Of the monasteries which must have been founded by Columba in the Pictish territories east of the Drumalban range Adamnan gives us no account, nor does he even mention any by name; but of the foundation of one we have an instructive account in the Book of Deer, which shows that they extended as far as the Eastern Sea. The tradition of the foundation of the churches of Aberdour in Banffshire and of Deer in the district of Buchan are thus given. ‘Columcille and Drostan, son of Cosgrach, his pupil, came from _Hi_, or Iona, as God had shown to them, unto _Abbordoboir_, or Aberdour, and Bede the _Cruithnech_, or Pict, was Mormaer of Buchan before them; and it was he that gave them that _cathair_, or town, in freedom for ever from Mormaer and Toisech. They came after that to the other town; and it was pleasing to Columcille, because it was full of God’s grace, and he asked of the Mormaer—viz., Bede—that he should give it him, and he did not give it; and a son of his took an illness after refusing the clerics, and he was nearly dead. Then the Mormaer went to entreat the clerics that they should make prayer for the son, that health should come to him, and he gave in offering to them from _Cloch in tiprat_ to _Cloch pette mic Garnait_. They made the prayer, and health came to him. Then Columcille gave to Drostan that _cathair_, and blessed it, and left as his word “Whosoever should come against it, let him not be many-yeared victorious.” Drostan’s tears came on parting with Columcille. Said Columcille, “Let Dear be its name henceforward.”’[270] In this traditional account preserved by the monks of Deer, we have a type of the mode in which these monasteries, or Christian colonies, were settled among the heathen tribes—the grant of a _cathair_, or fort, by the head of the tribe, and its occupation by a colony of clerics,—which is quite in accordance with what we learn as to the settlements of this monastic church in Ireland. The church of _Rosmarkyn_, now Rosemarky, on the northern shore of the Moray Firth, and that of _Muirthillauch_, or Mortlach, in the vale of the Fiddich, were dedicated to Moluog of Lismore, and were probably founded by him, as was that of Kildonan in Sutherland, by Donnan. [Sidenote: A.D. 584-597. Monasteries founded by Columba among the southern Picts.]