Commercial Break - New Book Out Now!

While I take a short (and possibly well-deserved) break from my blogging schedule, can I bring your attention to my recently published book, The Afterlife of King James IV, published by Chronos Books.

   This work is very much an alternative history of one of the best beloved Scottish monarchs, King James IV, who died at the Battle of Flodden in 1513.  Or did he?  There were persistent rumours that the monarch survived the battle, being either captured by the English, rogue nobles in the Scottish army, or taking himself away on a spiritual, one way journey from the Holy Land. So, a raft of conspiracies theories which were born out of the bloody mire and confusion of battle?  That's true, but there was certainly more, uncommon intrigue afoot.  The tantalising image and reputation of the king - plus the possibility of his murder or survival - were tangible elements in the tempestuous politics of the post-Flodden period. The king's own wife, Margaret Tudor (sister of King Henry VIII) fully indulged in the intrigue, for her own purposes, claiming that James IV survived for several years after the fateful battle.

   More than this, the king was also linked to the Otherworld, with several strands of tradition aligning him with the theme of the Undying King, whose interest in the recondite traditions of his realm prompted his removed from the physical world, a captive in Fairy Land.  The persistent legends of his links with this realm are evident in witch trials and resurface in subsequent centuries, a fascinating ingredient in the postmortem reputation of this most alluring Stewart monarch.

https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/chronos-books/our-books/afterlife-king-james-iv

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Robert Bruce: Saints and Superstition

To estimate the religious impulses of a long dead ruler is just one aspect of trying to determine their character and the more public facing and orthodox in form their devotions are, the more difficult it is to determine their underlying beliefs.  As a ruler Robert Bruce is judged by military exploits, both in those rather few set piece full scale battles which he won and as a guerrilla ruler before his ascent to power.  His political achievements and statesmanship were also great, but his devotion to his nation's saints also needs examined, not least because it throws light on his interaction with the complex native culture in Scotland.

   Bruce's family in background were little different from the other dynastic players active in the period, such as the Comyn and Balliol families.  All were descendants (in sometimes disputed degrees) from the native Celtic kings of Scotland, and all saw their chance at the prize of the throne when that direct line died out in the later 13th century.  Norman and English blood of course mingled with Scottish ancestry and they had extensive land holdings and associated loyalties south of the border.  Bruce himself was probably born in south-west Scotland, where the region of Galloway (larger then than the area is understood to be now) was a bastion of Gaelic language and culture.  Did the king himself speak Gaelic and participate in the the native culture of the area, including the veneration of native saints?

   Raised at Turnberry Castle in Carrick, the area would still have been within the Gaelic speaking milieu.  Obviously there would be a family inheritance of Norman French, as well as some knowledge of Scots dialect and Latin.  Having a scant understanding of the tongue of the peasantry is one thing, but understanding their culture is quite another.  John Barbour's epic account The Brus tells how the king, in the wilderness before his final triumph, encouraged the flagging spirits of his guerrilla band with tales of heroes who overcame great adversity.  The tale of Hannibal attacking Rome is mentioned, but Bruce also told tales of other ancient heroes, among them Caesar, but could he also have drawn on native legend and folklore to encourage his men with great deeds closer to home? 

Thus gat thaim comfort the king/And to comfort thaim gan inbryng/ Auld storys off men that wer/Set intyll hard assayis ser/And that fortoun contraryit fast,/And come to purpos at the last.

Bruce and the 'Celts' - The Wider Picture

The audacious Bruce incursion into Ireland fell victim to that country's factionalism(a pattern which echoes through every subsequent century) and should not be viewed as an attempt to create a kind of pan-Celtic vision for the Bruce dynasty.  They did, for certain, recognise the shared culture of Gaelic Scotland and Ireland, but the sense of kinship between other 'Celtic' countries was probably absent.  

A Superstitious King? Prophecies and Marvels

   Bruce was a king of many cultures.  His family, before the necessary duality of the Wars of Independence, held lands in England and Scotland.  Languages he would have been familiar with in south-west Scotland would have included Gaelic, Scots, Latin, Norman French.  How credulous was he as a man.  We know, as will be seen below, that he used popular legendary characters to further his agenda, but that is some distance from viewing him as an expert in the traditional lore of his native land.  John Barbour in The Brus (book four) has Robert Bruce being assured of his ultimate success by a seeress in his home region, and yet Bruce does not give her supernatural endorsement unqualified welcome.  He listened to her whole prognostication and thanked her fully, being somewhat heartened by it.  And yet he did not wholly believe, for he wondered how she or anyone could entirely have knowledge of things to come:

The king that herd all hyr carpingThankit hyr in mekill thing,For scho confort him sumdeill,The-quhethir he trowyt nocht full weill hyr spek, for he had gret ferlyHow scho suld wyt it sekyrly...

