12 miles. The church formed the north-west portion of the abbey buildings. The monastery and other houses round it for the accommodation of the monks and secular servants were very plain, most of the doors and windows having circular arches, and without any ornament. The church stood east and west, and from the fragments which, till lately, remained, we are able to form a tolerably accurate idea of its design and proportions. Standing at the western entrance, we may fancy a building long, lofty, and with no great profusion of architectural ornament, yet chaste and graceful in all its parts. Slender pillars, a high pitched roof, long lancet-shaped windows of narrow lights; the font near the door; the high altar in the far east -all meant to shadow forth some article of the Christian faith."—(Pratt.) "The founder, with the consent of the Countess Marjory, his wife, endowed the abbey with broad if not very rich lands, and granted to it numerous valuable perquisites. He died in the year 1233, and is said to have been buried, according to his own request, within the consecrated walls of the church. Between the year 1290 and 1308 the abbey obtained from John, Earl of Buchan, the grandson of the founder, a grant of the patronage of the church of Kinedar, now King Edward. This, it is said, was the last gift which the brethren of S. Mary's were fated to receive from his race or lineage. In the memorable revolution which placed the Earl of Carrick on the Scottish throne, the illustrious family of Comyn was so utterly overthrown, that, says a chronicle of the age, 'of a name which numbered at one time three earls and more than thirty belted knights, there remained no memorial in the land save the orisons of the monks of Deer.""

It is of the wasting of the lands of Comyn that Barbour in his "The Brus," says,

"Now ga we to the King agane

That of his victor was richt fane,
And gert his men brin all Bouchane
Fra end till end, and sperrit nane,
And heryit them on sic maner
That efter that wele fifty yher

Men menit the herschip of Bouchane."

King Robert I., however, continued to support the abbey. His rolls mention three charters granted to it. Robert Keith, a brother of William, fourth Earl Marischal, seems to have been the last Abbot of Deer. He died in 1551, and was succeeded by his nephew, Robert, the second son of the fourth Earl Marischal, known in history as the Commendator of Deer. He obtained the erection of the abbey and abbey lands into a temporal lordship, "to be callit in all tyme cuming The Lordschip of Altrie."

On the death of the Commendator, some time previous to 1590, the estate and titles descended to his nephew, George, Earl Marischal, but he was not allowed to enjoy them in peace. His own brother, Robert Keith of Benholm, seized on the abbey and kept forcible possession of it for several months. Even with substantial aid from the northern shires and burghs the earl had difficulty in dislodging his belligerent brother; but he did succeed at last, and Robert then betook himself to Fedderat. After a three days' siege, they made a truce, and we hear no more of their quarrel.

Patrick Gordon of Ruthven, in "A short Abridgement of Britane's Distemper, from the yeares of God 1639 to 1649," gives the "relacion of a wonderfull vision" which, according to popular belief, foretold that the ancient house of the Marischal of Scotland was to date its slow decay and assured overthrow from the day of its "sacrilegious meddling with the Abisie of Deer."

"This was a fearfull presaige of the fattall punishment which did hing over the head of that noble familie by a terrible vission to his grandmother, efter the sacraledgious annexing of the Abacee of Deir to the house of Marshell, which I think not unworthie the remembirance, were it bot to adwise other noblemen therby to bewar of medling with the rents of the church, for in the first fundation therof they wer given out with a curse pronounced in their charector, or evident of the first electione, in those terms:-Cursed be those that taketh this away from the holy use

wherunto it is now dedicat; and I wish from my heart that this curse follow not this ancient and noble familie, who hath to their praise and never deeing honor contemned ther greatness, maintained ther honor, and both piously and constantly hes followed forth the way of virtue, from that tym that the valoure, worth, and happie fortoun of ther first predecessore planted them; and ever since the currage of his heart, strength of his arme, and love of his country, made him happily to resist the cruel Danes. George, Earle Marshell, a learned, wise and upright good man, got the Abbacie of Deir in recompence from James the Sixt, for the hōnerable chairge he did bear in that ambassage he had into Denmerk, and the wyse and worthie accompt he gave of it at his returne, by the conclusion of that matche wherof the royall stock of Britane's monarchie is descended.

