OS1/13/33/11

Continued entries/extra info

11 [no header. Continued quotations re. Naughton Castle]

...and slew Effrid the Saxon King of Northumbria. He against the advice of his nobles had with his army crossed the Forth from the Lothians and without provocation had ravaged the Pictish Kingdon to the Tay. Chalmers supposes that the place where he was met by the Pictish army and defeated and slain was [Dunnieben] in Angus where there is on a hill the remains of an old British Fort but the height of Nachton in Fife was in all probability surmounted by an ancient fort previous to the erection of the tower by Robert de Lundon The present Naughton may therefore have been the scene of successful struggle for the independence of the Pictish Kingdom and this is the more probable as it was likely the Picts would be anxious to prevent the Saxons from crossing the Tay or advancing further into their kingdom. But however this may be many circumstances concur in pointing out this neigbourhood as the scene of some early conflict and accordingly tradition affirms that about the close of the 10th Century on a field called the battle law the Scots and the Picts then united under Kenneth III, [3rd] attacked the remaining portion of the Danish army which had fled from the fatal field of Luncarty and forced them with the greatest precipitation to fly to their ships then lying at the mouth of the Tay. Near this field stone coffins containing human bones and broken swords have been found and at the farm of Peashill about a mile N.E. of the battle law in the line of retreat which the dames would pursue two ornaments of pure gold worth about £14 were found some years ago." etc. Leightons Hist. [History] of Fife Vol. II page 77.