[395]. 741 Bellum Droma Cathmail inter Cruithniu et Dalriati for Innrechtac.—An. Ult. The only notice the author has been able to find of a place called Cathmail is in a poem attributed to Saint Columba in honour of Saint Cormac ua Liathan, mentioned in Adamnan’s Life, when he came to Iona. One stanza is this:—
When the blooming sweet man had arrived
At Cross Cormac, at his church,
Then rang the soft-toned bell
Here at the city of Cathmail.
(See Reeves’s Adamnan, orig. edit., p. 270.) The translation has been made a little more literal, and the only church which bears Cormac’s name in Scotland is Kirk Cormac, in the parish of Kelton in Galloway, some miles north of Kirkcudbright. The writer of the Statistical Account says that ‘its surface abounds with small hills of a conical figure called Drums;’ and ‘on the north-east is the green hill of Dungayle, whose summit was once crowned with a strong fort.’ Dungayle is probably a corruption[corruption] from Dun G-cathmhail, the aspirated consonants being quiescent.—N. S. A. vol. iv. pp. 144-5.
[396]. Cesty fust tue en Goloway, com il le avoit destruyt, de un soul hom qi ly gayta en un espesse boys en pendaunt al entree dun ge de un ryvere, com chevaucheoit entre ses gentz.—Scalachron.
[397]. Chalmers identifies Laight Alpin with an old ruin in Loch Doon called Laight Castle, founding on a charter by William the Lion to the town of Ayr, which implies that Laight Alpin was on the border between Ayrshire and Galloway; but the name really belongs to the farms of Meikle and Little Laight on the eastern shore of Loch Ryan, and the stone is on the very line of separation between the counties of Ayr and Wigtown.
[398]. 741 Percussio Dalriatai la Aengus mac Ferguso.—An. Ult.
[399]. See the introduction to Fordun’s Chronicle, vol. ii., for a full exposition of the manipulation of the Chronicles at this time. The three kings given in the Ulster Annals are—A.D. 778 Aedfinn mac Ecdach rex Dalriati mortuus est. 781 Fergus mac Echach ri Dalriati defunctus est. 792 Donncorci rex Dalriatai obiit. The form ‘rex Dalriati’ and ‘Dalriatai’ means rather king of the Dalriads than of Dalriada. The Annals of Ulster have in 700 ‘Fiannain nepos Duncho rex Dalriati,’ who was evidently of the Irish Dalriada; and the Annals of the Four Masters, which have the same four, call the first ‘Toisech’ and the other three ‘Tighearn Dalriada,’ or Lords of Dalriada; and, as these annals contain Irish events only, the compilers evidently considered them all as belonging to Irish Dalriada. Flann Mainistrech and the Albanic Duan have an Aed among their kings, whose time corresponds with the first of these kings.