Mark Rugg Gunn’s sole ‘proof’ for the existence of ‘Chief’ Ingram Gunn is that he ‘witnessed a Charter in the time of David II (1329-1370)’.
The problem is that the Ingeram de Gynis who was the said witness was the cousin of King Alexander III of Scotland and was actually Enguerrand de Guines, later Lord of Coucy. He was witness to letters of King Alexander III c 1285 which were later mentioned in an Inspection of King David II in 1369. This ‘Enguerrand de Guines, went to Scotland to make his fortune under his cousin, Alexander III. The king arranged his marriage to Christiana de Lindsay, daughter of William de Lindsay of Lamberton and a niece of John de Bailleul (future King of Scots). She was the heiress to the Barony of Durisdeer and Enoch in Galloway and held lands in southern Scotland and in England at Kendal in Westmoreland. Their marriage and his kinship to the king catapulted his career and included him in the core of the Scottish court… ’ (Page 196, M. A. Pollock, Scotland, England and France after the loss of Normandy 1204-1296; ‘Auld Amitie’) It makes sense – a King would have witnesses from amongst his family or well-known courtiers, not a random unknown person from the Highlands of Scotland. With Enguerrand de Guines he had a witness who was both family and a well known member of his court. 'Chief' Ingram Gunn never existed. For the equally never existed 'Clan Gunn' knighted chiefs see clangunn.weebly.com/on-the-non-existent-gunn-lsquochiefsrsquo-between-the-orkneys-and-before-gunn-coroner-for-orkney-gunns-see-the-next-column.html
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Mark Rugg Gunn's quasi-official 'Clan Gunn' book page 35 points to a further amazing problem with the non-existent 'Clan' Gunn Chief line and the non-existent 'Clan Gunn' Orkney Islands / Viking origin.
He says of the 'Chiefs' between Ottar and the Coroner that 'we know nothing of any of them except... Ingram Gunn'. That's right, a book which accepts the romantic twaddle line of 'Clan Gunn' history can find no information - no stories, no hard evidence - to support the supposed Chief line. And the one Ingram Gunn 'fact' is easily disposed of which I will do in another entry. So (going back to earlier entries) we have a major academic saying there is not the slightest evidence for the supposed Chief Snaekoll 'Gunn' returning to Scotland from exile in disgrace in Norway, the supposed Chief Ottar Snaekollsson has been clearly shown to not be a descendant of Snaekoll 'Gunn' and in fact he has nothing to do with any Gunn, and now we have the well-known, romantically inclined history of the 'Clan' Gunn admitting there is no evidence to support the random list of Gunn Chiefs dreamt up in the mid 1800s. And yet the Clan Gunn Societies continue to push the line of Orkney Islands descent and that 'Clan Gunn Chiefs' were meant to exist in this period... Chief Ottar Snaekolsson Gunn never existedMark Rugg Gunn in his Gunn history pages 31-32 gives detail of an Ottar Snaekolsson who went to Bergen in Norway to visit the King ‘concerning their needs’; by implication it is meant to prove that ‘Chief’ Snaekoll Gunnison married and had children. It does no such thing. Why? For many reasons but the simplest is - 1) We know when ‘Chief’ Snaekoll Gunnison was born – around the year 1200 - as his mother’s first husband Litolf Baldpate died at the battle of Clairdon in 1198. 2) Mark Rugg Gunn does not mention a date for the visit to Norway by Ottar Snaekolsson. Oops. 3) The visit to Norway happened in 1224 and there are many references for this date. For example one of these references says ‘1224, Hakon’s Saga relates how, while King Hakon was in Bergen, Gilliecrist and Ottar, Snaekoll’s son, and many Hebrideans, came to meet him there from west beyond the sea; and they had many letters concerning the needs of their lands’ Page 88, R. Andrew McDonald, The Kingdom of the Isles Scotland’s Western Seaboard c. 1100 – c. 1336 So the only offered ‘proof’ for the existence of Ottar Snaekolsson (Gunn) fails at the first test as no-one would be sending an approximately four year old over the seas to Norway to discuss state matters with a King (and without his parents) and about four is all Ottar Snaekolsson (Gunn) could have been. And the ship which went to Bergen was a ship from the Hebrides – and an Ottar Snaekolsson is a well known Sudreyan Chief in Western Scotland in the 1220s . So, would one be sending a significant Chief to discuss matters with the Norwegian King or would one send an unaccompanied four year old? Yet another Clan Gunn Orkney islands / Viking origin ‘fact’ fails the history test… And another ‘Clan Gunn chief’ never existed… ***** And note earlier entries showing Snaekoll Gunnison never married and never returned after exile in disgrace in Norway... Gunns have no Orkney Islands / Viking origin... Interested to read that the Clan Gunn Society of Nova Scotia is closing down because of a lack of members.
