67 Marthokys sone. Jamieson suggests Marthok to be for Muratach (Muredach) = Murdoch; so “Marthokys sone” = MacVurich (MacMhuirich).
69 Fyn all. Here E gives hym all, which is clearly wrong. Skeat adopts Fyngall from H and A. Better, however, is the more ancient and correct form, Fyn, which the scribe has turned into hym, while the “all” is preserved to balance the “all” in the next line. Golmakmorn is Goll mac Morna, head of the Clann Morna, the rivals of the Fianna, and the reference is to the detachment of members of his band from Finn by Goll; Finn, indeed, perished in a conflict with rebel followers.
75 in Gadyrris the forrayours. The reference is to one of the later episodes in the Romance of Alexander, appearing in the Scottish Alexander as The Forray of Gadderis (La Fuerre de Gadres). Alexander, while besieging Tyre, sends out a body of men to forage in the “vale of Josaphas.” On their return with the cattle, they are set upon by a large army under Betys of “Gaderis,” one of whose followers was Gaudifer. Only the timely arrival of Alexander saved his men, and, on the flight of Betys, Gaudifer maintained the struggle till he was slain. Skeat says that Barbour could not have used the Scottish translation, dated 1438, but “must have seen it in an earlier form.” Lines 81, 82, however, correspond literally, with one exception, to the passage in the Alexander, and, according to Neilson, they have no place in the original French (John Barbour, p. 55):
“For to defend all the flearis
And for to stony the chassaris” (p. 88, 20).
Coneus (line 85) is there Corneus (pp. 88, 89), and Danklyne, Danclyne or Danclene—in the French original Corneus and Dans Clins. Cf. Brown’s Wallace and Bruce, p. 101, where, however, Mr. Brown’s transcription of the names in the Alexander must be checked; and see further Appendix E. In the Wallace there is a similar reference to The Forray, Bk. x. 340-2.
101 “the Durwarth sonnys.” “The Durward or door-ward’s sons,” a translation of the Gaelic name Mac-na-dorsair, “son of the door-man.” Skeat has a long note, contributed by Dr. Murray, claiming that “no writer seems to have seen the point of this passage.” Reference is accordingly made to the trouble caused by Alan Durward in the reign of Alexander III., and the connection of Durward with Nicholas de Soulis, one of the Competitors (see also on Bk. XIX. 11). Whence it is inferred that these “men were the clansmen of Alan the Durward, who, like the Comyns of Badenoch, the Baliols, and others, were almost more dangerous to Bruce than the arms of England.” That can scarcely have been the case, since it must also be taken into account (1) that the Bruces were of the Durward party in the reign of Alexander III., and (2) that an Alan Durward was hanged with Nigel Bruce at Berwick, having, apparently, been captured at Kildrummy (Scala., p. 131).
153 a baroune Maknauchtan. The chief of the Macnaughtons (? Ferchar or Farquhar), whose father was of the time of Alexander III., an ancient clan having lands near Loch Awe (Cf. Coll. de Reb. Alb., p. 51). There is no “Duncan” (Jamieson following Nisbet, Heraldry) in the genealogy.
162 his owtrageous manheid. Cf. in Alexander, “outtragius hardement” (p. 184, 16). This use of “outrageous” = extreme or excessive, is common, if not peculiar, to the Alexander and the Bruce. Cf. in Bruce, vi. 126; viii. 270; ix. 101; xi. 32: Alexander, 235, 8; 258, 30; 335, 9.
172 “sa our Lord me se.” “May our Lord watch over me,” as in Chaucer’s Pardoner’s Tale, “Now, lordes, God yow see” (Group C, line 715).
208 Hanniball. The reference is to Hannibal’s crushing defeat of the Romans at Cannae, 216 B.C. Barbour takes his details in a rather huddled fashion from Martinus Polonus, a popular monkish historian of the thirteenth century (Chronicon de Gestis Romanorum, etc.), who again bases on Paulus Orosius, of the beginning of the fifth century. Wyntoun confessedly reproduces the chapters of Polonus at greater length and more accurately than Barbour, and on this fact, viewed in the light of the general relation of Wyntoun to Barbour, and certain peculiarities in the present case, Mr. Brown bases an argument that the Hannibal passage is “derived from the Cronykil” and “an interpolation” in the Bruce. On this see Appendix F, v. Mr. Brown gives in full the relevant portions of the text of Polonus and Orosius (Wallace and Bruce, pp. 120-7).