Note 58 — Chapter II · The Kingdom of Scotland—843–900.

Innes, Ap. 3, 5. An. Ult. 899. Fordun, l. 4, c. 20. Either this king, or one of his predecessors, must have been the sufferer at Mundingdene, a mile south of Norham, when the obedience of Guthred, son of Hardicanute (rather a mythical personage), to the dictates of Abbot Edred’s vision, in restoring the lands of St. Cuthbert between Tyne and Wear to the Church, was rewarded by the intervention of the Saint in behalf of the sacred territory, when it was invaded by a band of Scots, who were miraculously engulphed in the yawning earth! Sim. Dun. Hist. Dun., l. 2, c. 14. Leland, vol. i. p. 329. It is a pity the miracle was not repeated a few years later, when Reginald Hy Ivar divided these very lands amongst his pagan followers. What with the sac, soc and infangthief, granted by Guthred in the ninth century, the fine of 96 Anglo-Norman pounds, and the near vicinity of the Scots to St. Cuthbert’s territory, the story affords a very fair specimen of the inventions by which the monks occasionally tried to give a title to lands which they often really possessed rightfully, though without legal proof of such right. A miracle or a victory, especially if either were at the expense of the Scots, lent an air of sanctity or authority to the fabrication, which it would have been impious or unpatriotic to doubt.