[80] Chron. Sax. An. Ult. 943.—Roger of Wendover is the earliest authority for the tale of Edmund expelling Dunmail—hardly the same person as Donald MacEogan, who died in 975—and putting out the eyes of his two sons (vol. 1., p. 398). The story is probably about as true as the account of the same chronicler that the English king was assisted on this occasion by Llewellyn of South Wales. In 945 Howell Dha was king of South Wales, and as none of his sons bore the name of Llewellyn, the only person whom the Welsh writers can find to participate in the expedition is Llewellyn ap Sitsylt—who died 76 years later, in 1021—the father of Harold’s opponent, Griffith, and of Blethyn and Rhywallon, who figured, considerably more than a century later, in the reign of William the Conqueror. The next thing heard of this Llewellyn is in 1018, when, says Caradoc (Hist. Wales, p. 79), “Llewellyn ap Sitsylt having for some years (seventy-three) sat still and quiet, began now to bestir himself.” It was time!
[81] Sim. Dun. Twysden, pp. 14, 74.
[82] Chron. Sax. 945. Midwyrhta, “fellow workman,” is the expression used, which the feudal ideas of a later age naturally rendered fidelis; and an alliance, only lasting for the life of Malcolm, was accordingly transformed into a regular feudal transaction, existing for generations. The earlier authorities, from the chronicle and Æthelward, make no mention of any such thing; and Kenneth the Second appears to have been as ignorant of it when he harried Cumberland in 971, as Ethelred when he wasted the same province in 1000; nor could Simeon of Durham have been aware of such a compact when he wrote that, in 1072, Malcolm the Third held Cumberland “Non jure possessa sed violenter subjugata,” expressions which can scarcely be reconciled with the uninterrupted possession of the province as a feudal fief for 127 years. When John of Fordun compiled his history, he eagerly seized upon the means of escaping the numerous claims for homage put forward in the rival English chroniclers; and Cumberland, in his pages, becomes the counterpart of the earldom of Huntingdon during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Scottish king invariably granting it to the heir, or tanist, who duly performs homage to the Saxon monarch for the fief held of his crown. On one occasion a tanist is called into existence for this sole purpose, and the veracious historian, after fabricating the apocryphal being, is obliged to murder his own creation to account for his not appearing amongst the Scottish kings. The same myth, Malcolm, king of the Cumbrians, unites with Kenneth the Second in witnessing a charter which the latter is supposed to have signed as king five years before he ascended the throne, and is very appropriately placed amongst the eight oarsmen who manned the boat of Edgar in his apocryphal progress on the Dee.—V. Appendix L, pt. 1.
[83] Chron. Sax. 946, 948.
[84] Chron. Sax. 949. Innes, Ap. 3. The seventh year of Malcolm corresponds exactly with 949, the year in which Olave reappeared in Northumbria, and the curious tradition preserved in the old chronicle that Constantine resumed his authority for a week to head the Scottish army in an incursion to the Tees, must surely be connected with the arrival of his son-in-law, and the reluctance of Malcolm to break the engagement by which he held Cumberland.
[85] A. F. M., 950. Chron. Sax. 952.
[86] Tigh. 980. A. F. M., 1014. The account of Tighernach reveals both the extent of Olave’s power and the far greater importance of the first victory which broke it. The death of the old warrior is described rather quaintly by the annalist “post pœnitentiam et bonos mores.”
[87] Chron. Sax. 954. Sim. Dun. de Gestis, 1072. Wendover, vol. i., p. 402. Heimskringla, Saga 4, c. 4. The Henricus and Reginaldus of Wendover are probably the Harek and Rognwald of the Saga. Simeon calls Maco or Maccus a son of Olave, but Olave had no son of that name, and Maco was probably “Maccus Archipirata,” or Magnus Haraldson, king of Man and the Islands, who was the head of a different branch of the Hy Ivar. His father, Harald, who was killed in Connaught in 940, was the son of Sitric Mac Ivar, or the elder Sitric, who killed, or was killed by, his brother Godfrey, and was the head of the Norsemen of Limerick. The power of the Limerick Hy Ivar appears to have received a severe shock when Olave Godfreyson, shortly before the battle of Brunanburgh, destroyed all their ships and captured their leader, Olave Cen-Cairedh. A. F. M., 934, 938.
[88] Innes, Ap. 3. Wynton, bk. 6, c. 10. An. Ult. 953. The men of Mærne occasionally make their appearance in early Scottish history, and generally in company with the men of Moray. It has been frequently assumed that they belonged to a certain earldom of the Merns, comprised in modern Kincardineshire, though Mr. Skene (Highlanders, vol. ii., c. 9) places them on the western coast, where he supposes that there once existed an earldom of Garmoran. The same objection, I fear, may be raised against the earldom of Garmoran which is urged against the earldom of the Merns—the total silence of history respecting it. When a dim light is first shed upon the northern provinces, the name of Moray, which must have once been applied to the whole line of sea-coast—Armorica—in this direction, is confined to the westward of the Spey, whilst the eastern tract of country is broken up into the earldoms of Mar and Buchan, and the districts of Strathbogie and the Garioch, both “in the crown,” i.e., conquered. The name of Mærne has by this time disappeared, unless it still survived in Mar, representing only a portion of the ancient province, but I should imagine it is to be sought for in this quarter, which would account for the connection of its people with the men of Moray; and if ancient Mærne once included Kincardineshire, the name of “the Merns” may have been retained, like that of Northumberland or Cumberland, by a comparatively small portion of the original province.
[89] Innes, Ap. 3. Sim. Dun. de Gestis, 854, and p. 139.