e register of St.
Andrews calls the slain monarch "Kenneth (Grim)," and makes his death
to be "at Moieghvard" in 1001. _The Chronykil of Scotland_ calls this
same place "Bardory," and in Latin "Campus Bardorum," which corresponds
to Auchnabard. A cairn on a neighbouring height commemorates this
conflict which made history; but the slain King was not buried here, but

"Carried to Colme-Kill;
The sacred storehouse of his predecessors,
And guardian of their bones."

The Church of Monzievaird was in all probability founded, by Saint
Serf, and he was certainly its patron saint. If we are not compelled
to postulate two saints of this name from the number of years covered
by traditions which cannot all relate to the same person, we would
incline to quit hold of the earlier and less definite tradition, and to
consider Saint Serf as contemporary with Adamnan, the celebrated Abbot
of Iona, and distinguished biographer of Saint Columba. St. Serf
founded many churches, and his reputation in the Middle Ages for the
neat and appropriate miracles attributed to him may be reckoned the
measure of his eminence among Scotland's early evangelists. Wyntoun
gives a quaint dialogue between St. Serf and the enemy of mankind, in
which the Devil, plying the Saint with many knotty theological
questions, wholly fails to overcome him, and suddenly departs. Another
of these monkish miracles makes St. Serf discover the theft of a sheep
by ordering it to bleat forth the story of its wrongs from the guilty
stomach of the thief, and to redden his face with shame for having
denied his crime! St. Serf's memory survives here in the well called
after him, with its plentiful supply of water. As lately as 1760 the
parishioners were wont to be drawn by a lurking superstition to drink
of it on Lammas Day, leaving in it white stones, spoons, or rags, which
they brought as remembrancers, just as devout Mohammedans still leave
their prayer rags attached to the grating of the Mosque El-Aksa, at
Jerusalem, or the lower branches of the giant oak that marks the site
of the grove at Dan. St. Serf's festival and fair day long continued,
and was kept on the 1st of July while the market lasted. The church
itself was impropriated to the Abbey of Inchaffray, founded by the Earl
of Strathearn about the beginning of the twelfth century, and was
served by a vicar, to whom that monastery delegated the clerical duty,
doubtless on the usual pittance of stipend