Yet it must be added that with all its similarity of style and attractive colouring, the art is poor in comparison with that of contemporary Irish MSS. Such are the original contents of the codex. There remain the later notes and memoranda on the margins and blank spaces. And these are of two kinds—those written in Latin and those in Gaelic. The Latin ones consist of (1) the fragment of an Office for the Visitation of the Sick inserted between Mark and Luke, and with a single line of Gaelic rubric in the body of it, namely, “Hisund dubeir sacorfaic dau” (“Here give the sacrifice to him”); (2) a Charter by King David confirming to the monks of Deer their lands and their privileges. As the Office for the Sick may have been the first insertion, perhaps 200 or 250 years after the original book was written, so the King’s Charter, granted some time before his death in 1154, was with a single exception apparently the last, for in declaring that the clerics of Deer were free from all lay interference and undue exaction, “as it is written in their book,” it is implied that the rest of the entries had already been made. These latter are the six Gaelic ones, and they contribute the chief value to the Book of Deer. They all relate to grants of land and other privileges given from time to time to the Monastery of that name. At Banff and Aberdeen, in the early part of the twelfth century, the book was produced in the King’s Courts in evidence of the rights of the clerics to the land in question, and their claim was thereby substantiated. The entries were made at different times, from the end of the tenth or the beginning of the eleventh century down to the middle of the twelfth. They occur in the earlier part of the book, and though inferior in point of penmanship and even of ink to the original contents of the MS., they are well written and perfectly legible throughout. Inscribed as they were in the Gaelic of the place and of the period, these entries introduce us direct and at once into the community of monks who owned the codex. The first is of exceeding great interest. It is known as the “Legend of Deer.” Based upon a tradition of some 500 years, it cannot be regarded as strictly historical, which all the others are. The tradition was that the monastery of Deer was founded by St. Columba. According to the legend, the great Abbot came with his pupil Drostan from Hy (Iona) to Abbordoboir, the modern Aberdour in Aberdeenshire, but whether by land or sea is not stated. The record simply says, “As God had directed them.” Bede the Pict was, at the time, Mormaer or Grand Steward of Buchan, and gave them the town in freedom for ever from mormaer and toisech (chieftain). They came after that to the other town of the district, now known as Deer, and “it was pleasing to Columcille because it was full of God’s grace,” and he asked Bede to give him that one too, but the Pict refused.