   Bruce certainly deployed ancient but nevertheless effective cultural weapons against his enemies.  The prime prophet of the island of Britain, recent regenerated by Geoffrey of Monmouth, was of course Merlin.  On May 15 1307, several days after the engagement between Scots and English at Loudon Hill, a pro-English Scot reported that the allies of Bruce were being strengthened by the continual efforts of false preachers in his army.  These propagandists were disseminated the forthcoming death of Le Roy Coveytous - the English monarch - after which happy event the people of Wales and Scotland would band together and recover full lordship  and live in peace together until the end of the world.  According to Barbour again, the people of Scotland had knowledge of the predictions of that more recent seer, True Thomas, or Thomas of Erceldoune, who had apparently foreseen his ascent.  Bishop Wishart of Glasgow is made to ponder, after hearing of Bruce's decisive slaying of Comyn: 'I hop thomas prophecy off ercildoune shall werefyd be'.  Such was the magnitude of the struggle that supernatural support had to be gathered from whatever source it could be found, be that sacrilegious or not.

A Religious King? The Record of His Religion

   In speaking to his troops before the Battle of Bannockburn, Robert Bruce mentioned - among others - the national saint Andrew, whose cult had become preeminent in the nation perhaps a century before. After his death, Archbishop Bernard Linton  likened the Bruce to that apostle. As a king, and before that date as a leading noble Bruce had participated in the recognition and veneration of St Thomas Becket also, which was also evident in the reign of his son David II.  Did Robert Bruce see significance in the date of 7 July 1307, the Translation feast of Becket, when Edward I died at Burgh-on-Sands, near Carlisle, an event which prevented another English invasion of Scotland?

   As the historian Michael Penman puts it, Bruce was not slow in copying the English example of covering a wide veneration base of saints: 'As a bachelor in Edward I’s household before 1296, and often in attendance on the English king in England and Scotland up to 1305, Robert surely came to understand the political value of... public devotions.' ('“Sacred Food for the Soul”: In Search of the Devotions to Saints of Robert Bruce, King of Scotland, 1306–1329,' Speculum 84, 2013.)

   So there is no suggestion that Bruce somehow showed a preference for 'native' saints of either Scotland or Ireland as an effort to differentiate his fragile regime and foster a sense of cultural difference from England. It does show, however, that the saints of these two nations were powerful components - allies - in his spiritual armoury which helped him defeat an overwhelming foe. The 15th century Scotichronicon details a supernatural event which carried the righteous cause of Bruce into the heartland of the enemy. On the eve of the Battle of Bannockburn, the sacrist of Glastonbury Abbey was surprised in the evening by the appearance of two knights on white steeds. He offered them hospitality, but they refused and informed him that they had case to fight that very day at sunrise in a battle between Scots and English at a place named Bannockburn, on the side of the Scots, to provide revenge for the death of Simon de Montfort, killed by the royal army of England at the Battle of Evesham fifty years before. They then 'glided from the sight of the listener and were seen there no longer' much tom the man's astonishment.

   At Bannockburn, Bruce commanded that the relic of Colum Cille, the Brecbennach, be paraded before his native horde, and this was doubtless a divine inspiration which reinforced the army's identity and demonstrated to the community of the realm of Scotland that the kingdom of heaven, as represented by local saints, was firmly on their side.  It is obvious that the deployment of saints was a political act which emphasised allegiance to a broad spectrum of beliefs and those who ascribed to them in the kingdom. Conventional piety had its limits and Bruce was able to function - for periods at least - on the dark side of the line, within the territory of damnation as defined by the Church. So when he was excommunicated for his claiming the Scottish crown, he continued regardless to press this claim. And, when he sacrilegiously killed his rival Comyn in a church in Dumfries, in February 1306, the repercussions were grave, but he was prepared to live with them.

   On a personal basis, the king's own health shows that he believed in the possible power of saints' intercessions as much as the next man or woman in his day and age. His leprosy was cured, or at least ameliorated by, a holy well in Ayr. He afterwards erected houses around the well for eight lepers and paid for sustenance for them. The place became known as 'King's Ease'. After he was on the throne he paid for the prayers of Dominicans to assist his ill health; they prayed for the well-being of his soul after he died. When he was suffering his final illness in 1329, Bruce made the arduous pilgrimage to seek the benediction of St Ninian at Whithorn on the coast of Galloway.

Two Particular Saints Particular - Malachy and Fillan

   The Bruce family in the west of Scotland had a long and interesting relationship with the Irish saint Máel Máedóc (Malachy).  According to the Chronicle of Lanercost, the second Lord of Annandale, Robert Bruce, was visited the saint in the 1140s, who interceded with him to spare the life of a condemned thief. But, when Bruce hanged the man, Malachy laid a curse on the Bruces and on the town of Annan (which was subsequently flooded). The effect of the malediction is mostly unrecorded, but we know that a later Bruce prayed at the saint's tombs later in the century and asked for the malison to be annulled. Robert Bruce the King paid for a candle and lamp for St Malachy before the saint's altar at Coupar Angus Abbey in 1326.

