The demesne of the earls of Fife of this race appears to have consisted of the parishes of Cupar, Kilmany, Reres, and Cameron in Fife, and those of Strathmiglo and Auchtermuchty in Fothriff,[431] near which Macduff’s Cross was situated, but whether this sept were the remains of the old Celtic inhabitants of the province, or a Gaelic clan introduced into it when its chief was made earl, it is difficult to say, but it is not impossible that it may have been a northern clan who followed Macbeth when the southern districts were subjected to his rule, and that there may be some foundation for the legend that the founder of the clan had rebelled against him, and adopted the cause of Malcolm Ceannmor, and so maintained his position. The fact that the race from whom the _Mormaers_ of Moray derived their origin is termed in one of the Irish Genealogical MSS. Clan Duff, and the earls of Fife undoubtedly possessed from an early period large possessions in the north, including the district of Strathavon,[432] lends some probability to this supposition. The privileges of the clan, however, stand on a different footing. From the earliest period the territory of Fife comes prominently forward as the leading province of Scotland, and its earls occupied the first place among the seven earls of Scotland. The first two privileges of placing the king on the Coronation Stone, and of heading the van in the army, were probably attached to the province of Fife, and not to any particular tribe from which its earls might have been derived, while on the other hand the third seems derived from the institution connected with the ancient _Finé_, by which the kin formed a class of seventeen persons, consisting of the _Geilfiné_, _Deirbhfiné_, _Indfiné_, and _Iarfiné_, and the nine degrees of kindred of the Clan Macduff correspond to the first two, which consisted of nine persons, traces of which can also be found in the Welsh Laws. Whilst the sept or clan thus makes its appearance in these few instances beyond the Highland Line, it no doubt had already assumed an equally distinct form within that boundary; but whatever may have been the condition of the clans in the more inaccessible region of the Highlands, history throws little light upon their existence till they emerge beyond it towards the end of the fourteenth century. [Sidenote: Description of Highlanders—1363-1383.]