Ossian Collection > Book of Deer

Preface. XX v
absence of these later books might with equal justice be adduced
as au argument for disbelieving their native character, which,
however, is beyond doubt.
I think, therefore, we may assume that the Book of Deer was
the production of a native scribe, if not of a scribe of the monas-
tery of Deer itself.
The careful facsirmles of the manuscript prepared by Mr. Gibb
exhibit the stained and worn appearance of its pages, and prove
that the volume has been much in use.
For two centuries it would appear that nothing was added to
the original book, for the credo and colophon (fol. 85, PL xviii.)
seem to have been written at the same time as the Gospels.
The fragment of an office for the Visitation of the sick is in a
considerably later hand, while the entries in the vernacular Gaelic
of Alba, of grants to the monastery, appear to have been inserted
at various times in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. 1
In another chapter (" Celtic Polity ") I have suggested the his-
torical circumstances which probably gave rise to written notices
of grants at this period and not earlier ; and it seems likely that
manor, and now belong to his descendant, written in different ink, and by a different
the Viscount Arbuthnott. We have many hand, from those going before, and it was
references in the accounts of the king's obviously engrossed before the last seven
treasurers, and elsewhere, to the breviaries words of the previous note were crowded
and in ils written by the monks of Cid- in. The marginal entries on Plate vi.
ross and St. Andrews. appear to have been written at one time,
1 It would seem that the legend of except the last two lines, which, judging
the foundation of Deer, and the grants from the colour of the ink, have been
down to that of Gartnait Mac Can- added when the grant of Colbain the mor-
nech (Plates iii. iv. and v.), were writ- maer on the following page was recorded
ten at one time. That of Gartnait is (Plate vii.)