Additional Ogilvy-Lindsay Trouble and the Last of the Lindsays

The Ogilvy-Lindsay family hatred flared up, after earlier trouble, in the late 16th century when Ogilvy of Inverquharity killed Lindsay of Blairriefeddan.  The next notable killing occurred around 1585, when Sir John Lindsay of Woodwray slew Ogilvy of Ballinshoe Castle near Kirriemuir and occupied his lands.  Sir John's brother David, 11th Earl of Crawford, stayed out of the blood-letting and befriended the Master of Ogilvy, paying a bond for his good behaviour.  But the earl's youngest brother Alexander, who was created Lord Spynie, was dragged into the violence.  Two Ogilvy associated - Reid John and Black Sandy - attacked Spynie's house at Kinblethmont.  A few days later, Spynie allegedly killed two Ogilvy men at Leys, though he claimed that actually they had attacked him and left him for dead.

   In the winter of 1599-1600, a group of Ogilvys led by the Master accidentally encountered Lord Spynie in a narrow pend in Arbroath.  A fight inevitably occurred, echoing the lamentable Battle of Arbroath, after which the Lindsay party took to their heels.  The two parties were put under house arrest and the king arranged a temporary truce and acted as arbiter in their dispute.  He gave his judgement on New Year's Day, 1601, finding that the Arbroath skirmish had been accidental, but that the Ogilvys had been illegally armed.  He told both factions to 'forgive uthers all slauchter and blood...and to keep in future guid friendschip and neighbourhood as becomes kinsmen and friends...'

   But the hatred was too deeply ingrained to be easily solved. On Sunday, 18th July 1603,  another of the Master's brothers, David Ogilvy, was walking with his valet to Holyrood Abbey Church in Edinburgh.  Unknown to them, they were stalked by David Lindsay, a bastard son of the Earl of Crawford, who had sworn revenge on every Ogilvy.  Following the service Lindsay and his men followed Ogilvy back to the Canongate, then attacked them  from behind.  'After many deidly wounds,' the Privy Council report said,'...William Innes [Ogilvy's valet] immediately departed this lyfe, and the said David Ogilvy is in grit hazard and peril of his lyfe, without any hope of recoverie.'

   But David Ogilvy did recover and in November 1603 he and his brothers, Sir John of Craig, George of Friock and Francis of Newgrange, joined the Master of Ogilvy's violent raid on Lord Spynie.  The Ogilvys gathered at Bolshan and made their way to Kinblethmont House, blasting the gates and firing cannons at the windows.  They managed to break in and searched the house for their enemy.  But Lord Spynie had been forewarned of the attack and had removed his family to Brechin Castle.  The raiders had to be content with ransacking the property and removing all the gold and silver they could find. As previously stated, Spynie ironically met his end when he tried to break up a brawl between members of his own family.

   The Crawfords were crippled by misfortune throughout the 17th century.  The 12th Earl of Crawford expired in Edinburgh Castle in 1620, having been placed there by his family to prevent financial ruin.  Then George Lindsay, the 13th earl, sold Finavon Castle and estate to Lord Spynie and was killed by a fellow officer in the Dutch army.  Alexander Lindsay, his brother and the next earl, died insane.  The 16th earl, named Ludovic, was a keen supporter of Montrose and was eventually forced to hand over the earldom to his distant Fifeshire relative, Lord Lindsay of the Byres.  The Lindsays of Edzell Castle also went into terminal decline.  The curse of Cardinal Beaton had put an end to the Lichtsome Lindsays in Angus.

More On The Lindsays and the Families of Stirling and Auchterhouse Castle

Something has already been written previously about the prominent Lindsay family, who were for a number of centuries one of the most important and numerous ruling families in Angus and, on and off, deadly enemies of the Ogilvys.  One of the Lindsay's proudest castles, Edzell, was actually built by the Stirling family and passed to Sir Alexander Lindsay when he married Catherine, daughter of John Stirling around 1357.  Their son, Sir David Lindsay, became the first Earl of Crawford.