   Behind the legend there is of course some truth.  The Cumbrian monks who composed the Chronicle of Lanercost were notably dismissive and hostile to their northern neighbours and the tale of the Bruce family's negative interaction with a hero of the western church was written at a time when the latter day Bruces were vying for the vacant Scottish crown with the Balliols and others. So the promulgation of the legend was, in part, a carefully weighted put down of this Anglo-Scottish kindred and their regal aspirations. The saint's own contemporary vita details his departure from Ireland (some time between 1134 and 1143), bound for Rome. Arriving from Scotland he met King David I (1124-1154), who begged the saint to assist his seriously ill son. Malachy blessed the boy with holy water and assured him: 'Have confidence son; this time thou shalt not die.' The boy recovered the next day, of course, to the jubilation of the whole court. (Prince Henry survived until 1152.) The Bruce family's interaction with this cleric who had such impeccable royal connections was likely to have been more straight forward than Lanercost suggests and shows they were in tune with the prevalent channels of power in their age. Linkage with a superstar of the Irish church could only have been a good thing for their prestige.

The 'Fillan miracle' connected with Bannockburn only appears in a somewhat later source, the history written by the unreliable Hector Boece, which was published in 1527. According to this, the king prayed to the saint on the night before the battle and was rewarded by a vision of the silver reliquary of the saint which contained Fillan's arm bone, opening and closing by itself. When a priest examined the case he was surprised to find that the bone was indeed inside, which surprised him as he had removed the artefact and secreted it in Stirling castle before he brought the reliquary to safeguard against its loss on the battlefield.

Detail of the crozier of St Fillan

  

The king enlarged the chapel dedicated to Fillan in Strathearn in 1318, placing in the care of the canons of Inchaffray Abbey. Later, in 1329, his natural son Sir Robert Bruce of Liddesdale gave £20 to that church. Fillan was well established in Strathearn and was reputedly an 8th century Irish saint who settled in the area. His crozier was kept in the strath and was reputed for its magical ability to locate lost goods and cattle. A document from 1487 states that the current keeper of the crozier was Malice Dore, whose forebears had 'ane relik of Sanct Fulane callit the Quargich in keping,' even since the time of Robert Bruce. The important resonance of Fillan as a truly national saint lasted at least into the late 15th century at the highest levels. At the coronation of James IV in 1488 there was a procession led by a man holding St Fillan's Bell, renowned for its power in curing mental problems. A decade later the king confirmed his personal devotion to the saint when he confirmed the Dewars’ privileges as relic keepers. The king's allegiance to the saint is supposed to have arisen in situ. In 1306 Bruce fought the pro-English Macdougalls of Lorne in an encounter later termed Dalrigh, 'the king's field'. Bruce prayed to the great saint of the district, St Fillan, whose shrine was nearby at Kilry, and assured himself of victory. It was at this battle that Bruce is supposed to have lost the famous silver jewel which later became the property of the Campbells and then the Macdougalls, known as the Brooch of Lorne.

The Afterlife of King James IV - More Reviews

More reviews for The Afterlife of King James IV published by Chronos Books, April 2019. Mar 15, 2019: Rebecca Hill | NetGalley  The Afterlife of King James IV is one of the best books this spring! Chock-full of information, and amazing detail. I initially thought I was going to be reading more of a ghost story, but the history in this book had me captured by page two. From Flodden Field to England, France and beyond - the legacy of King James was a hard one to live down. The idea that he lived beyond Flodden was something that was passed around and whispered. If this was true, then why would he have not returned home? There were so many questions surrounding this, but the author delved into each one with confidence and was able to satisfactorily lay the "ghost" of James IV to rest.
Mar 25, 2019: Jennifer Young | NetGalley  I have to say at the outset that this was a fascinating book. You don’t have to know a lot about Scottish history to know that the handsome, accomplished and heroic King James IV was killed at the battle of Flodden Field. The absence of a clearly-identifiable body led to the growth of a plethora of stories about what had become of the king…and this book looks in detail at some of them. James was much-loved and so his subjects were perhaps reluctant to see him go which, along with the widespread beliefs of the time in the supernatural, goes some way to explaining the growth of these tales. I enjoyed it, although I found that it lost a little focus towards the end, wandering off into the highways and byways of Scottish (and other) folklore in its attempt to explain exactly how and why the stories took root when, it appears, there’s a perfectly reasonable case for the body having been taken to London. Nevertheless this is an engaging and impressively-researched book, as the vast quantities of reference indicate.
Mar 26, 2019: Jennifer Young | NetGalley  I have to say at the outset that this was a fascinating book. You don’t have to know a lot about Scottish history to know that the handsome, accomplished and heroic King James IV was killed at the battle of Flodden Field. The absence of a clearly-identifiable body led to the growth of a plethora of stories about what had become of the king…and this book looks in detail at some of them. James was much-loved and so his subjects were perhaps reluctant to see him go which, along with the widespread beliefs of the time in the supernatural, goes some way to explaining the growth of these tales. I enjoyed it, although I found that it lost a little focus towards the end, wandering off into the highways and byways of Scottish (and other) folklore in its attempt to explain exactly how and why the stories took root when, it appears, there’s a perfectly reasonable case for the body having been taken to London. Nevertheless this is an engaging and impressively-researched book, as the vast quantities of reference indicate.
Mar 26, 2019: Amy Campbell | NetGalley edit | delete The Afterlife of King James IV: Otherworld Legends of the Scottish King was a fascinating read for me. I give it five stars. Loved it!

