Brechin was dedicated by King Kenneth (971-995) to the Holy
Trinity, and Culdee abbots continued in Brechin till 1219, although the
See was founded in 1150 by David I., and re-dedicated to the Trinity.
Thus the very name carries back the Church of Trinity-Gask to the times
of the Culdees, if not to the Celtic Church directly.

The patron saint of Dunning is S. Servanus or Serf, who appears in the
Kalendar as bishop and confessor, his day being July 1. He is said to be
the son of Alma, daughter of a Pictish King; was ordained by Palladius,
and dwelt at Culross in a monastery, where his most famous scholar was
Kentigern, of Glasgow. Palladius died in 432, and Kentigern in 603, so
that the same man in an ordinary life-time could not be _ordained_ by
Palladius and teach Kentigern. To escape this difficulty, the Aberdeen
Breviary makes two S. Serfs. The legend runs--"In a place called Dunnyne
the inhabitants were harassed by a dreadful dragon, which devoured both
men and cattle and kept the district in continual terror. S. Serf, armed
with a breastplate of faith, attacked the monster in his lair, and slew
him by a blow of his pastoral staff." In proof of this legend, and in
memory of this event, the scene to this day is called the Dragon's Den.
The oldest part of the Church of Dunning, which dates between 1200 and
1219, would be the successor of the humbler Celtic building of the
original dedication. If there were two S. Serfs, he of Dunning is the
later, and is the same who is associated with Airthrey, Tillicoultry,
Alva, Culross, and especially Pitmook, or Portmoak, and S. Serf's Isle,
in Loch Leven. Other dedications are Monzievaird, Creich, Dysart,
Redgorton. A S. Serf--probably the earlier, if there were two--was
associated with Orkney. In the west of France, near St. Malo, is a town
of St. Servan. The neatest of all the S. Serf legends, probably invented
to suit some prehistoric soiree at the foot of the Ochils, tells of a
robber who had stolen and eaten a pet lamb of the Saint, and who, having
cleared himself by an oath taken over the Saint's staff, was immediately
contradicted from within by a ba, ba, in response to the Saint's voice
and the false oath. In Glasgow on the Thursday of the Fair week is a
horse market known as Scairs, Skeers, or Sair's Thursday, Sair being one
of the forms of Serf. There is a S. Sares Fair in Aberdeenshire, at
Monkedge or Keith Hall, which has been removed to Culsalmond.

A