   Catherine Stirling was co-heiress with her sister, but local lore added a brother, Jackie Stirling.  Small and deformed though he was, Jackie was well liked in the neighbourhood.  When he made a match with the daughter of a local laird, Catherine and her scheming husband realised that this threatened their inheritance.  They hired an assassin to kill poor Jackie as he took his regular evening stroll near Edzell Castle.  Thus Edzell passed in a bloody fashion to the Lindsays.

   Sir David Lindsay cannily married a daughter of King Robert II and became High Chancellor of Scotland.  One of his friends was John Lyon of Glamis Castle, secretary to the king.  But when Lyon was promoted to Great Chamberlain, Lindsay became jealous , believing that his friend's advancement was at the expense of his own.  The two men fought a duel on the Moss of Balhall, in Menmuir parish.  Glamis was slain and Lindsay was forced into exile in England in 1382.

   After he returned to Scotland, Sir David fought bravely at the battles of Otterburn and Homildon.  He earned wider fame by fighting in single combat on London Bridge in May 1390.  His opponent was the English champion, Lord Wells.  Twice the mounted men charged at each other without advantage and on the third charge the Englishman was unseated.  The spectators yelled out that Lindsay had cheated by tying himself to his saddle.  Sir David promptly rode up to the royal pavilion, jumped out of his saddle, then vaulted back into it.  The fight recommenced on foot and ended with the Scot throwing his opponent to the ground.  King Richard II gave him permission to kill Lord Wells if he wished, but Lindsay gallantly refused.  The monarch was impressed and gave Sir David the hospitality of his court for three months.

   In 1392 Lindsay was one of sixty Angus men under the command of Sir Walter Ogilvy of Auchterhouse, Sheriff of Angus, was fought at the Battle of Glasclune.  Their opponents were a band of here hundred Highland marauders, mostly Robertsons, led by Duncan Stewart, a son of the notorious Wolf of Badenoch.  After ravaging the Braes of Angus the invaders were tracked west to Glasclune in Perthshire.  Ogilvy, his brother and many others were slain early in combat.  Lindsay managed to pierce one Highlander with his lance, driving it into the ground.  But the dying man lifted himself up and caught Lindsay with his broadsword, cutting through his stirrup leather and steel boot right to the bone.  Sir David was nearly killed, but survived to found the great dynasty of Angus.  It seems ironic that Lindsay nearly lost his life supporting Ogilvy, for a generation later the two families were deadly enemies.

   Auchterhouse had become an Ogilvy property through marriage and changed hands again in 1446, passing to James Stewart, Earl of Buchan.  According to the Rev. James Inglis the ballad of 'Sir John the Rose' had its original setting at Auchterhouse (though extant versions of the poem do not set it in Angus).  The ballad relates the rivalry of two suitors, Sir James Ross and Sir John Graeme, competing for the hand of Matilda, daughter of the Earl of Buchan.  Ross and Matilda met each night beneath a large saugh tree in the garden.  But Lord Buchan favoured Graeme and forbade his daughter meeting Ross.  At their final meeting they were spied by Graeme's brother.  Ross slew him and prepared to flee, but Sir James Graeme found out and rode swiftly to Auchterhouse.  Following a fight, Ross was fatally wounded , tough with a final effort he stabbed Graeme through the heart.  Matilda was grief stricken and killed herself with the sword which had slain her lover.
   Auchterhouse was an unhappy place for the Buchan women.  In 1665, Marjory Ramsay, Countess of Buchan, was charged by the Presbytery of Dundee with having fornicated with her chaplain, James Campbell.  He was absolved after 'being thrice in the pillare' at Auchterhouse, wile the countess had to perform public repentance in the kirk.

                                  SIR JAMES THE ROSE

                                 

Oh have you heard Sir James the Rose,

The young heir of Loch Laggan?

For he has killed a gallant squire

And his friends are out to take him.