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The Afterlife of King James IV - Reviews from Goodreads

The Afterlife of Kings James IV is being published by Chronos Books in April 2019...

Janet rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2019ng, book-club-picks, kindle

I received a DIGITAL Advance Reader Copy of this book from #NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

From the publisher, as I do not regurgitate the contents or story of books in reviews, I let them do it.


The Afterlife of King James IV explores the survival stories following the Scottish king's defeat at the battle of Flodden in 1513, and how his image and legacy were used in the years that followed when he remained a shadow player in the politics of a shattered kingdom. Keith John Coleman ha ...more

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Feb 17, 2019Alyson Stone rated it really liked it

Shelves: arc, nonfiction, history, renaissance

Book: The Afterlife of King James IV: Otherworld Legends of the Scottish King
Author: Keith John Coleman
Rating: 4 Out of 5 Stars

I would like to thank the publisher, Chronos Books, for sending me this ARC.

I will admit that at first, I wasn’t sure that I was going to like this one. Keith’s writing starting out was a bit slow. It read more like a scholarly piece than the easy writing that I have come to expect from Chronos Books. I kept on going and it did get better. I really do think that this is one of those books that you are gong to have to give time to. It is a very well written and researched book, but this may not be the one to start on if you are looking into Stuart Scotland.

This book kind of straddles between history and folklore. We do actually get the best of both worlds in this one. On the one hand, Keith is looking at the historical background and figure of King James IV, then he turns around and adds in some folklore about the king’s death. Again, this is why I don’t recommend you start out reading this book if you are new to Stuart Scotland. What Keith does he cleverly weavers in both of these elements with support to make us get the whole picture of what could have happened to James IV after his death. We also get some of the lead up to his death; again, this is why I don’t recommend this to newbies because if you don’t have an understanding of what was going on in this time period, then you are going to be lost.

What I really liked was the different layers of the story. It’s kind of a ghost story, but it’s not. I mean, this is nonfiction with just a little bit of a twist. I like how complex the book was, even though it’s really not that long. I really have never read a nonfiction book like this; I’ve read nonfiction books with layers before, but this one is different. I don’t know, but I just really like mixing the known with the unknown and having the information to support his theories.

Okay, that is the main thing here. I have read a number of articles and books that are supposed to be arguing something, but end up losing that point throughout the book. This one doesn’t. Keith uses information to form his point and explores all angles. Keith’s voice is there, but it’s not too much-like some other books that I have read. It’s just enough to see what Keith is trying to prove, but, yet, sticking to the story.

Overall, not a bad read. It did take me a little bit to get into it, but it was worth it. This book comes out on April 26, 2019. If you want to check it out for yourself, then hop onto Netgalley and make a request…At least, I think it’s on Netgalley…Don’t hold me to that…. (less)

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Feb 08, 2019Ionia rated it really liked it

What impressed me about this book, was that it didn't start out with simple ghost stories of how the Scottish King, James IV, was seen after his death. Instead, it delved into history head first and gave the reader a good look at Scotland at the time and a feel for who the king and his predecessors were. Once the author introduced the important players in the life and death of the king, only then did he embark on the supernatural aspects of the book. 

Descent from Kings: the Royal Clans

It is perhaps human nature to claim descent from important or significant people. The heritage of clan and kindred names in Scotland is notoriously deceptive as genealogists, from relatively early times as well as later writers, have manufactured, distorted and deceived in order to suit the political and egotistical aims of the person employing them.  Trends in ancestry have also of course played a part, with a one time widespread snobbery making clans in many cases falsely claim ancestry from Norman progenitors even when this appears to be highly suspect. A few clan families claim descent from royals outside what is now Scotland.  The Forbes family sometimes boasted that they were descendants of a daughter of an unnamed king of Ireland.  The Campbells linked their origins with the kindred of King Arthur, which is likely a slightly distorted memory of connections with the elite of the Brittonic kingdom of Strathclyde. The earliest Campbells may have had their roots in the firmly region of the Lennox, around Loch Lomond, which was in the hinterland of the fortress of Dumbarton Rock, the 'Fort of the Britons'.

   It has been conjectured that the prominent family the Brodies may be named after the series of Pictish king named Brude or Bridei, though this conjecture (like many of the actively promoted legends of royal descent) is now impossible to prove. One Brude (son of Maelchon) notably encountered St Columba at his fortress somewhere near Inverness.  Brodie Castle, home of the family of that name, is (co-incidentally or not) in the same region.  Another theory states that the MacNaughton kindred took their name from Nechtan (Naiton), another Pictish royal name which was borne by several rulers.

    The Lamont family in Cowal may be thought to enshrine a Norman origin in their name, but an alternative theory states that they owe their title to the 13th century chieftain named Ladman.  The family themselves claimed descent from the kindred of King Comgall, who, fittingly, have his name to the district of Cowall.