"This Earle George, his first wyfe dochter to the Lord Hom, and grandmother to this present earle, being a woman both of a high spirit and of a tender conscience, forbids her husband to leave such a consuming mock in his house as was the sacraledgious medling with the abisie of Deir; but fourtein scoir chalderis of meill and beir was a sore tentatione, and he could not weele indure the randering back of such a morsell. Upon his absolut refusall of her demand, she had this vission the night following :

"In her sleepe she saw a great number of religious men in thir habit cum forth of that Abbey to the stronge craige of Dunnotture, which is the principall residence of that familie. She saw them also sett themselves round about the rock to git it down and demolishe it; having no instruments nor toiles wherwith to perform this work, but only pen-knyves wherwith they follishly (as it seemed to her) begane to pyk at the craige. She smyled to sie them intende so fruitles an enterpryse, and went to call her husband to scuffe and geyre them out of it. When she had fund him, and brought him to see these sillie religious monckes at ther foolish work, behold

the wholl craige, with all his stronge and stately buildinges, was by ther penknyves undermynded and fallen in the sea, so as ther remained nothing but the wracke of ther rich furniture and stuffe flotting on the waves of a raging and tempestuous sea.

"Som of the wiser sort, divining upon this vission, attrebute to the pen-knyves the lenth of tym before this should com to pass, and it hath been observed by sindrie that the earles of that hous befor wer the richest in the kingdom, having treasure and store besyde them, but ever since the addittion of this so great a revenue, they have lessed the stock by heavie burdens of debt and ingagment."

Dr. Pratt says, "It is thought to have been in reference to this legend, or to some reproaches of a similar nature which were heaped on the Marischal family at the time, in consequence of their sacrilegious appropriation of the Abbey and its possessions, that they inscribed the unavailing defiance—

THEY SAY,

QUHAT SAY THEY? THEY HAIF SAID, LET THAME SAY.

on several of the buildings which they erected. On Marischal College, Aberdeen, which the earl founded in 1593, and endowed with a portion of the doomed spoil, the inscription in large letters remained on the buildings till 1836, when they were taken down to make room for the present structure.

"Within seventy years of the time that Patrick Gordon wrote, the whole of the Marischal estates were confiscated, and an additional half-century witnessed the extinction of the family. The Commendator, who took his title from Altrie, one of the estates of the Abbey lying between Bruxie and Brucklay Castle, left no child to inherit his honours; and so utterly has the name perished, that, instead of being called in all tyme cuming the Lordschip of Altrie,' the name scarcely remains even as a tradition!

6

"Meddle nae wi haly things,

For gin ye dee,

A weird I rede in some shape
Shall follow thee.'

Altrie is now called Overtown and Newtown of Bruxie."

There is no trace of the Abbey having been inhabited later than the end of the 16th century. It then fell into decay. Pains were taken in 1809 by the then Ferguson of Pitfour to preserve the ruins. A later proprietor did not continue the care, and the ruins were permitted to be used as a quarry by any one who wanted stones. More recently the late Admiral Ferguson erected a mausoleum in what was the south transept of the church. "In clearing the ground for this building, the remaining walls of the Church, and the bases of the pillars, were, by the directions of Admiral Ferguson, removed even to their foundations; the ground where the church had stood was lowered nearly three feet; a vast number of skulls and other human bones were dug up, as were also several stone coffins, a leaden shell, and other reliquiæ of the dead. Three of these coffins were near the high altar, and probably contained the ashes of the noble founder, and the remains of abbots who had ruled over the monastery.'

One of the "Sculptured Stones " known as The_Stone at Deer," used to stand here. Fortunately a drawing of it is preserved in "The Sculptured Stones of Scotland," vol. i., plate xi. It was of whinstone, and had a rude cross incised on one side, and on the other several of the undeciphered emblems. It has long disappeared. The present editor once asked the late gardener, Mr. Smith, if he knew anything about it. His reply was that he knew very well about it. When the Admiral was making additions to the house at Sapplin Brae, he told the masons to take what stones they required from the Abbey, and the auld written stone, he added, is built into the walls of the new dining-room!

