Aberdeen_, in alluding to this meeting, points out that
the St. Serf received by Adamnan was not the St. Serf of the Dysart
Cave, and hence also not the baptiser of St. Kentigern at Culross, as
told in the legend of his mother, St. Thenew, or St. Thenuh--a female
saint whose very existence the good Presbyterians of Glasgow had so
entirely lost sight of, that centuries ago they unsexed the very name of
the church dedicated to her in that city, and came to speak of it under
the uncanonical appellation of St. Enoch's. This first St. Serf and
Adamnan lived two centuries, at least, apart. In these early days Inch
Keith was a place of no small importance, if it be--as some (see
Macpherson's _Geographical Illustrations of Scottish History_) have
supposed--the "urbs Giudi" of Bede, which he speaks of as standing in
the midst of the eastern firth, and contrasts with Alcluith or
Dumbarton, standing on the side of the western firth. The Scots and
Picts were, he says, divided from the Britons "by two inlets of the sea
(duobus sinibus maris) lying betwixt them, both of which run far and
broad into the land of Britain, one from the Eastern, and the other from
the Western Ocean, though they do not reach so as to touch one another.
The eastern has in _the midst of it_ the city of Giudi (Orientalis habit
in medio sui _urbem Giudi_). The western has on it, that is, on the
right hand thereof (ad dextram sui), the city of Alchuith, which in
their language means the 'Rock of Cluith,' for it is close by the river
of that name (Clyde)." (Bede's _Hist. Ecclesiast._, book i. c. xii.) In
reference to the supposed identification of Inch Keith and this "urbs
Giudi," let me add (1.) that Bede's description (in medio sui) as
strongly applies to the Island of Garvie, or Inch Garvie, lying midway
between the two Queensferries: (2.) it is perhaps worthy of note that
the term "Giudi" is in all probability a Pictish proper name, one of the
kings of the Picts being surnamed "Guidi," or rather "Guidid" (see
Pinkerton's _Inquiry into the History of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 287, and
an extract from the _Book of Ballymote_, p. 504); and (3.) that the word
"urbs," in the language of Bede, signifies a place important, not so
much for its size as from its military or ecclesiastic rank, for thus he
describes the rock (petra) of Dumbarton as the "urbs Alcluith," and
Coldingham as the "urbs Coludi" (_Hist. Eccl._, lib. iv. c. 19.
etc.),--the Saxon noun "_ham_" house or