The Macgregors

   The so-called 'Children of the Mist' had the distinction of being unable to use their surname for some time because of rampant criminality among their ranks.  But persecution perhaps led them to adopt the myth of royal lineage. 'Royal is my race,' is the motto of the Macgregors.  One tradition says that the founder of the clan was the brother of the 9th century king Kenneth mac Alpin, who supposedly conquered the Picts, though there is an alternative supposition that the eponym of the clan was a song of King Dungal, a supposed joint ruler of the kingdom of Alba.

   Another factor in the singular history of this clan is their central role in the conglomoration of septs who all claimed descent from a single king, known as Sìol Ailpein (Seed of Alpin).  The seven families grouped together under this heading were:  Clan Grant, Clan MacAulay, Clan Gregor, Clan Macfie, Clann Mackinnon, Clan MacQuarrie, Clan Macnab.  at the least, the joint efforts of several kindreds to project back their pasts into branches of various royal lines demonstrates dynamic myth making and the importance of pedigrees to the status and identity of later clans well into the early modern period.  The clans Gregor and Grant held discussions in the 18th century about combining their kindreds, partly on the basis of supposed descent from 6th century ruler Alpin of Dal Riada.  The MacGregors acknowledged shared heritage in documents with other clans throughout the 16th and 17th centuries.

The MacNabs

The Macnabs associated with Glendochart and Strathfillan,allegedly since the 7th century.  Some of their historians traced the line back to Ferchar mac Feradach, supposedly a brother of St Fillan (who died in 703).  A branch of the MacNabs were dewars, hereditary keepers of the relics of Fillan in this area.

   Another family with possibly royal associations here is the Grant family.  It is supposed that an Anglo-Norman William le Grant obtained land in Stratherrich, Inverness-shire,  in 1246 through marriage to a local heiress.  By the 15th century the clan had spread widely and Sir Iain Grant is thought to have married the Celtic heiress of the ancient royal house of Strathearn and descendants of this union later moved into the area of Strathspey.  

Who was King Karl Hundasson?

In the medieval Orkneyinga Saga, one of the primary sources for the history of Scandinavian Scotland we are presented with a character who opens the door to further mysteries and intrigue. A character named Karl Hundasson appears in the text as an enemy of the Norse rulers of the far north, yet we do not know with absolute certainty who he is, or supposed to be.  In the text he is called a King of Scots, but which one - if any - can he be identified with?  Looking at the actual references to him in the work hardly clear the matter up.

  In the saga we are told that King Malcom of Scotland died and was succeeded by Karl Hundasson, which - if we were delaing with a straight and factual account - should make it clear that it is Duncan, King of Scots, we are dealing with.  When Karl - whoever he was - claimed the throne of the Scots (probably in 1029), he immediately made claim on Caithness and therefore went to war with Earl Thorfinn of Orkney.  The Scottish campaign was led by Karl's nephew, a man named Muddan.  The latter raised a force in Sutherland and invaded Caithness.  But Earl Thorfinn raised a larger army and pursued them and subdued Sutherland and Ross and 'harried far and wide over Scotland'.  A second Scottish attack saw Muddan again leading land forces while Karl himself took a fleet round the north of the mainland.  This naval force met Thorfinn's fleet at Deerness and the Vikings again defeated the Scots.  A third, land encounter saw Karl and his force of Scots and Irish roundly defeated, which led to Thorfinn ravaging mainland Scotland as far south as Fife.  No further word is heard of Karl.

 

Son of A Dog.  The Macbeth Connection

   Whoever Karl was, he was an enemy to the Norse who was probably contemptuous to them.  The name, or nickname, evidently means 'peasant, son of a dog'.  While both names, Karl and Hundi, could be argued to be innocusous on their own, the combination of both leads us to this the intended man was being disparaged.  It also makes easy identification of the character very difficult indeed.  While I have given some possible suspects below, it might easily be none of them. It is also quite possible, as some historians have pointed out, that the character of Karl Hundasson may be an invention or a confused memory of several enemies of the Vikings combined into one character by the later compilers of the Orkeyinga Saga.  It has to be borne in mind that there was aggression between the Scots and Norse in the north  and west of the British Isles for over two centuries and there would have been plenty of warlords on the native side who m ay have been misremembered by later Viking poets. 

   In Njal's Saga there is a mormaer of Moray named  Hundi, and this has been equated by some as Findlech, the father of Macbeth.  It is certain that Macbeth was an aggressive war leader on various fronts, against the Scottish rulers to the south and certainly also against the Norse based in Orkney.  His status and success make him a prime suspect for being the despised Karl of Norse legend. 

   Macbeth's latter day literary association with the three Weird Sisters, in Shakespeare and his immediate sources, was shrewdly linked to the three Norns of Norse mythology by Nora Chadwick over fifty years ago, and this integral link with Scandinavian culture bolsters the supposition that he may be the man behind the shadowy moniker of Karl Hundasson.

