Then a son of this ruler took ill and was at the point of death, when his father sent to the clerics—Columba and his pupil—to pray for the lad that he might recover, and he gave them in offering the land from “Cloch in tiprat to Cloch pette meic Garnait” (“From the stone of the well to the stone that marks the bounds of the son of Garnat’s place”). They offered a prayer and health came to the dying youth. After that, Columcille departed from the district, gifting the town to Drostan. But before he set out he blessed it, and left as his “word,” “Whosoever shall come against it, let him not be many-yeared or victorious.” Drostan’s tears (deara), we are told, flowed freely on parting with his famous Chief, whereupon the immortal Columba said, “Let Dear be its name henceforward.” And thus the town and monastery derived their name, since variously spelt as Dear, Der, Deir, Dere, and Deer. The facts underlying the legend are not at all improbable. On the contrary, they are quite in keeping with the character of St. Columba and the range of his mission. Arguing from the circumstance that no Drostan is mentioned in history in connection with the saint, an attempt has been made by Dr. Macbain to show that the founder of the monastery may have been another individual of that name who lived about 700 A.D., but there is no sufficient data. The word is a diminutive of the British name Drust. And whoever Drostan was, as a saint he has been held in honour in the Buchan district from very early times. The church of Aberdour was dedicated to him, and Drustie’s fair used to be held annually at Deer on the 14th of December. In connection with the “word” said to have been left by Columcille, there is some very quaint history in after years. The Celtic Earls of Buchan, partly influenced by it, no doubt, showed a munificent spirit towards the Church of Deer till the fall of their House with the Comyns, when Robert the Bruce came to the throne. The Comyns had opposed the latter and were so utterly overthrown that, according to a chronicle of the period, of a name which numbered at one time the three Earls of Buchan, Mar, and Menteith, and more than thirty belted knights, there remained no memorial in the land “save the orisons of the monks of Deer.”