TRANSACTIONS. 111 
died amid this country of “ glens and dargles”—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 14th 
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, Makfadzanes, 
Rorysouns, Maccawils, Macmonhaths, otherwise Macmaths (origi- 
nally a small clan of the island of Cantyre), Makgauchens, 
Macadams, Jamiesouns, and many others. This country of the 
Welshes, lying as it did within the ancient “Deanery of 
Dunfres,” a/ias 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 Dunscore consisted almost 
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 the 
Premonstratensian Priory of Friarscarse, and the Ailisland, or 
Ellisland, residence of the Bailie of those monklands of Melros, 
and in our own 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 we leave to the discretion of 
