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flied amid tliis country of "glens and darglos" — such surnames 

 appearing as if they, in their origin, had belonged to the obscure 

 eras in the unwritten history of that locality, as the ancient 

 hereditary domain of the Earls of Mar prior to the Uth 

 century. Here, accordingly, we may discern, through the medium 

 of the ancient writings, which have survived until our own time, 

 the clear presence of certain individuals, or .families of clan -folk, 

 bearing the surnames of the Macraiths, Padzanes, Makfodzanes, 

 Rorysouns, Maccawils, Macmonhaths, otherwise Macmaths (origi- 

 nally a small clan of the island of Cantyre), INJakgauchens, 

 Macadams, Jamiesouns, and many others. This country of the 

 Welshes, lying as it did within the ancient "Deanery of 

 Dunfres," alias of Nyth, in former ages was, to a very considerable 

 extent, a region of churchlands, monklands, and ecclesiastical 

 baronies, which for unknown centuries had remained in the con- 

 secutive hereditary possession of the churchmen and abbots of 

 Melros and of Sacrobosco, or The Haliwod. For example, almost 

 the whole area of the parish of Dun.score consisted ahnost 

 exclusively of lands belonging to the Abbey of Sacrobosco, or The 

 Haliwod, which were comprehended under the name of the 

 " Barony of Sacrobosco," so-called ; the " Monklands of the Monks 

 of Melros," which occupied a whole valley of this parish, towards 

 the Nith and the ancient church of Dunscoir, which was situated 

 on the Nithward confines of the parish, not a great way from tlie 

 Premonstratensian Priory of Friarscarse, and the Ailisland, or 

 EUisland, residence of the Bailie of those monklands of Melros, 

 and in our o-.vn time of Burns memories and home associations. 

 Both those once great religious houses seem to have owed their 

 original possession of this region of wide-spreading natural forest 

 and orchard country to the liberality of the ancient native thanes, 

 lords, or barons of the vale and " Deanery of the Nyth," as it was. 

 The Premonstratensian Abbey of Holywood, of which no 

 vestige now remains, as its name seems to imply, was situated amid 

 a plain country of the woodlands, natural oak forests, and sacred 

 groves of the Pagan worship of their predecessors in the land. The 

 Christian Church of Holywood appears to have been a house of 

 religion of a very remotely antique origin, as it figures in various 

 church records in one form or other at a very early date. The 

 oldest name we have seen applied as descriptive of Holywood is 

 contained in the " Scottish Rolls," under anno 1376, as the Gaelic 

 Darowghoquill, the meaning of which wc leave to the discretion of 



