In the same reign we find a Gaelic sept or clan appearing where we might least expect to find it, viz., in the province of Fife and Fothriff, where the Clan Macduff figures from an early period in both the mythic and the real history of Scotland, and has acquired a fictitious importance from the supposed connection of its founders with the usurper Macbeth, from which the privileges known as the law of the Clan Macduff were supposed to be derived. The well-known tale of how Macduff was Thane of Fife in the reign of Macbeth, how he incurred the resentment of the usurper and fled to England from his wrath, how his wife and children were slaughtered, and how he brought back Malcolm, the son of King Duncan whom Macbeth had slain, and how he killed Macbeth in the battle which placed Malcolm on the throne, first appears in the Chronicle of John of Fordun,[425] but he does not notice the privileges supposed to be conferred upon him and his descendants. These first appear in an addition made to the Chronicle by his interpolator Bower, the abbot of Inchcolm. According to him, after Malcolm was crowned, Macduff, thane of Fife, came to him, and requested and obtained three privileges, in reward for his faithful service, for himself and his successors, lords or thanes of Fife:—First, that they should place the king in his royal seat or chair on his coronation day; second, that they should lead the vanguard in every battle in which the royal standard was unfurled; third, that they, and every one of their kin, on the occasion of any sudden and unpremeditated homicide, should enjoy the privilege of the law of Macduff, the gentry on paying twenty-four marks as kinbot, and the commonalty on paying twelve marks receiving a plenary remission.[426] Wyntoun gives the same account of the three privileges, but adds— ‘Off this lawch are thre capytale; That is the Blak Prest off Weddale, The Thayne off Fyffe, and the thryd syne Quha ewyre be Lord of Abbyrnethyne.’[427]