“All round this monastery [Lindores, Fife,] was _Earn-side_-wood, where Wallace defeated the English. It was anciently four miles in length, and three in breadth; now there is nothing but some few shrubs to the east of the abbey.” Sibbald’s Hist. Fife, P. iv. sect. 9. p. 406.
It is added in a note: “Of this wood no vestige remains. The place where it is said to have grown lies along the shore of the Frith, a considerable way below the junction of the Tay and the Earn. The name seems to countenance the tradition, that the Earn alone once flowed by the bottom of the hills of Fife, and did not unite for several miles below this with the Tay, whose course was then along the foot of the hills, forming the northern boundary of the Carse of Gowrie, which lying thus betwixt two rivers, was frequently overflowed, and only became habitable, when, in a great inundation, the Tay burst into the Earn, where they now join.”
In A. Blair’s _Relationes_, this battle is said to have been fought on the 12th of June 1298.
_Rycht weyll I wait, weschell is lewyt nayn,_ _Fra the_ Wood hawyn, _to the ferry cald_ Aran.--V. 805.
Macpherson thinks that this is perhaps the same with _Portnebaryan_, mentioned by Wyntoun, q. “the haven of bread;” _arran_ signifying bread in Gaelic, and _barra_ in Welsh, Cornish, and Armoric. V. Geogr. Illustrations. Shall we add another supposition,--that _Portnebaryan_ had been the ancient name of _Port-on-craigs_, a ferry to the eastward of _Woodhaven_. The latter still retains its ancient name. It lies opposite to Dundee.
--_In that jornay othir to wyn or end._--V. 1048.
The whole passage to ver. 1057, _Thai worthi Scottis_, &c. is wanting in Edit. 1594, and subsequent editions. Both verses, 1049 and 1057, beginning in a similar manner, the intermediate ones must have been overlooked by some transcriber for the press. In MS. ver. 1050 is; _The_ cruell strakis, &c. But as the sense requires it, I have substituted _with_, as in Edit. 1714, followed by that of Perth, 1790.
_The lord_ Cwmyn, _that erll off Bouchane was,_ _For auld inwy he wald [let] na man pass_ _That he mycht let, in gud Wallace supplé._--V. 1253.
According to Henry, his son John Comyn, younger of Badenoch, served himself heir to this envy; as he attributes to him, in a special manner, the loss of the battle of Falkirk. But the account which he gives of this battle disagrees with that of the English writers, who give not the slightest hint of such variance among the chieftains, as, had it really taken place, could not have been totally unknown to their opponents.