DUNCAN (Brown Warrior) & MACBETH

DUNCAN (Brown Warrior) & MACBETH

DUNCAN (Brown Warrior) & MACBETH

The personal name Duncan can be found in Scotland’s oldest records…

(Dunchad) Duncan, originally a forename is one of the earliest names in Scotland – and originates from the Dalriadan Celtic Scotii (Scots) from Ireland who colonised the south west of Scotland from about the 4th century A.D…

“Deucaledones, and Dicaledones: the name of a people in Albin: they were partly Scots, and partly Picts; so called from as some say, Du, black; the Scots were so called from their swarthy complexion”

SOURCE;

(Historiæ Scoticæ Nomenclatura Latino-vernacula; 1697)

The earliest mention of a Duncan or “Brown Warrior”, is Dúnchad mac Dubáin, who co-ruled Dalriada with Conall II (c.650 – 654)

Dúnchad mac Dubáin or Duncan MacDuff, (Brown Warrior son of The Black) was king of Dál Riata (modern western Scotland)

Duncan I, was king of Scotland (Alba) from 1034 to 1040…

He is the historical basis of the “King Duncan” in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth…

When Duncan I took the Scottish throne, unlike the “King Duncan” of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the historical Duncan appears to have been a young man…

Thorfinn and Macbeth were his cousins…

From the Collectanea de Rebus Albanicis pp. 340, 346. Mr. Skene places the battle against Kali Hundason at Burghhead on the Morayshire coast…

He identifies this Kali Hundason with the Shakespearean Duncan, and he states that Thorfinn and Macbeth were probably allies, if not actually one and the same person (for there is more than one instance of a confusion between these two names, pointing to such a conclusion)

It is curious to reflect that if Thorfinn and Macbeth were one, then the memorable duel in the play was between “the son of a black” (himself either a “black” or a mulatto) and an “ugly, black-haired, sharp-featured, and somewhat tawny” giant!

But a still more notable Black Dane, was Earl Thorfinn, son of Sigurd, “the most distinguished of all the earls in the Islands.”

His deeds are recorded, with some minuteness, in the Orkneyinga Saga, and he is also referred to in the Saga of Saint Olave…

“Now Thorfinn became a great chieftain, one of the largest men in point of stature, ugly of aspect, black haired, sharp featured, and somewhat tawny, and the most martial looking man”

SOURCES;

(Collectanea de Rebus Albanicis Consisting of Original Papers and Documents Relating to the History of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland; 1847)

(Ancient and Modern Britons; Vol 1 & 2; 1884)

Tawny = a brown skinned person

SOURCE;

(A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles; 1919)