-ascertained contemporary
facts. This life makes the Saint contemporary with Adamnan, Abbot of
Iona, who belonged to the 7th century, and with Brude, son of Dargart,
King of the Picts. According to Skene,[22] this Brude, son of Dargart,
may be identified with Brude, son of Derile, who reigned from 697 to 706,
and preceded that Nectan, son of Derile, who expelled the Columban monks
from his kingdom. And confirmatory proof of this identification being
correct is furnished by Gray's _Scalacronica_, which has under this Brude
that we have been referring to--"En quel temps veint Servanus en
Fine."[23] Moreover, in the Chartulary of S. Andrews there is reference
to an early charter of the Celtic period, by which "Brude, son of
Dergard, gives the Isle of Lochlevine to the Omnipotent God, and to Saint
Servanus, and to the Keledei hermits dwelling there, who are serving, and
shall serve God in that island."

According, then, to the life in the Marsh Library M.S.--the life which,
its many wild accounts notwithstanding, seems most free from
anachronisms--the Saint is the son of Obeth, King of Canaan, and Alpia,
daughter of the King of Arabia. His father dying, he gives up his right
to the throne in favour of his twin brother Generatius, takes orders, and
is appointed Bishop of the Cananeans. After twenty years as Bishop in
that region, admonished by an angel, he comes to Jerusalem, where he is
Patriarch for seven years. He then goes to Constantinople, and thence to
Rome, where, for seven years, he reigns as Pope. Quitting Rome, and
accompanied by a band of pilgrims, he makes his way into regions remote
and crosses the Mare Icteum (Straits of Dover) dryshod, and, after
travelling from place to place, arrives at the Forth. Adamnan, who, at
the time, was an abbot in Scotland, receives him with great honours on
the island of Inchkeith, and afterwards gave him, as his field of labour,
Fife, and from the Mons Britannicus to the Mons Okhel (from the mount of
the Britons to the Ochils.) He is next found at Kinel, then at Culenros,
where he met King Brude and founded a church; then at an island, in Loch
Leven, where he meets Adamnan and has the island presented to him. After
constructing churches throughout the whole region of Fife, and labouring
for years in the province assigned to him, and at many other places, he
died at Dunning, and was buried at Culross. The deeds ascribed to S.
Serf are certainly astounding, and the stori