Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland .. - National Library of Scotland

'MORTLACHMORTLACHCabrach, and Kirkmiohael. After noticing the villagegroups at Knockandow in Glenlivet and elsewhere,and the benefit they confer on the district by retainingin it tradesmen who might otherwise be lost, and by formingalso nurseries for the best of agricultural labourers,though 'the ground would have been worth :— more tothe landlord in its natural state,' he proceeds 'AVhereno such thing as village order is obsei-ved, and peoplehave planted themselves down on the hillside, the sizeof the crofts is greater, though still various. Even inthis case the rent is only the eighth part of a sovereign^that is to say if there was no arable land to start with.Some, however, had such facilities for reclamation thatthe Scots being likely to be beaten, Malcolm looked upto the chapel dedicated to St Moloc, which was near athand, and lifting up his hands, prayed to God for aid,vowing that if it were granted he should erect there acathedral church and found a bishop's see. His prayerwas heard, the rout was stayed, and his army returnedto the fight ; while Malcolm himself, finding the leaderEvetus prancing up and down the field without a helmet,as if the Scots had been finally defeated, slew him withhis own hand, and the Danes were driven into Murrayland,totally defeated. That some battle may havetaken place is highly probable, as the Norsemen, underSigurd the Stout, had just before overrun the provinceof Moray, and they may, therefore, while attempting topress across the Spey and penetrate Alban, have beenmet and defeated by the king of the latter region ; butall the details given by Boece must be received as merelyproofs of that spirit of invention which characterisedhim, and wdiich has made so much of the early history ofScotland, down even to our own day, a mere tissue offabricated legends. Fordun merely states that Malcolm,in 1011, thinking over the many benefits he had receivedfrom God, determined to promote the power ofChristianity, and so founded a new bishopric at Murthillach,not far from the place where he had obtained a'victory over the Norwegians.' It is, however, certainfrom 20 to 30 acres are now under the plougli, in a fewcasesin the parish of Mortlach. Nevertheless, the rentgoes on at the same mite year after year. Some of thecrofts were made up of outlying portions of arable farms.In other words, the land had been under the ploughbefore. In that case a common rent is £2 for from 7to 10 acres—sufficient to keep two cows and a stirk, ora cow, a calf, and a pony. This is extremely cheap.The crofters seem content, and so they may. Theycannot fail to observe that their brethren on most otherproperties are not so leniently or generously treated.Within the last few weeks we ascertained that manycrofters in the same county, wlio occupy land on otherproperties that was arable before they got it, pay nearly that, as we must reject the fictitious details of the battle,three times as much rent as the Duke's small holders we must reject as equally untrue both the date and thedo. In fact, we have not, from one end of Scotland to circumstances of the foundation of the see of Mortlach.the other, fouud so generous treatment dealt out to In fact, there never was a see of iilortlach. 'It wassmall holders as prevails on his Grace's upland Banffshireestates, . . . that they [the crofters] have land erected bishoprics off-hand. We liave here an in-not,' says Dr HiU Burton, 'the day when kings of Scot-for so many years been, and still are, sitting almost stance of the provoking practice, to be hereafter dealt'•rent free," and arc generally happy and prosperous, in with, by which history and documents were tamperedour opinion, deserves notice in these columns, particularlyat a time when almost all that is heard or the phraseology and practices of later ages of the Church.with, for tlie purposes of carrj'ing into remote antiquityread publicly of crofters, takes the form of grievances, The records of the see of Aberdeen, from which, probably,both Fordun and Boece drew, stUl remain, andrack-renting, and alleged ill-treatment. The Duke hasa very small revenue indeed from his crofts, but they remain in a suspicious state. ' The charters,' sa3'S Cosmoserve, as already explained, a good purpose, not only Innes, quoted by him '[Boece] are all to be found in thefor his own estates, which are very extensive, but for extant registers, and some of the alterations of the recordthe country. . . . His crofters occupy an enviable and dates superinduced on the margin, agree in so surprisinga way with his book, tliat they give the impres-position among their brethren. There is no word of,and no necessity for a Royal Commission to inquire sion of his own hand having made them. ' All the firstinto their condition. In this respect, as in most others, five charters recorded in the Eegistrum Episcopatus Aberdoncnsismust, we fear, be regarded as forgeries—andthe Duke of Richmond and Gordon shows a nobleexample to his brother landlords.' A pass near AuchiudounCastle, called the Glacks of Balloch, is said to be so as to refer to JIalcolm III., an attempt at alterationindeed, in the first, which has been originally writtenthe locality alluded to in the song of Roy's Wife of has been subsequently made, so as to try to make it referAldixalloch, and the writer in the Old Statistical to Malcolm II. There is also other evidence that provesAccount says that ' Tibbie Fowler of the Glen ' also lived that at that time the only bishopric in Scotland was thatnear Auchmdoun, but the allusion to Tintock Tap seems ofDunkeld. If we admit that Malcolm 111. may haveto negative this statement. The mansions are Balvenie,which is separately noticed ;granted some lands to Mortlach for ecclesiastical purposes,and that a church scribe in the diocese of Aber-Buchromb House, abuilding in the baronial style, erected in 18/3-74 ;and deen afterwards recorded this in a fonn common at theKininvie House, erected partly in 1725-26 and partly in time when he wrote, we have allowed all that the authenticevidence will permit. The ordinary story of the1840-42, but ^vith a keep dating from the end of the lothor the beginning of the 16th century. The Leslies of foundation of the see by Malcolm II., and of its transferenceto Aberdeen by David I., must be rejected.Kininvie are cadets of the family of Balquhain, and haveheld the estate since 1521. The Duke of Richmond has Jlortlach was, howevei', the site of a religious establishmentat a very early date, and if Malcolm did not looka shooting-lodge in the S of the parish, in Glen Fiddich.The old castles of Auchindoun and Balvenie are separatelynoticed ;up and see ' a chapel dedicated to St Moloc,' he mightand Keithmore, 2 miles E of Dufftown, have done so. The patron saint is sometimes also styledwas the property of Alexander Duff, one of whose sons St WoUock, Makuvolokus, or Makuolocus, and is assignedbecame Duff of Braco, and the ancestor of the present to the beginning of the 8th century ; but he must ratherEarl of Fife. There is a circular British hill fort on the be identified with the Irish saint, Moloc or Mo-luag, whotop of Little Conval HiU ; and in Glen Rinnes, not far was a disciple of St Brendan, and who died, accordingfrom Mill of Laggan, are three large stones lying on a to the Chronicon Hyense, in 592.* He assisted St Bonifacein his labours in the north, and may possibly him-spot known as The King's Grave. Below the churchof Mortlach (3^ furlongs S of Dufftown), on the bank self have taught at Mortlach and in the neighbourhood,of the DuUan, is the Stone of Mortlach, a so-called for his name is also associated with a well in the parish'runic'stone, with the usual symbols, a drawing of of Glass. Whether this was so, and he was the founderwhich will be found in the first volume of the Spalding of the cell, or whether it was founded and dedicated toClub Sculptured Stones of Scotland. The traditional him by one of his disciples, cannot be settled ; but whenaccount of it is, that it was erected to commemorate a * Although a good deal of confusion exists as to St Moloc aud Stvictory which Malcolm II. gained over the Northmen Wollock, they seem to have been entirely different persons, theor Danes ' ' at this spot in 1010. This battle rests feast of the former being on the 25th June and of the latter on29th Januarj'. Both seem to have laboured in the north.pretty much on a brief mention in Fordun and a fullStMoloc's fair at Mortlach was held on the flat ground below thoand elaborate account in Boece, where we are told that church about the sctilptured stone already noticed.71