Note 233 — Chapter I · OF THE EARLS.

Dungad, called also Dungal, was a native chieftain, Maormor, or “Jarl,” in the north-east corner of Caithness, who seems to have considered the policy of conciliation preferable to that of resistance, judging from the intimate relations he formed with the foreigners, marrying the daughter of one, and giving his daughter in marriage to another, of the chiefs of the invaders. His bœ or hamlet of residence became on this account so well known to the Norsemen, that they named the district of Dungalsbae (now Duncansbay) by it, and spoke of the headland (now Duncansbay Head) on which it was situated, as Dungalsness, or Duncan’s cape. The supposed remains of his castle were seen by Pennant in 1796, and are described by him as the ruins of a circular building, in all probability one of the “burghs” or circular towers so common in the north of Scotland, which seem to have been the defensive habitations of the native Celtic or Pictish population of the period between the 6th and 9th or 10th centuries. It is now a green mound. From the Session Records of the parish it appears that the district retained its ancient name of “Dungasby” down to the beginning of the last century, when it first appears as Duncansbay, and to this day it is called “Dungsby” by the older inhabitants. The name of the adjacent district of Canisbay, now applied to the whole parish, is similarly derived from Conan’s bæ. It appears between 1223 and 1245 as Canenesbi (Sutherland Charters), and in Blaeu’s Atlas, the MS. maps of which were drawn (circa 1620), by Mr. Timothy Pont, the minister of the adjacent parish of Dunnet, it is marked Conansbay. These two, Duncan and Conan, are the only native chieftains of Caithness at the time of the Norse invasion whose names have come down to us, probably because they were the only ones who held friendly relations with the invaders.