[159] The orthography of the copy of this Chronicle, as given by Innes, is very inaccurate, and the omission of the two initial letters of "inver," not very extraordinary in the word Rathveramœn. Apparently the same word Rathinveramon occurs previously in the same Chronicle, when Donald MacAlpin, the second king of the combined Picts and Scots, is entered as having died "in Raith in Veramont" (p. 801). In another of the old Chronicles published by Innes, this king is said to have died in his palace at "Belachoir" (p. 783). If, as some historians believe, the Lothians were not annexed to Scotland before his death in A.D. 859, by Kenneth the brother of Donald, and did not become a part of the Scottish kingdom till the time of Indulf (about A.D. 954), or even later, then it is probable that the site of King Donald's death in A.D. 863, at Rathinveramon, was on the Almond in Perthshire, within his own territories.
[160] I am only aware of one very marked exception to this general law Malcolm Canmore is known to have been killed near Alnwick, when attacking its castle. Alnwick is situated on the Alne, about five or six miles above the village of Alnmouth, the ancient Twyford, on the Alne, of Bede, on the mount near which St. Cuthbert was installed as a bishop. But in the ancient Chronicle from the Register of St. Andrews, King Malcolm is entered (see Innes, p. 803) as "interfectus in Inneraldan." The error has more likely originated in a want of proper local knowledge on the part of the chronicler than in so unusual a use of the Celtic word "inver;" for, according to all analogies, while the term is applicable to Alnmouth, it is not at all applicable to Alnwick.
[161] Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum. (Stevenson's Edit. p. 35.)
[162] De Bello Gothico, lib. iv. c. 20. See other authorities in Turner's Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. p. 182.
[163] Emmii Rerum Friescarum Historia, p. 41.
[164] History of England, vol. i.—Anglo-Saxon Period, pp. 33, 34.
[165] The Ethnology of the British Islands, p. 259. At p. 240, Dr. Latham "A native tradition makes Hengist a Frisian." Dr. Bosworth cites (see his Origin of the English, etc., Language and Nation, p. 52) Maerlant in his Chronicle as doubtful whether to call Hengist a Frisian or a Saxon.
[166] See his Origin of the English, German, and Scandinavian Languages, p. 54. Some modern authorities have thought it philosophical to object to the whole story of Hengist and Horsa, on the alleged ground that these names are "equine" in their original meaning—"henges" and "hors" signifying stallion and horse in the old Saxon tongue. If the principles of historic criticism had no stronger reasons for clearing the story of the first Saxon settlement in Kent of its romantic and apocryphal superfluities, this argument would serve us badly. For some future American historian might, on a similar hypercritical ground, argue against the probability of Columbus, a Genoese, having discovered America, and carried thither (to use the language of his son Ferdinand) "the olive branch and oil of baptism across the ocean,"—of Drake and Hawkins having, in Queen Elizabeth's time, explored the West Indies, and sailed round the southernmost point of America,—of General Wolfe having taken Quebec,—or Lord Lyons being English ambassador to the United States in the eventful year 1860, on the ground that Colombo is actually the name of a dove in Italian, Drake and Hawkins only the appellations of birds, and Wolfe and Lyons the English names for two wild beasts.
[167] See Thorpe's edition of Beowulf and other Anglo-Saxon Poems, p. 219, line 45.
[168] Monumenta Historica, p. 623.