Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/82

 Ixxiv PREFACE. was copying. No. iii. are extracts bearing upon the yj. early history of Scotland, from the " Fragments of ^r " Irish Annals transcribed by MacFirbis," printed V o by the Irish Archaeological Society from a MS. in the Burgundian Library at Brussels. The date of these annals cannot be ascertained, but some of the events recorded in them are probably taken from older authorities. No. iv. is an extract from an Irish life of St. Adomnan, of uncertain date, but evidently containing^ genuine tradition. The Editor is in- debted to the Eev. Dr. Reeves, of Armagh, for this extract. No. v. is an extract from a Latin life of St. Boethius, the Buite son of Bronaig, whose death is recorded in the " Irish Annals " in the same year with the birth of St. Columba. There is a good co])j of this life in the Bodleian (Rawlinson, B. 505), and a very bad one in the British Museum (Claren- don, XXXIX.) The former has been selected as the text. No. VI. is a life of St. Servanus, contained in a MS. in Bishop Marsh's Library, Dublin, along with a version of Joceline's " Life of St. Kentigern." It is here inserted, because it is manifestly a ver- sion of the life which Wyntoun made use of in the " Legend of St. Serf," or Servanus, which he in- serted in his chronicle. Nos. vii. and viii. are the legends of Saint Bonifacius and Saint Adrian, from the Aberdeen Breviary. They are here inserted from their bearing on the early history of Scotland.