Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/93

PEEEACE. Ixxxv described as extending from the Tay to the HUef, and then as the sea sweeps round the district till it reaches a mountain at Athran, near Stirling. If by Hilef is here meant the Isla, the description is inapplicable to the boundary of any district ; but the county of Perth meets the county of Forfar on the shore of the Firth of Tay at a stream called the Liff, and there is a tradition that the Isla once flowed into the sea here. If the Litf is the stream meant, the description is plain enough, as there is no doubt that Athran is the modern Aithrey, for- merly called Atheray, near Stirling. This pro- Adnce, then, included Gowrie, Fife, Kinross, and Clackmannan. The third district is described as extending from the Hilef or Liff to the Dee — that is, the modern counties of Forfar and Kincar- dine. The fourth extends from the Dee to the Spey, includiag the counties of Aberdeen and Banff ; the fifth, from the Spey to Brunalban, or the district of Athole ; the sixth, Murray and Eoss ; and the seventh, Arregaithel. These two different accounts of the seven pro^'inces obviously belong to different periods in the history of the country, and probably both existed in their own period. The leading differences between the two are that, in the second account, Gowrie is detached from Athole and included in the same district with Fife and Fothreve, and that this district is extended west as far as Aithrey, near Stirling; and, secondly, that Catha- nesia is omitted, and Arregaithel substituted for it.