 

Other Contenders

•  Malcolm MacKenneth,  son of Kenneth III of Scotland presented as the successor of Malcolm II (Máel Coluim mac Cináeda) in the northern parts of the kingdom while Duncan I (Donnchad mac Crínáin) ruled in the south. Authors, including P. A. Munch, declared Malcolm was Karl.  Taylor points out there are five separate Malcolms in the Norse annals relating to Scotland, three of whom were powerful leaders who may be regarded as candidates.

• Gillacomgain, Mormaer of Moray, who succeeded his brother Malcolm in 1032. This is William Thomson's favoured identification in his New History of Orkney (first edition, 1987).  He suggests the author of the saga assumed that the figure known as Karl was a King of Scots, when in fact he was more likely a Scottish regional ruler whose territory bordered on the Norse lands, and therefore the province of Moray. Thomson (2008) notes that the war with Hundasson seem to have taken place between 1029 and 1035 and that the Annals of Ulster record the violent death of Gillacomgain, son of Mael Brigte and Mormaer of Moray in 1032. He too is thus a candidate for Thorfinn's Scots foe—and the manner of his death by fire bears comparison with Arnór's poetic description of the aftermath of the battle at Torfness.

• Hlodver Hundi, brother of Earl Thorfinn.  This is the suggestion of Alex Woolf.  In the sagas there is mention of a 'Hvelp or Hundi' who was removed to Norway by King Olaf Trygvasson and died there. However this man seems to have died realtively yopung and may not have been amture enough at death to have fathered the mysterious Karl.

• Cuilean.  A. McBain argued that the appellation Hundasson directly equates with the Gaelic Cuilean. the name of several mormaers in the north of Scotland in the 10th and 11th centuries. 

• King Duncan I. This king of Scotland, who ruled from 1034 to 1040, was slain  by Macbeth in the north of the kingdom, but his other military campaigns were in the south and there is no substantial record of him in war against the Norse.  

The Dark King and The Strangest Death

Three Dark Secrets

   This is one of the strangest, most convoluted tales ever associated with a king in Scotland, so bear with me while I pick out some of the strands - without a promise that I will come to the bottom of the mystery in any way.  The king named Dubh, 'the black', ruled for only a few years in the late 10th century.  No surprise in this, given the turbulence of the era and the competitive, rival kindreds which supplied the leaders of the fledgeling Scottish nation. There are few facts known about the reign of Dub, but a body of legend around him which probably arouse later.  We know that he likely rules in conjunction with another king and that his death was associated with an eclipse of the sun.

   The few recorded facts of the reign can be summarised quickly.  The son of King Malcolm I, Dubh came to power in 962 when the previous ruler Indulf (or Indulb) died. Early annals state there was continued emnity between rival kingship factions which resulted in Dubh defeating Indulf's son Cuilén in battle.  The place of this encounter - 'upon the ridge of Crup' - can't be identified, but it was possibly somewhere in Atholl as the mormaer of that provice, Dubdon, died there, as did the abbot of Dunkeld, named Duchad. Further internal aggression apparently led to Dubh's death in the year 967, but the earliest sources are silent about the circumstances, unlike others. One source says that he was driven out of the kingdom, possibly by a resurgent Cuilén , but it seems more likely that he was killed and in the north of the kingdom.  Several historical sources state that he invaded the northern province of Fortriu and that he died in Forres.  And that's where the stories take a strange twist.

   It is thought possible that Dubh and Cuilén ruled jointly for a period, an arrangement known as comrighe, with each being lethrí 'co-king' who shared the kingship rather than either ruling as Iánri 'full king.' After Cuilén's defeat Dubh rode north to quell factional enemies. The 12th century Prophecy of Berchan contains much traditional material couched in enigmatic terms, and it says the following about Dubh's raid:

One of the kings goes on an useless expedition across the upper regions in the Plain of Fortriu; though he may have gone, he does not return, the black of the three dark secrets will fall.

   What the three darks secrets exactly were, we shall unfortunately never discover. (They find a curious echo in the work of historian Andrew of Wyntoun, when a descendant of the Mac Duff kindred makes three requests of Malcolm III.)


  The various accounts differ on what happened afterwards. The 14th century historian John of Fordun (Chronica, IV. 26, partly relying on earlier sources) says that that Dubh led his army to Forres, where he was slain, after which his body was hidden under a bridge at Kinloss and the sun refused to shine until it had been removed. Was the eclipse one of the three dark secrets?

Death by the Moon:  The Eclipse of Kings

   The first thing to say is that there was an actual eclipse in northern Europe around this time. A. O. Anderson advised that L’art de Verifier les Dates stated the event occurred at 4pm on 20th July 966. However, the 19th century historian W. F. Skene gave the date as 10th July 967. It has been suggested that this eclipse could not actually be seen in Scotland, but this is not certain.  The Annals of Ulster state that the king died in 967, but the discrepancy is a minor point.

