of Malcolm I. The site of this battle was, according to
most of our ancient authorities, on the Almond. There are two rivers of
this name in Scotland, one in Perthshire and the other in the Lothians.
George Chalmers places the site of the battle in which Constantine fell
on the Almond in Perthshire; Fordun, Boece, and Buchanan place it on the
Almond in the Lothians, upon the banks of which the Cat-stane stands.
The battle was fought, to borrow the words of the Scotichronicon, "in
Laudonia juxta ripam amnis Almond."[150] _The Chronicle of Melrose_
gives (p. 226) the "Avon"--the name of another large stream in the
Lothians--as the river that was the site of the battle in question.
Wynton (vol. i. p. 182) speaks of it as the "Awyne." Bishop Leslie
transfers this same fight to the banks of the Annan in Dumfriesshire,
describing it as having occurred during an invasion of Cumbria, "ad
Annandiae amnis ostia."[151]

Among the authorities who speak of this battle or of the fall of
Constantine, some describe these events as having occurred at the
source, others at the mouth of the Almond or Avon. Thus the ancient
rhyming chronicle, cited in the Scotichronicon, gives the locality of
Constantine's fall as "ad caput amnis Amond."[152] _The Chronicle of
Melrose_, when entering the fall of "Constantinus Calwus," quotes the
same lines, with such modifications as follows:[153]--

"Rex Constantinus, Culeno filius ortus,
Ad caput amnis Avon ense peremtus erat,
In Tegalere; regens uno rex et semis annis,
Ipsum Kinedus Malcolomida ferit."

Wyntown cites the two first of these Latin lines, changing, as I have
said, the name of the river to Awyne, almost, apparently, for the
purpose of getting a vernacular rhyme, and then himself tells us, that

"At the Wattyr hed of Awyne,
The King Gryme slwe this Constantyne."[154]

If the word "Tegalere" in the _Melrose Chronicle_ be a true
reading,[155] and the locality could be identified under the same or a
similar derivative name, the site of the battle might be fixed, and the
point ascertained whether it took place, as the preceding authorities
aver, at the source, "water-head" or "caput" of the river; or, as
Hector, Boece and George Buchanan[156] describe it, at its mouth or
entrance into the Forth at Cramond; "ad Amundae amnis ostia tribus
passuum millibus ab Edinburgo."[157] A far older and far more valuable
authority than either Boece or Buchanan, namely, the collector