And he's gone to the House of Mar,

The Nurse there did befriend him.

And he has gone upon his knees

And begged for her to hide him.

“Where're you going Sir James?” she said,

“Where now are you riding?”

“Oh I am bound to a foreign land

But now I'm under hiding.”

Where shall I go?

Where shall I run?

Where shall I go for to hide me?

For I have killed a gallant squire

And they're seeking for to slay me.

Then he's turned him right and round about

And rolled him in the bracken,

And he has gone to take a sleep

In the lowlands of Loch Laggan.

He had not well gone out of sight

Nor was he past Milstrethen

When four and twenty belted knights

Came riding o'er the leathen.

“Have you seen Sir James the Rose,

The young heir of Loch Laggan?

For he has killed a gallant squire,

And we're sent out to take him.”




“You'll see the bank above the mill

In the lowlands of Loch Laggan,

And there you'll find Sir James the Rose

Sleeping in the bracken.”

“You must not wake him out of sleep,

Nor yet must you afright him,

Just run a dart right through his heart

And through the body pierce him.”

They sought the bank above the mill

In the lowlands of Loch Laggan,

And there they found Sir James the Rose

Sleeping in the bracken.




Then up and spake Sir John the Graeme

Who had the charge a-keeping,

“It'll never be said, dear gentlemen,

We killed him while he's sleeping.”

They seized his broadsword and his targe

And closely him surrounded,

And when he woke out of his sleep

His senses were confounded.

Now they have taken out his heart

And stuck it on a spear,

They took it to the House of Mar

And gave it to his dear.

The Guthries of Guthrie

The Guthrie family were one of those fortunate kindreds who managed to keep their possessions (or most of them) and their integrity through the centuries.  More importantly perhaps, they managed to avoid the type of violent notoriety which afflicted those other notable Angus family mobs, the Ogilvys and Lindsays.  There is something comfortingly old-fashioned about the Scottish appellation 'of that ilk', a sense of belonging of a family being settled for a long time in a place which bears their surname.  The Guthries cannily spread out from the settlement of Guthrie to other Angus possessions, which this rhyme remembers:

                                                 Guthrie o Guthrie,
                                                 Guthrie o Gaigie,
                                                 Guthrie o Taybank
                                                 An Guthrie o Craigie.

   King James III granted his treasurer Sir David Guthrie a warrant to construct the yett of Guthrie Castle in 1468, along with the barony, though the family may have already inhabited the site for a long period.  Gagie House, near Dundee, dates from 1614 and was traditionally inhabited by the eldest Guthrie son, who usually took possession of the residence when he first got married.  The family also owned the mansion houses of Kirkbuddo and Colliston.

   Although the family and settlement name of Guthrie likely derive from the Gaelic word gaothair, meaning 'windy place', there are two competing legends about the origin of the family surname.  The family invented a noble Scandinavian named Guthrum, supposedly a 9th century Viking prince as their progenitor.  But a tale from north of Angus, in the Mearns, offers an even more dodgy explanation of the surname.  According to this story, King David I and his queen were shipwrecked on the Bervie Brow.  Seeing a local fisherman on the beach, the king asked him to 'gut twa' fish for him.  When the man generously offered to 'gut three' fish, the king delightedly declared, 'Well, Gut-three forever thou shalt be!'

    Guthrie Castle passed into the ownership of an American family named Pena in 1984, and now functions as a wedding and functions centre.  The building once had a ghost which haunted the original West Bedroom.  In 1620 a former bishop of St Andrews woke one morning to see a black clad lady with a bunch of keys at her waist walk into his chamber and sit down on the bed.  The spirit was identified as a servant who followed an 'extravagant' Mrs Guthrie around the castle each night, locking everything up.  It is otherwise and more mundanely supposed that the ghost is a former Lady Guthrie who constantly checks that anyone who sleeps in the room is comfortable.  The figure was allegedly seen by one of the last Guthries to occupy the castle in the late 20th century, when she was a small child.