But, as already indicated, by far the older ecclesiastical structure is to be found at the village of Deer. It is

stated that the original church, a remnant of which is still existing to the east of the present parish church, and forming the burying-ground of the Kinmundy and Pitfour families, was built long before the Abbey. The early history of the Abbey is told in a MS. of the Gospels, now well known as the "Book of Deir." This book, which unquestionably belonged to the monastery of Deer, has no history till towards the end of the 17th century. In 1697 it formed part of the collection of MSS. belonging to Bishop Moore of Norwich. In 1715 it came into the possession of the University of Cambridge, where it now is, and where it lay unnoticed and unknown till not very long ago. The late Mr. Russel of Aden told the present editor that on one occasion an English gentleman was visiting him, and was struck with the name of the parish. He asked if there were any traditions of an abbey, and being told of the ruins, he said he had been examining some MSS. at Cambridge, and thought he recollected one with a similar name in it. Mr. Russel believed that this incident led the gentleman further to examine the book, and hence the interesting discovery of the "Book of Deir," now well known, first through the researches of Mr. Bradshaw, and popularly through the facsimile of it produced by the Spalding Club, under the careful editorship of the late Dr. John Stuart. account of the first foundation of the old and original church, translated from the Gaelic (which is written on blank pages or margins of the MS. of the Gospels) is this:

Its

"Columcille, and Drostan son of Cosgrach, his pupil, came from Hi, as God had shown to them, unto Abbordoboir [Aberdour], and Bede the Pict was Mormaer of Buchan before them, and it was he that gave them that town in freedom for ever from mormaer and toisech. They came after that to the other town, and it was pleasing to Columcille, because it was full of God's grace, and he asked of the mormaer, to wit Bede, that he should give it to him; and he did not give it, and a son of his took an illness

after (or in consequence of) refusing the clerics, and he was nearly dead (lit. he was dead but if it were a little). After this the mormaer went to entreat the clerics that they should make prayer for the son, that health should come to him; and he gave in offering to them from Cloch in tiprat to Cloch pette mic Garnait. They made the prayer, and health came to him. After that Columcille gave to Drostan that town, and blessed it, and left as (his) word, 'Whosoever should come against it, let him not be many-yeared [or] victorious.' Drostan's tears came on parting with Columcille. Said Columcill, 'Let DEAR [deara = tears] be its name henceforward.'"

as

But this church or monastery of Deer was long before the foundation of the abbey, whose story we have already traced. The 6th century has been named date the probable of Columcille's visit; and it is extremely likely that Deer, if not the first, was at any rate one of the first places in the wide neighbourhood of Buchan where a Christian Church was planted. Columcille's monastery was most likely a small collection of wattle and mud huts. At what period the church, the ruins of which still remain, was erected, there is no evidence to show. there used to be a tradition that this was not the spot originally selected, but was pointed out by superhuman

means.

But

It is said that Biffie was the spot where the church was attempted to be built, but that what was built during the day was always thrown down during the night. At last the place was watched, and in the eerie hours a voice was heard saying:

"It is not here, it is not here,

That ye sall big the kirk o' Deer,
But on the tap o' Tillery,

There many a corpse sall efter lie."

These rude verses tell this old tale

Once on a time the folk of Deer
Thought they a kirk did need,
So to erect a handsome one,
They set about with speed.

Near to the village rose a hill,

Which most convenient stood,
This hill in these our later days
Derives its name from wood.

Upon this hill then they began

To build their church amain,
But, much to their astonishment,
They found their work was vain.
For what with toil and labour great
During the day they reared,
Between the evening and the morn
As quickly disappeared

Still perseveringly they wrought,
But still they always found
That what they built the previous day
Was levelled with the ground.

Resolved the cause of this to find

They watch the place one night, When on their ears a voice was borne That struck them dumb with fright. No mortal voice was that I ween, No human voice so shrill Was ever heard as that whose tones Now echo round the hill.

It fell upon the awe-struck ears

Of those that watched that night, The words none could misunderstand, 'Twas thus that spoke the Sprite-It is not here, it is not here, But on the tap o' Tillerie, That ye shall build the kirk o' Deer, There many a corpse shall after lie. It said and ceased, and all again Was quieted and still;

Nought but the soughing wind is heard
Moaning around the hill.

Obedient to commands received
Thus at unearthly hands,

They change the first-sought site for that
Where now the braw kirk stands.

There built they then their kirk in peace,
And now, opposed by none,
Quickly and well they finished it ;
And so my tale is done.

The parish church of Deer as it now stands was built in 1788. It was reedified in 1880, at the cost of the heritors, and a handsome tower and spire added by the parishioners and their friends, under the vigorous superintendence of the Rev. James Peter, the parish minister.

In the immediate neighbourhood of the village is the house of Aden, the residence of James George Ferguson Russel, of H. M. Diplomatic Service. The property formed part of the Kinmundy estates, and was sold to the present possessor's grandfather about the beginning of the century.

Near by, towards the north, are the mansion-house and magnificent park of Pitfour, belonging to Lieut. -Ĉolonel George Arthur Ferguson. "The house