Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/200

cxcii PREFACE. " in Ulster ; then, after the expiration of many years, " they pass over into lona, and proceed by the river " Rosis to occupy the region of Rossia, and finally " possess the cities of Eigmonath and Bellathor, " situated at a distance from it." The whole of the cities here mentioned were celebrated ecclesiastical establishments, and this legend seems to indicate the progress of an ecclesiastical party. The latter part of it can be identified. From Ireland they proceed to the isles, from thence they enter Rossia by the river Rosis. Rossia is of course the province of Ross; and the Rosis is the river Rasay, the old name of the Blackwater, which rises in the small lake called Loch Droma, on the ridge separating the eastern and western watershed, and flows through the long valley leading from near the head of Loch Broom till it falls into the Conan at Contin, some miles above Dingwall. From thence they proceed southwards to Rigmonath, the old name of St. Andrews, and to Bellathor, which must have been situated at or near Scone. The termination of the wanderings of this colony of Scots connect them at once with the invasion of Kenneth Mac Alpin, and the settlement of the Scots in his time at St. Andrews, his brother and successor, Donald Mac Alpin, having died, according to the " Pictish Chronicle," at Bell- athor, and according to the " Cronicon Elegiacum " at Scone. The founder of the settlement of the Scots in Galloway is said, in the " Scalachronica," to have been Redda, and he seems to have been