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Cairnholy

Chambered Cairn

Folklore

An alternative theory has the English bishop Thomas losing a battle here:
The Bishop was interred near where he fell, on the top of a small knoll in front of the farm house; the grave is hewn out of the solid rock to a considerable depth, and its aperture is covered with a flat stone of more than two tons weight, and has given name to the farm on which it stands, (Cairn-holy); and another farm about a mile farther up the glen, still bears the name of "Claughred," (Cleugh-raid,) it being in the line of the contending armies.
One edition of the legend calls him Prior instead of Bishop; but as Whithorn was a Bishoprick, and the seat of the Bishops of Galloway, we have given the latter the preference[..]

[..]It has been asserted by many, and among these some whose antiquarian researches entitle them to respect, that this was the burial place of "King Galdus," or "Aldus MacGaldus," a sovereign who made some noise in the fabulous era of our history, and who, it is alleged, fell in a bloody battle fought against the Picts. But against this we would object the posthumous ubiquity of "King Galdus," whose place of sepulture has been.. the Standing Stones of Torhouse, in the parish of Wigtown.. [and] a cairn on the farm of Glenquicken in the parish of Kirkmabreck.
From
Legends of Galloway by James Denniston (1825), cp294.
Online at Google Books (though a few critical pages are missing. Like the one that introduces who Thomas the Bishop is).
Rhiannon Posted by Rhiannon
21st February 2007ce
Edited 21st February 2007ce

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