After the death of King Indulf, Duff, son of Malcolm, received the kingdom. At the beginning of his reign he made Culen, the son of King Indulf, ruler of Cumberland and sent him to Ebuda, which was then in strife and disorder, in order to curb the frequent robberies committed there. For the young warriors from the nobility, who had gathered around them a great multitude of minions, made the common people their tributaries, imposing a monetary penalty on each family in addition to the usual quarter. And yet Kulen dealt no more harshly with these warriors than with the very rulers of the island, who were supposed to curb such violence. He ordered for the future that those whose negligence caused these atrocities to make compensation to the people, and also pay a fine to the king. This command struck such horror into these idle
worthless fellows, that many of them crossed over to Ireland and earned their living there by day labor. As much as this was acceptable to the people, it was just as offensive to the noble allies of those who were expelled, and to many of the younger generation who had become accustomed to such an idle way of life.
These people, at all their meetings and gatherings, at first secretly, and then in the presence of many who approved of them, began to openly revile their king. It was alleged that he despised the nobility and was seduced and deceived by the advice of bad priests; that he humiliated people of noble birth and forced them into slave labor; that he promoted the vilest of the people to the highest honors; in short, he made every thing turn upside down.
They added further that if things went this way, then either the nobles should move to other countries, or, otherwise, they should take a new king who could rule the people according to those ancient laws by which the kingdom reached this pinnacle of greatness, starting from such a small place. In the midst of these troubles, the king was seized with a new and unusual illness, for which there was no obvious cause. When all means had been tried in vain, it was unknown from whom the rumor spread that he had been bewitched. Suspicion arose either from some signs of his illness, or because his body was exhausted and
withered due to constant sweating. And his strength was so undermined that doctors sent from near and far did not know what to do to benefit him. When the usual causes of the illness were not discovered, they immediately laid the blame on a secret cause.
And while everyone was busy with the king's illness, news finally came that at Forres, the fortress in Murray, night gatherings and conspiracies were taking place against him. The message was accepted as true, because nothing contradicted it. Therefore, several faithful messengers were sent to Donald, the ruler of the castle, in whom the king trusted greatly even in his most important matters, so that he would find the truth in this matter. From the confession made by one harlot, whose mother was seen in witchcraft, he uncovered a whole conspiracy. For a few days earlier the young girl had blurted out certain words regarding the illness and death of the king. Having been captured and brought to torture, at the very first glance at the torture she immediately told what was being planned against the king’s life. After this, several warriors were sent to find the girl's mother and several other gossips as they melted a wax image of the king over low heat. Their idea was this: as the wax gradually melts, the king, drop by drop, will disappear; and when there is no more wax left, then the breath will leave him and he will die immediately. When the wax image was broken and the witches punished, in the same month, as some say, the king was freed from his illness. I convey these things as I heard about them from our great-grandfathers; what to think about this kind of witchcraft - I leave it to the reader’s judgment, warning him only that this story was not found among our ancient chronicles. Meanwhile, the fear of the king subsided, since it was hoped that he would soon die; many robberies and murders took place everywhere. Duff, who had regained his strength, pursued the brigands through Murray, Ross, and Caithness, and destroyed many of them in several skirmishes when the opportunity presented itself; but he brought the leader of the robbers to Forres to punish them in this fortress as solemnly as possible.
Then Donald, the ruler of the fortress and castle, began to petition the king for the forgiveness of some of his relatives who were in the gang. However, having received a refusal, he fell into great indignation, as if he had been seriously offended. His mind was entirely occupied with thoughts of revenge, for he believed that his services rendered to the king were so great that he should not refuse anything he asked of him. And moreover, Donald's wife, finding that some of her relatives were also subject to general punishment, further inflamed her husband's already indignant heart with cunning and malicious outpourings, prompting him to also seek the death of the king. She argued that, since he was the ruler of the castle, the life and death of the king were in his power and, having this power, he could not only finish the matter, but also hide it when it was done. And so when the king, tired and exhausted from business, slept more soundly than usual, and his retinue, watered by Donald, also lay in deep sleep, he sent inside assassins, of whom not a single soul knew.
And after they had killed the king, they carried him out so cleverly by the back door that they did not even drop a drop of blood. So he was buried two miles from Kinloss Abbey, in a secluded place under a small bridge. They laid green turf on top of it so that there would be no sign that the earth had been torn up there.
This seems to me a more truthful story than what others write: as if, having diverted the flow of the river, his body was thrown into a hole at the bottom, and when the water was returned to its bed, then his grave, such as it was, was hidden.
Moreover, the perpetrators of this bloody deed were put out of the way by Donald, because there is an opinion, received from our ancestors, which still prevails among the common people, that "blood will flow from a dead body for many days after a person has been killed, just as if he had just been killed - if the murderer is present."
A day later, when the rumor spread that the king had been killed and that his entire bed was spattered with blood, Donald, as if struck by the horror of the act, ran into the king's bedroom and, as if maddened with anger and thirst for revenge, killed the guards appointed to the king's retinue. After this, he carried out a diligent inquiry everywhere: could anyone have discovered the dead body? The rest, shocked by the terrible crime, and also fearing for their own lives, each returned to their home.
So this good king was terribly inhumanely and vilely killed in the prime of his years, after he had reigned for four years and six months. And the estates, as soon as they could, gathered to elect a new king.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru