On Deeside, at some distance from its mouth, were three thanages—those of O’Neill, Birse, and Aboyne. The thanage of O’Neill is merely mentioned in a list of the second tithes due to the bishop of Aberdeen, who drew tithe from it, but as it is not contained in the rental of the crown lands in the reign of Alexander the Third, and the lands of O’Neill had fallen in that reign to the great nobleman Alan Durward, in part of a succession derived from the earls of Mar, it is probable that was a thanage held of these earls. The thanage of Birse lies on the south side of the river Dee, and is separated from O’Neill by that river, and of this thanage we have a very early notice, for King William the Lion in 1170 grants to the bishop of Aberdeen his whole lands of Brass, now Birse, consisting of sixteen townships under the kirkton or church land, and likewise the royal forest of Brass, with all the native-men of these lands, the thanes, however, being excepted. This exception is somewhat similar to the grant of the thanage of Kyntor with the exception of Thaneston, and as Thaneston was eventually conveyed by the Crown, so by a subsequent charter in 1241 Alexander the Second confers upon the bishops the right to hold the whole lands of Birse in free forest without excepting the thane’s land, and thus terminated the thanage.[335] Farther up the Dee was the thanage of Obeyn, now Aboyne, from which likewise the bishop draws second tithes. In 1328 we find this thanage mentioned in the Exchequer Rolls as being then in the hands of Sir Alexander Fraser heritably. The _firma_ or rent of this thanage, amounting to £100, belonged in 1348 to the queen.[336] [Sidenote: Thanages in Angus and Mearns.]