Gagie House

Martin's Stone and the Nine Maidens (and a Dragon too)

Martin's Stone stands alone in a field one mile north of the village of Bridgefoot (previously known as Kirkton of Strathmartine), itself now on the northern fringes of the village of Dundee.  Over a dozen Pictish symbol stones were erected in this vicinity, marking it as a place of some importance in the Early Medieval period.  But none of the other stones can boast of a legend like the one attached to Martin's Stone.

   The faded carvings on Martin's Stone include a cross, two horsemen, an unknown animal, and a symbol known as a z-rod, which some people see as a broken spear representing dead ancestors.  Entwined within this particular symbol is a serpent, which may be responsible to starting the story attached to this stone.

   A long time ago a man lived with his nine daughter at Pitempton Farm to the south-west of Strathmartine.  One evening the farmer sent his eldest daughter (though some people say it was his youngest) to fetch a pitcher of water from a well.  When she failed to return he sent the next eldest, then the others in turn, until it was growing dark and all nine sisters were missing.  Their anxious father grabbed his fish spear and ran to the well.  There he saw a huge, blood smeared dragon (or two intertwined snakes) resting after having devoured his daughters.  He ran off and gathered several hundred neighbours to kill the monster.
   The avengers were led by Martin the blacksmith, the lover of one of the girls.  Quickly they came to the well (though one version insists that Martin delayed for a ritual period of nine days) and the creature fled north-west to Baldragon Moss, where it was 'draiglet' (soaked).  Then the people drove the dragon north to Strathmartine and surrounded it.  Martin, urged on by cried of 'Strike, Martin', clubbed the mighty worm.  The dying creature managed to crawl away to the spot where the stone now stands.  It was again surrounded and finally slain by the young hero.  Its dying words were:

                                                I was tempted at Pitempton,
                                                draiglet at Baldragon,
                                                stricken at Strike-Martin,
                                                and killed at Martin's Stone.

   The story appears to be a colourful explanation of local place-names.  One local minister, however, dourly declared that the Nine Maidens had been eaten for the horrible crime of dancing on a Sunday.  The fateful well was on the south side of the Dichty Burn, opposite the kirkyard, and commemorated as the Nine Maidens' Well.

   Some 16th century writers mention what is seemingly earlier traditions concerning a St Donald (or Donevaldus) of Glen Ogilvy, which is a few miles to the north over the Sidlaw Hills (in the parish of Glamis).  Donald is alleged to have lived in this glen in the 8th century, along with his nine daughters.  After the missionary Donald died, the sisters became hermits until a Pictish king named Garnard invited them to retire to Abernethy. One tale said they lived here in a hollow oak.  But they were granted a chapel, an oratory and some land, and were visited by Eugenius VII, King of the Scots.

    John Bellenden's translation of the Angus-born historian Hector Boece's Chronicles of Scotland gives a mention of this saintly clan, but perversely states there were seven sister and not nine.  The Victorian historian Andrew Jervise states that these Nine Maidens were remembered in the Nine Maidens' Well near the old doocot in the grounds of Glamis Castle, where there was also an adjacent chapel bearing their name. It is interesting that the cult of the Nine Maidens survived for centuries at Glamis, since the records of the kirk session record a 17th century attempt to prevent pilgrims travelling from Glamis to view the holy oak tree at Abernethy where the sisters resided.