   If the actual event was real and the death of the king also, the association between the two events would have been recognised as portenteous. The theme of a solar eclipse accompanying treachery is common in European literature.  Plus the other motif of the 'sun refusing to shine when a murder is done' is another widespread motif in folklore (motif F.961.1.1 in Thomson's Motif-Index, iii, 247).  As far as may be judged, Dubh was regarded (albeit in somewhat later writing) as a good and just ruler.  However, it should be noted that royal death being associated with heavenly events did not necessarily signify the worth of the ruler involved.  William of Malmesbury relates a tale of King William Rufus (in his De Gestis Regum) on the night before he died, when he 'dreamt that he was being bled, and a spurt of blood [shot] up to the sky overcast the sun and brought darkness upon the day'.  

   In Scotland the significance of strange celestial occurrences was also marked and from a very early date.  The Annals of Ulster note that the moon was like blood around the time of the death of the Argyll king Domangart, son of Domnall Brecc, in 673.  The Pictish king Angus son of Fergus also had his passing marked by a 'dark moon'.

   Most significantly, in this northern context, is the tradition which surrounds the king named Giric, who died a century before Dubh. In a parallel with Dubh, Giric - co-incidentally or not - also jointly ruled with another king, named Eochaid.  Giric was linked to the middle-eastern saint variously named St Cyricus or Cyrus (or Giric) and early records (the source once called the Pictish Chronicle) states that an eclipse of the sun took place in the ninth year of this king's rule, on the saint's day, 16th June 885. On this very day (according to the Chronicle of the Kings of Scotland), 'Eochard with his foster-father was now expelled from the kingdom.'  The ancient church of St Cyrus (anciently Ecclesgreig) was in the Mearns and the king, under alliases Greg and Gregory seems very much associated with this region, with memories in place-names in neighbouring Angus.  (Both Angus and Mearns seem to have formed the Pictish province of Circinn.)  It is also noteworthy that Dubh himself had a son named Giric.

Sueno's Stone

   There is a possibility that the death and aftermath of Dubh is recorded in stone, on the massive monument known as Sueno's Stone, erected near Forres. This stone takes its name erroneously from a Viking king (Swein) who is supposed to have battled the Scots here, a story inspired in part by the scenes of armed violence carved on the stone.  Spurious Viking tradition aside, it has also been conjectured that the stone is showing a message relating to a great battle here, possibly between the kingdom of Scots and the semi-autonomous rulers who sometimes displayed too much independence in  this area, which in Pictish times had been named Fortriu and was later named Moray.  

   But surely the site is significant.  Just outside Moray, on the road to Kinloss.  A.A.M. Duncan proposed that the battle refers directly to that in which Dubh was slain.  There is what appears to be a body stricken prone and laid beneath an arch or bridge (along with other corpses), and a head within a box - the head of the slain monarch?  It may be the stone was set up by Dubh's brother, Kenneth II (Cináed mac Maíl Coluim), who reigned from 971-995.  Kenneth was a ferociously active ruler who campaigned in many regions and he notable continued the feud in the far north, contending with Cuilén's brother Amlaíb.

Sueno's Stone

The Compensation of Clan MacDuff

   While Dubh's brother Kenneth ruled in the late 10th century, the later descendants of Dubh did not. True, the Annals of Ulster record the death in 1005 of Cinaed mac Duib,  Kenneth III, king of Scots, but here the line - as rulers of the kingdom - falters.  The reasons and details are not clear.  This Kenneth III had a son named Giric, who may have ruled jointly with him (echoing past and future arrangements). Eligibility to rule was never straight forward in Gaelic society under the convoluted laws of tanistry, and sometimes changes were made to regulate succession among competing kindreds.  For whatever reason, the children of Dubh were set aside. Whether or not they had a prior territorial claim on the region, Dubh's descendants may have  become Mormaers and then Earls of Fife.  The ancestry is not certain.  But it is thought that Macbeth's queen Gruoch was a member of this kindred. Her grand-daughter married a son of Malcolm III named Aedh and the MacDuff rulers of Fife descend from this line.

  They held this office until the latter 14th century.  This kindred maintained a powerful, symbolic connection with the ritual enthronement of Scottish kings during this period, which was undoubtedly part of the compensation of the clan for being excluded from eligibility for the kingship.  While this may appear odd, there are parallels from Ireland to show it was a feature in the upper echelons of Gaelic society. F. J. O'Byrne points out that ousted sub-kings still sometimes actually owned the inauguration sites of kings and therefore claimed and practised the rite to inaugurate new rulers.As late as the 16th century, he points out:

both Ó Catháin (O’Kane) and Ó hÁgáin (O’Hagan) of Tulach Óg were essential partners in the legal installation of O’Neill. A tract on the Uí Fiachrach says that at the inauguration of Ó Dubhda (O’Dowd of Tireragh), his arms, apparel and horse were given to Ó Caomháin, representative of an ousted dynasty... [Irish Kings and High Kings, p. 21]

   According to Duncan (writing in Scotland, The Making of the Kingdom), the clan MacDuff were 'clearly close to the royal line in a special sense' and Bannerman writes:

Such inaugural nobles were often heads of dynastic segments rewarded in this way for
demitting their own legitimate claims to kingship within the kin-based system of
succession. That the ruling family of the province of Fife was closely related to the
reigning royal house is indicated by their shared forenames Donnchadh (Duncan), Mael-
Coluim (Malcolm) and perhaps particularly the otherwise rare Causantín (Constantine).
Dub king of Scots (d. 966) belonged to this royal dynasty and is the only one of that name on record, which makes it all the more certain that he was the eponymous ancestor of the Clann Duib of Fife.

