[130] _A.F.M._, 3922. The Masters attribute the institution to _Ollamh Fodla_, into whose claims I will not enter; but it is very evident, I think, that they alluded to an institution well known at least in tradition. The word _Toshach_ simply means “captain” or “leader”--_dux_; the Irish _Taisigeacht_ meaning “captaincy,” “leadership,” or “precedency.” When the office of _dux_, originally elective, became hereditary, according to the invariable principle of “divided authority” so characteristic of all the Celtic communities, it remained permanently in the family of the eldest cadet of the clan, the Tighern farthest removed from the chieftainship. The “Captains of Galloway” and the “Thanes of Ross” were probably known in their native tongue as _Toshachs_--captains by right of office--for though the oldest cadet and the thane, in his military capacity, were known as _Toshachs_, it by no means follows that a Toshach was necessarily either one or the other. [131] _Reg. Magest._ _Stat. Alex._ II., c. 15. In some respects the Irish _Oirrigh_--under-king--resembled the Mormaor; but he was a tributary king, reigning in “right of blood,” not a royal _official_, though in certain cases he appears to have acted as a _Maor_. [132] _Fordun_, l. 4, c. 48. Compare _Appendix N_ (Thanes). [133] _Reg. Prior. St. And._ p. 114. [134] Fordun, to whom such a being as a married abbot would have been an abomination, metamorphosed the ancestor of the royal family of Scotland into an _Abthane_, asserting that the word _Abbas_ could only be a clerical error for _Abthanus_, an officer whom he places over all the king’s Thanes, l. 4., c. 43. The contemporary Tighernach, however, Wynton, and the author of the Chronicle in the _Reg. Prior. St. And._ (_Innes_, Ap. 5), were ignorant that Crinan was known under any other title but that of abbot, and though _Abthanages_ are to be met with in the charters, I have never yet chanced to light upon an _Abthane_. Such a name, in fact, would have been simply applicable to the maor of an abbot instead of the king--the holder of an ecclesiastical Thanage. [135] _Heimsk. Saga_ 7, c. 100 to 107. _Ork. Saga_, in _Col. de Reb. alb._, p. 340. [136] _Ork. Saga, Col. de Reb. alb._, p. 341. [137] _Sim. Dun. Hist. Dun._, l. 3, c. 9. The fifth year of Canute’s son, Harold, fell in 1040. [138] Dyrness appears to mean Turness, in the isle of Hoy, not Durness the north-western extremity of Sutherlandshire. [139] Torfnes, south of Bœfiord, seems to mean Burghead on the Moray Firth; Breida Fiord was the Dornoch Firth. The account of these transactions is from the _Ork. Saga_, in _Col. de Reb. alb._, as above. Kali Hundison, the name given in the Saga to the successor of Malcolm and opponent of Thorfin, can mean no other than Duncan. _Vide_ _Appendix P_.