    Sadly, we only appear to have information about several of the sisters' names.  The eldest was called Mazota (also known as St Maik or Mayota) and the second sister Fyncana (or St Fink); it is unclear whether the third named sister, Findoca, is a distinct person.  The legend is severely muddled in various recensions of Boece's work, and it has to be admitted that Hector himself is not the most reliable of sources.  Abernethy was an important early Christian Pictish site and was apparently dedicated to the Irish St Briget or St Bride.  The 16th century Breviary of Aberdeen states that Brigit came across the Irish Sea with nine virgins to Abernethy, and that one of them was named St Mayoc (who is commemorated at Dalmaik in Aberdeenshire).  But, whether Irish or Pictish, the daughters of St Donald are as fictitious as the sisters consumed by the dragon.  The real Nine Maidens were pagan goddesses, who can be found in the 14th century Welsh poem Preiddeu Annwn, 'The Spoils of Annwn', wherein King Arthur journeys to the otherworld  to retrieve a cauldron which could bring dead warriors back to life.  Tellingly, the magical vessel was stirred into power by familiar beings:  'From the breath of nine maidens it was kindled'.  The Glen Ogilvy stories look like an attempt to sanitise the overtly pagan legend of Strathmartine.  The latter church was of course dedicated to St Martin. 

 
   In the Highlands the Nine Maidens remained the faithful companions of the saint-goddess Bride.  One tale of Bride and her consort Angus is probably Pictish rather than Gaelic in origin and it closely parallels the Maidens' story at Strathmartine. It is also strongly connected to the ritual Celtic calendar.  St Martin's Day, 11th November, is otherwise Samain, beginning of the Celtic year.  On this day Bride was imprisoned under Ben Nevis by the Cailleach, the hag who symbolised the power of winter overcoming summer.  The hero Angus freed Bride on St Bride's Day, 1st February, known as Imbolc.  The Cailleach was finally slain fifty-one days later, on 25th March, named Lady Day or Auld Wives' Day.  Finally, after another fifty-one days, summer was ushered in on Old Beltane, 25th March.
   In the Strathmartine version, the Christian St Martin replaces Angus, and the Dragon is the Cailleach, force of destruction and darkness.  Pertinently, when Bride emerged at Imbolc she was in the form of a Serpent Queen, not regaining her true form until the Cailelach died.  The whole cycle is a rationalisation of the descent into winter and a celebration of spring's rebirth.

   Nine Maidens' and Nine Wells are scattered throughout Scotland.  At St Bride's Well in Sanquhar, Dumfries-shire, girls came each May Day and presented nine smooth white stones as an offering to the 'saint'.  In Angus, the best known survival of 'Ninewells' as a place-name is the large hospital in the west of Dundee, named after an area close to the Tay.  There was another Nine Wells at Cortachy and another on the hill above the old kirk of Finavon (where the long vanished old kirk was also dedicated to the Maidens).  In some places north of Angus there are wispy traditions of the Nine Maidens being devoured either by a bear or a boar. 

   Confirmation that the Nine Maidens came to be venerated as water deities comes from Glen Esk, where the best loved piper in the Angus glens lived.  One evening he was playing his pipes near the Dalbrack Bridge when nine green-robed fairies sailed down the River North Esk in a boat.  They stepped onto the bank and touched the piper on his shoulder with a wand, compelling him to go with them.  The boat sailed thrice around the pool called Pontskinnen Pot, then vanished upstream forever, with the piper still playing.  His tune is still sometimes heard distantly on summer evenings here.

   As for the dragon, could it be featured in disguise in a strange incident at St Vigeans, near Arbroath, as related in the Old Statistical Account (1793)?  The village kirk was unused between 1669 and 1736 because no suitably qualified minister could be found.  But when a minister was eventually installed and, as communion was about to be re-introduced, the parishioners succumbed to mass hysteria.  A minister related:

A tradition has long prevailed here, that the water-kelpy... carried the stones for building the church; that the foundation of it was supported on large bars of iron; and that under the fabric there was a large lake of great depth.  As the...sacrament had been so long delayed, the people brought themselves to believe, that the first time the ordinance should be dispensed, the church would sink  and...people would be carried down and drowned in the lake...On the day the sacrament was administered, some hundreds of parishioners sat on an eminence about 100 yards distant from the church, expecting the dreaded catastrophe.

   It was also believed that the kelpie had prophesied that the minister who dared to give communion would commit suicide.  (One minister at the turn of the century did take his own life.)

