During the Celtic period of her history we find Scotland exhibiting a distribution of her population in separate districts, which is very analogous to what existed in Ireland at the same period. The latter country appears from a very early period to have been divided into five provinces, and these provinces of Udlah or Ulster, Laighean or Leinster, Mumhan or Munster, and Connacht or Connaught, with Midhe or Meath, were ruled by provincial kings under the Ardri, or supreme king of Ireland, who had his royal seat at Teamhar or Tara in Meath. [Sidenote: Seven provinces in the eighth century.] In the same way the earliest account we possess of the provincial distribution of the population of Scotland tells us that Transmarine Scotland,[39] or the country north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, was anciently divided by seven brothers into seven provinces, and that the principal of these was _Enegus_ with _Moerne_, so called from _Enegus_, the firstborn of the brothers. This name of _Enegus_ or Angus, now represented by the county of Forfar, is no doubt the same with the ancient Celtic personal name of Angus; and _Moerne_, now called Mearns, or the county of Kincardine, is a corruption of the old Gaelic name _Maghgherghin_, that is, the plain of Gergin, and is alluded to under that name in one of the old Lives of St. Patrick.[40] The second province was _Adtheodle_ and _Gouerin_, or Atholl and Gowry. The old form of this name of _Adtheodle_ was _Athfodla_, in which form it appears in the Annals of Tighernac, and _Gouerin_ was probably _Gabhrin_, a name analogous to the old name of the district of Ossory in Leinster, which is called Gabhran, pronounced Gowran.[41] The third was _Sradeern_ and _Meneted_, or Stratherne and Menteath, and there seems no doubt that the former is the district which appears so frequently in the Irish Annals under the name of Fortren.[42] The fourth was _Fif_ with _Fothreve_. The old form of the former name was _Fibh_. The latter name has entirely disappeared, but was preserved in the deanery of Fothri, in the diocese of St. Andrews. The two together embraced the entire peninsula between the Firths of Forth and Tay, and the line of division between _Fibh_ on the east and _Fothreve_ on the west extended from the eastern boundary of the county of Fife on the Tay to the mouth of the river Leven on the Forth. The fifth province consisted of Mar and Buchan, which still bear these names and form the modern county of Aberdeen. The sixth was Muref and Ros. The old form of the former name was _Moreb_, and was applied to a large territory extending along the southern shore of the Moray Firth from the river Spey, and across the entire country to the Western Sea. It was anciently separated from Ros by the river of Beauly, the passage across which was by a ford termed the Stockford,[43] and the name, which signifies in old Gaelic a promontory, was very applicable to the peninsula stretching into the