Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/137

PKEFACE. cxxix markable, and is obviously artificial. There are six kings wMch agree in both, Edfin, Fergus, Selvach, Echadh, Dungal, and Alpia. In the one list the last four, i.e., Selvach, Echadh, Dungal, and Alpin are placed first. Then, after a King Muredach, Aed and Fergus are placed, and then follow eight kings which are not in the other list at all. In the Latin lists the four kings, Selvach, Echadh, Dungal, and Alpin, are placed last. Before them are placed Aedfin and Fergus, and before them are placed three kings who are not in the first list. Now the remarkable thing is this, that the deaths of Aedfin Mac Echach Ei Dalriada and Fergus Mac Echach Ei Dalriada are given in the " Irish Annals" as occurring in 778 and 781 respectively, and this agrees with their date in both lists ; the amount of the reigns after them in the one list amounting to sixty -five years, and in the other to sixty-four. The real diff'erence between the two lists consists in this, that the four kings, Selvach, Echadh, Dungal, and Alpin, commence the list in the one and termin- ate it in the other. They reigned, according to the one, in the eighth, and, according to the other, in the ninth centuries, and there is a difference of a century between the period of each. This is obvi- ously a difierence arising from an intentional altera- tion in one or other of the lists for chronological purposes, and it is of course of importance to ascer- tain which represents the true history. In the first place, the lists which place those four kings in the