   But the church service took place and nothing happened.  The 12th century kirk was built on the site of an extremely ancient church on top of a man-made mound.  Reconstruction in 1871 revealed many fragments of Pictish stones, now housed in St Vigeans Museum.  The kirk was certainly regarded as uncanny.  Satan was said to have personally constructed it, moaning as he worked:

                                          Sair back and sair banes,
                                          carrying the kirk o' St Vigeans' stanes.


   Surely the original builder was not the Devil or a kelpie, but a dragon.  The pagan beast forced to carry the weight of the Christian Church is a prefect example of how folklore sometimes transmitted ancient information through the centuries. 

The Great Montrose

Without doubt, the greatest military genius to have his origins in Angus was James Graham, fifth Earl and later first Marquis of Montrose.  Runner up to Montrose in this rather short list of candidates must be his distant kinsman, James Graham, Viscount Dundee, born later in the 17th century.  Both men were staunch supporters of the monarchy and both also had to resort to turning the Highlands against their native Lowlands.  Each man displayed greatness on the battlefield and their campaigns changed the entire nation, yet neither career was sufficient to save the faltering fortunes of the Stuarts in the long term.  The unforgiving political climate of their age led them to violent and undeserving deaths.  It was partly the manner of their death which kept them alive in legend.
   The birth of James Graham had been long anticipated within his family.  His mother, Lady Margaret Ruthven, had given birth to five daughters, but finally the male heir was born in October 1612 in the family seat of Old Montrose, near the coastal town.  But the delay in his arrival imbued his mother with ongoing concern about his wellbeing and she resorted to consulting an old Angus spaewife to ask about her son's future.  The witch worryingly informed her that the boy would one day give trouble to the whole of Scotland, which turned out to be true enough.  Young James soon gave his parents consternation when, as a toddler, he consumed a live toad.  This apparently family legend is perhaps a folkloric echo of a tale told about Montrose's fiery lieutenant, Alasdair Macdonald, whose nurse allegedly found him eating a toad.  When his grandfather was told about this outrage he exclaimed, 'Give it to him and let the one devil eat the other!'
   At seventeen Graham married a local noblewoman, Magdalene, the youngest daughter of David Carnegie of Kinnaird Castle (Carnegie was created the first Earl of Southesk in 1633).  Magdalene had previously been engaged to Lord James Ogilvy (afterwards the second Earl of Airlie), who became a future ally of Montrose.   This original match was broken off because of an unfortunate superstitious incident when young Ogilvy was riding to Kinnaird to formally propose to his lady.  When his horse came to a roaring burn, his horse refused to cross this running water, so Ogilvy interpreted this as an omen that his journey was ill founded and turned his steed immediately back home.  Poor Magdalene was naturally distraught at this rejection, but her father promised to find her a better husband that Ogilvy, and so Montrose came into the matrimonial picture. 
   Montrose was a staunch Presbyterian who supported the National Covenant in 1638.  His closest ally in his home county of Angus was John Lyon, second Earl of Kinghorne:

                                   God bless Montrose our General,
                                   the stout Earl of Kinghorne,
                                   that we may long live and rejoice,
                                   that ever they were borne.

   But Covenanters were soon cursing Montrose when he changed sides and became a Royalist, a volte-face which was the result of deeply considered meditations rather than a vault sponsored by political expediency.  Readers interested in his career should consult the biography written about him by John Buchan (Montrose,  published in 1928), which,  despite its age and the author's Tory viewpoint, still makes enthralling reading.  The most vivid characterisation  of the great marquis in folklore comes after his Highlanders plundered Aberdeen in 1644.  He immediately became a bogeyman to the city's children, a monster 'wha has iron teeth wi a nail in his nose, an into his wallet wee laddies he throws...'