   The chief of the kindred was allowed the hereditary right to crown the new king of Scotland at Scone. The 15th century historian Andrew of Wyntoun claimed that MacDuff thane of Fife requested of Malcolm III the privilege for himself and his successors of enthroning the king of Scots at his inauguration, but the link is older than that.  There was also a 'Law of Clan MacDuff', whereby anyone claiming kinship with the head of the clan within the ninth degree could claim santuary following a crime at Mac Duff's Cross (a monument later destroyed, though its base remains) which was situated on the border of Fife and Perthshire.  Here there are traces of a uniquely powerful kindred with deep roots, special affiliations, and a family system that retained strong echoes of early medieval Gaelic structures.

Site of MacDuff's Cross in Fife.

Enter the Witches - A Later Fiction?

   

   Mention witches and Scottish kings and one would inevitably think of Macbeth and the Weird Sisters. But 16th century, and later historians, first associated the obscure ruler Dubh with witches, albeit the tales was not as richly worked as in the literary Macbeth version. It seems highly coincidental that the area of Forres, associated as it is with Dubh's death and the Sueno Stone, should be the place where Macbeth encountered the three hags. Of interest also is the possibility that Gruoch, Macbeth's wife, was an ancestress of the MacDuff rulers of Fife. (The victorian historian W. F. Skene surmised that the descendants of Dubh arrived in Fife as followers of Macbeth in the 11th century.) Whatever the connections, the story of witches associated with Dubh was embelished out of all historical recognition. From the original scant few lines recorded about the king initially, he was later the centre of a melodramatic supernatural drama, culminating in the lurid tale inncluded by George Sinclair (Satan's Invisible World, included at the bottom of this piece). At the instigation of his dynastic rivals, several witches tormented the king and caused him to wither away for six months before he actually died by mistreating a wax image of him. Other versions, including that of John Leslie, state the ruler was given noxious medicine which hastened his demise.




Shakespeare not only used those traditions and pseudo-histories of Macbeth found in recent historians, but also utilised traditions associated with Dub, as filtered through the dubious inventions of Hector Boece's Scotorum Historiae, and its translation by John Bellenden. According to the latter, Dubh or Duff had hanged several relatives of the captain of Forres castle, for conspiring with witches against him. Donwald's wife took umbrage and tasked her husband with killing the king the next time he stayed at the castle. This was done during the night when he was alseep. Dubh's throat was cut and the corpse removed from the fortress. The next morning, when the alarm was raised, Donwald angrily accused the king's two chamberlains. The body was concealed beneath a stream: 'and buryit it in the middis thairof, quhair the streme usit to pas; syne put ane gret stane abone his body, that na thing suld appeir hid in the said place.'



Shakespeare also utilised Ralph Holished's re-imagining of the eclipse tale, which Holinshed expanded to ratchet up the sense of eerie occurrence:

For the space of six moneths togither, after this heinous murther thus committed, there apeered no sunn by day, nor moone by night in anie part of the realme, but still was the skie covered with continuall clouds, and sometimes such outragious windes arose, with lightenings and tempests, that the people were in great feare of present destruction... Monstrous sights also that were seen within the Scottish kingdome that yeere were these: horses in Louthian, being of singular beautie and swiftnesse, did eate their owne flesh, and would in no wise taste anie other meate. In Angus there was a gentlewoman brought foorth a child without eires, nose, hand, or foot. There was a sparhawke also strangled by an owle... But all men understood that the abhominable murther of king Duffe was the cause heereof.

 

Selected Sources

Neil Aitchison. Macbeth, Man and Myth (Stroud, 1999).
A. O. Anderson, Early Sources of Scottish History (1922, rep. Stamford, 1990).
John Bannerman, 'MacDuff of Fife,' in Medieval Scotland: Crown, Lordship and Community, ed. Alexander Grant and Keith J. Stringer, pp. 20-38 (Edinburgh, 1993).
A. A. M. Duncan, Scotland, The Making of the Kingdom (Edinburgh, 1975).
A. A. M. Duncan, The Kingship of the Scots 842-1292, Succession and Independence (Edinburgh  2002).
Michael Evans, The Deaths of Kings, Royal Deaths in Medieval England (London, 2003).
Sally M. Foster, Picts, Gaels and Scots (London, 1996).
B. T. Hudson, Kings of Celtic Scotland (Westport, 1994).

B. T. Hudson, The Prophecy of Berchan, Irish and Scottish High Kings in the Middle Ages (Westport, 1996).
F. J. O' Byrne, Irish Kings and High Kings (London, 1973).
George Sinclair, Satan's Invisible World Discovered (Edinburgh, 1685).