being the powerful Lord of Lorn, and the second the Lord of the Isles, while the third owned large territories both on the mainland and in the Isles. [Sidenote: District of Argyll divided into sheriffdoms.] One of the first acts of John Baliol, when his claim to the throne was preferred, was to assimilate the district of Argyll and the kingdom of the Isles to the system which prevailed in the rest of the kingdom, which was divided into sheriffdoms, in which the king was represented by the vicecomes or sheriff, and the Act of Parliament by which this was done will show how the land in these western regions was then held within eight years of the death of Alexander the Third.[105] By this Act, which was passed in 1292, the sheriffdom of Skye was to consist of the lands of the earls of Ross in North Argail, that is, the western part of the present county of Ross, the lands of Glenelg, the Crown lands of Skye and Lewis (here the principal lords were the Macleods of Harris and Lewis though they are not named), the lands of Garmoran, with the islands of Egg and Rume (this had been the chief seat of the Lords of the Isles descended from Roderic, son of Reginald), and the islands of Uist and Barra, where the MacNeills were the principal possessors. The sheriffship of Lorn was to consist of the lands of Ardnamurchan and Kinnelbathyn or Morvern; the lands of Alexander de Ergadia, Lord of Lorn; of John de Glenurchy, of Gilbert M‘Naughton, of Malcolm MacIvor, of Dugald of Craignish, of John, son of Gilchrist of Radulph of Dundee, who was a Scrymgeour, whose ancestor had received a grant of Glassrie from Alexander the Second; of Gillespie M‘Lachlan, of the earl of Menteath who had a right to Knapdale, of Anegus, son of Dovenald the Lord of the Isles, and of Colin Campbell, Lord of Lochow; and the sheriffdom of Kintyre was to consist, besides the possessors of the district of Kintyre, of the lands of the Lamonts, of Thomas Cambel, and of Dunkan Duff, in Cowall, and of the island of Bute. CHAPTER III. LEGENDARY ORIGINS. [Sidenote: The problem to be solved.] The occupation of the lands which formed the territory of the kingdom of Scotland in the reign of Alexander the Third, the mutual relation of the different races by which it was held, the connection of the Celtic portion of the population with the soil, the tenure by which they possessed it, and the different classes in their social organisation which it discloses, present to us the problem which we have to solve, and we have now to trace the history of the early institutions from which its phenomena were derived, and the extent to which they have been affected by internal change or by external influence. [Sidenote: Early traditions.]