   Montrose was defeated at Philipaugh in 1659 and was betrayed by Neil Macleod of Assynt for £25,000.  Macleod became infamous for being the only Highlander in history ever to sell a supplicant for gold.  On the long journey south from Sutherland, Montrose was tied up with bandages and led on a garron pony.  A herald walked before the procession, proclaiming, 'Here comes James Graham, a traitor to his country.'  When the sorry cavalcade reached his home territory in May 1650, Montrose was allowed to call at Kinnaird Castle on the 16th of that month and say farewell to his two youngest children.  That night Montrose slept at the Grange of Monifieth, home of the Durham family.  The lady of the house, Jean Auchterlonie, plied his guards with  strong ale and brandy.  When they fell asleep she disguised Montrose in some of her own clothes.  He crept out of the house, but one of the more sober soldiers raised the alarm.  James was found hiding in one of the great yew trees in the garden.  Lady Auchterlonie stated that she was 'heartily sorry [her plan] had not taken effect according to her wished desire'.  The authorities made a feeble attempt to prosecute her, but she was never brought to trial.
    Montrose was hanged in Edinburgh on the 21st May 1650.  Such was his reputation that even the hangman wept.  The crowd which had come to jeer sobbed as he said his final words:  'God have mercy on this afflicted land.'
  
  

St Drostan and Other Early Saints

There may be no agreed patron saint of Angus as such, but there are some candidates among the Dark Age clerics who are known to have arrived here.  Chief among them may be St Drostan son of Cosgrach.  Despite having a conspicuously Pictish name, the 16th century Aberdeen Breviary makes him a product of the royal family of the Scots who studied under his uncle St Columba in Ireland.  He became an abbot in that country then crossed the sea to seek a spiritual life of solitude in deserted places.  He built his kirk in Glenesk and lived as a hermit  there.  It may have been here that he restored the sight of a man named Simon. Drostan moved away from the area, but his memory lingered in this Angus glen.  Tarfside village was for a long time named after him as Droustie.  There was also a Droustie Well nearby and a Droustie Meadow.  The old foundation of Lochlee parish was called the Kirk of Droustie.  His cult spread out of the glen and eastwards into the Mearns where, at Newdosk, he had a church and a well dedicated to him in Piper’s Shade.  This well was famous for its curative powers, but jealous local healers tried to poison it.  Followers of the saint were outraged and slew the healers, burying them in a rather pagan fashion around the holy spring.  St Drostan himself went northwards and found fame as the founder of the Abbey of Deer in Aberdeenshire,miraculously extorting the land for the monastery from the local mormaer, who at first refused the grant until his son fell mortally ill and he gave in to the cleric, whereupon his son was cured.

   Three supposed disciples of Drostan - Colm, Medan and Fergus - were also honoured in Angus.  St Fergus we have encountered as the first known inhabitant of Glamis (albeit in a secluded cave). He was another peripatetic Irishman, who lived in Strathgeath, Caithness and Glamis before founding his holy tabenacle at Glamis.   His mortal remains were removed (stolen?) from his rightful resting place here and removed westwards to Scone Abbey.  St Colm was the patron of Cortachy and Clova and also gave his name further east to a well and a mountain near Tarfside.  Medan’s cult links with Airlie appear to be ancient and could even pre-date Christianity.  Until 1859, when it was demolished by a farmer, there was a prehistoric burial mound here named St Madden’s Knowe.  An old document, dated 5th June 1477 (called ‘The Instrument of Sessyn of the Bell’) relates that the ‘Bell of St Madden’ was resigned by its hereditary keeper, Michael David the curate, to the landowner, Sir John Ogilvy of Airlie and Lintrathen.  Ogilvy gave this sacred and symbolic object, obviously a sacred Celtic object, to his wife Margaret, along wit its ‘pertinents, fruits and revenues’ for her life use.  These pertinents includes a house near Lintrathen where David had been the tenant.  In what may have been an immemorial ritual, Margaret was presented with earth and stone, symbols of feudal resignation.  Then she was locked in the house for a time to contemplate her responsibilities as keeper of the sacred object.  Medan was the patron of Kingoldrum parish (between Lintrathen and Kirriemuir), whose church was given to Arbroath Abbey in the 12th century.  Medan may be a different character from the more famous saint of a similar name who is commemorated in Galloway, though quite possibly identical with the patron of Airlie, St Modan.

