Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/149

PREFACE. cxli former is no doubt the fort of Dunfother or Dun- nottar ; and in 937 the great battle of Briinanburg was fought between Athelstane on the one hand and the whole Danish force of the islands, on whose side was ranged the Scots, with their king Constantin, on the other. In the prominent part taken by him in the struggle between the Danes and the Anglo-Saxons, he always appears as king of the Scots ; and finally, towards the end of his reign, the Saxons applied the term of Scotland to his kingdom,— a name which had previously been given by them to Ireland. The " Pictish Chronicle" states that in his old age he entered the Church, and transferred his kingdom to Malcolm, the son of Donald, and the Latin lists all agree that he became Abbot of the Culdees of St. Andrews. The " Albanic Duan " gives him a reign of forty-five years, and St. Berchan, who calls him Midhaise, forty-seven years, but the identity is clear, as he makes him retire to the " monastery on the " brink of the waves," and states that he died in " the house of the apostle." In the reign of Con- stantine, his brother Donald had been elected king of the Strathclyde Britons ; and in the reign of Malcolm, the son of Donald, his successor, the Maicoim, son kingdom of Cumbria was conquered by Edmund, ° king of the Saxons, and given to him. The " Pict- " ish Chronicle" gives Malcolm a reign of eleven years, and the Latin lists of nine ; and the only other event recorded of him is his ravaging North- umbria as far as the Tees in his seventh year ;