 805.
Macpherson thinks that this is perhaps the same with Portnebaryan, mentioned by Wyntoun, q. “the haven of bread;” arran signifying bread in Gaelic, and barra in Welsh, Cornish, and Armoric. V. Geogr. Illustrations. Shall we add another supposition,—that Portnebaryan had been the ancient name of Port-on-craigs, a ferry to the eastward of Woodhaven. The latter still retains its ancient name. It lies opposite to Dundee.
—In that jornay othir to wyn or end.—V. 1048.
The whole passage to ver. 1057, Thai worthi Scottis, &c. is wanting in Edit. 1594, and subsequent editions. Both verses, 1049 and 1057, beginning in a similar manner, the intermediate ones must have been overlooked by some transcriber for the press. In MS. ver. 1050 is; The cruell strakis, &c. But as the sense requires it, I have substituted with, as in Edit. 1714, followed by that of Perth, 1790.
The lord Cwmyn, that erll off Bouchane was,
For auld inwy he wald [let] na man pass