    According to the Rev, William Wilson in Airlie, A Parish History (1917), the bell was mistakenly and tragically sold for one penny at a furniture sale at the Kirkton of Airlie in the early 19th century. The artefact was broken up for scrap before anyone realised what it was.  Andrew Jervise in Epitaphs & Inscriptions from burial grounds & old buildings in the north-east of Scotland (volume I, 1875, p. 289) reports that an old man had informed him twenty years previously that, some years before that, an old lady had passed away at Burnside of Airlie and among her things was 'an auld rusty thing like a flaggon, that fouk ca'd Maidie's Bell'.  The item was sold along with a lot of household rubbish.

   Many saints’ bells, with their attendant significance which entailed spiritual and temporal power, inevitably fell into the hands of powerful families.  St Fillan’s Bell, owned eventually by the Lindsay Earls of Crawford, was kept by the Durays of Duray-hill, dempsters of the Laird of Edzell.  The Guthries of Guthrie Castle kept an 8th century bell, which later was given to the National Museum of Antiquities in Edinburgh.  Medan’s Bell was accidentally lost in the 19th century.  The bell belonging to the Lindsays was  also later lost.

Dundee’s Name and Early Irish Settlers

 Those with no romance in their souls assert that the place-name Dundee comes from a Gaelic original meaning something like ‘excellent hill’, which is plausible enough and might even be true.  A more romantic explanation if given in some sources, connecting the city’s name with the prince who elevated it to the status of a burgh.  David, the Earl of Huntingdon and brother of King William the Lion is supposed to have participated in the Third Crusade of 1189-92.  He was shipwrecked off Egypt, but was saved by a slaver and sold on to a rich Venetian.  Luckily for him, an English merchant recognised Earl David and he was set free.  But journeying back to Scotland, his ship nearly sunk during a ferocious gale in the North Sea.  So David got down on his knees and prayed to the Virgin Mary to save him, promising to build a kirk in her honour in the place where he came to land.  As the clouds momentarily parted he caught a glimpse of a hill and told the crew to steer towards it the mount. The hill was of course Dundee Law and the ship landed nearby on the north shore of the River Tay.  In thanksgiving, David named the place Deidonum, the ‘Hill, or Gift, of God’.  He later built his promised church, which came to be known as the Kirk in the Field, where his daughter Margaret married Alan, Lord of Galloway, in 1209.  The whole legend has the same flavour of the tale attached to King Alexander I, who was case ashore on Inchcolm in the Firth of Forth and founded a religious house there.

   But another theory connects Dundee’s name with the Old Irish word daig, which was both a noun meaning fire and a personal name.  The summit of Dundee Law had a vitrified fort, with timber walls deliberately  fused together with fire, and so Dun Daig, the ‘fort of fire’, seems an appropriate explanation of the place-name.  One legendary figure named Daig  was the son of an Irish exile named Corc who came to Angus perhaps in the 4th century.  Corc himself was the son of King Lughaidh, King of Munster,  who banished him to Alba.  In this foreign land, Corc almost perished in a blizzard, but he was saved by the bard of the local Pictish king.  The bard also noticed a magical message written on Corcc’s shield at the behest of his father.  The message directed the king of Pictland to kill Corc.  But the poet changed the words to request the king to give Corc every assistance he could and even give his daughter to the Irish immigrant, which is exactly what happened.  Prince Corcc remained in Pictland until he had seven sons and an immense fortune.  Apart from his son Daig he had another who  founded the Eoganacht kin-group of Circinn, and was possibly the ancestor of the Pictish king Angus mac Fergus.

   So, we have three versions of the origin of the name of Dundee, and as non can be definitively proven to be correct, you can choose which one you prefer.  I know which one I believe.