Not surprising really; genealogical links to your own family can be easily explored on the internet, one certainly does not need a Society for such research. That leaves a 'Clan' Gunn Society to do what? Pretend fictional history is real history, such as with the 'Clan' Gunn non-links to an Orkney Island / Viking origin? Or pretend the the non-existing Clan Gunn Westford Knight absurd story is true? Or to dress up in 'Gunn' tartan invented in the early 1800s for the tourist trade? You get the idea... As well, Scottish Gunns are by origin a non-kindred group of people from the Highlands. Just because we share the same surname we do not necessarily share any ancestor so we have no automatic DNA link with other random people with the name Gunn who one would regularly meet in Clan Gunn Society events. People on one's actual Family Tree are, of course, different... 'Clan Gunn' have no Orkney Islands / Viking originI know I have said this before but as too many people like to ignore academic facts and prefer to believe myths are history I am saying it again... The key person here is Snaekollr Gunnison – son of the anonymous supposed first Gunn and from whom the supposed Gunn Chiefs were meant to descend. Snaekollr existed and his life is fully dealt with in the ‘Orkneyinga Saga’ including his murder of the King of Norway’s Earl / Jarl for which he is forced to go to Norway in disgrace. Where Snaekollr lived and with whom in the Orkneys is described in detail in the Saga – and there is no mention of marriage / wife / children at all and there would be if such were around as Snaekollr was important – and notorious. So if you want to say he was married before he was dragged off to Norway then you have to go against centuries of academically supported history and deny the ‘Orkneyinga Saga’ as the key text in Orkney history. Then you need to consider Professor Barbara Crawford’s view - that 'Snaekollr Gunnison … went to Bergen (Norway) in 1232 … (but never seems to have come home again)'[1]. Professor Crawford also made this point even more strongly in 1971 - 'Despite his part in the murder of the earl Snaekoll was not condemned to death at the trial in Bergen but "remained long with earl Skuli and King Hacon" and there is no evidence that he ever returned to Orkney or Caithness (she then footnotes and the footnote reads ‘Despite the claims of Clan Gunn to be descended from him …’.[2] Now Professor Crawford’s academic credentials are beyond dispute - ‘Dr Barbara Crawford M.A., Ph.D., F.R.S.E., F.S.A., F.S.A. Scot., Member of the Norwegian Academy … Honorary Reader in History at the University of St. Andrews … Dr. Crawford is a Member of the Norwegian Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She was a Commissioner of the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland from 1991-2001, chaired The Treasure Trove Advisory Panel for Scotland from 1993-2001, and was President of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland from 2008-2011. She was awarded an OBE in 2011 for services to history and archaeology, and has recently been awarded an Honorary Professorship at the University of the Highlands and Islands….’ From https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/staff/barbaracrawford.html accessed 14 March 2016. So if you believe Snaekollr Gunnison managed to make it back to Scotland after his exile in disgrace in Norway (and don’t forget he also joined a rebellion against the Norwegian King – and lost) you have to explain how one of the key academics in the area does not agree with you. Believing in Gunn descent from Snaekollr Gunnison is like supporting a flat earth theory or believing that Elvis is alive or that pigs fly… but in this world of alternative facts (lies) some people believe their absurd dreams to be true… Snaekollr Gunnison died in Norway; get used to it. Gunns have no Orkney islands / Viking origin. *** I will deal with Snaekoll’s supposed son in the next entry… [1] Page 8, B. E. Crawford 'Medieval Strathnaver' in ed. John R. Baldwin The Province of Strathanaver, 2000, The Scottish Society For Northern Studies. [2] http://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/handle/10023/2723 accessed 14 March 2016; page 8 of her thesis. I know I have made this observation before but it's worth restating - Time for a point about Coroner Gunn (often wrong called George Gunn Crowner). Given his parents (let alone his grandparents and so on) are never mentioned - and I mean like anywhere - how can one say Gunns descend through him to the Orkney islands? You can't factually do that. There goes that ridiculous Orkney islands descent idea... Another quote about the absolutely absurd story about Henry Sinclair's trip to the USA in 1398 and the consequent ridiculous Clan Gunn Westford Knight myth - 'Westford Knight.... the text detailing this alleged voyage - the so-called Zeno narrative - was not written until 1558 and is widely regarded as being highly spurious.' Being from pages 136-137 of Sean Martin's 'The Knights Templar The HIstory and Myths of the Legendary Military Order'.
For detailed academic discussion as to why the narrative is totally spurious see http://www.alastairhamilton.com/sinclair.htm As well as the narrative being impossible as history, there is also much that is impossible with the story on an historic basis and on an archaeological basis it also has no support. See On a Gunn helping 'discover' North America - 'Sir James Gunn of Clyth Crowner of Caithness' and the 'Westford knight' myth The Clan Gunn Societies should not support this myth as history as it is not history, but they do... I have been reading some more of Neil M. Gunn’s work. I really like his non-fiction such as Whisky and Scotland and Off In A Boat but I find his fiction less appealing as plot lines can be implausible and the characters sentimental. His sense of place in his writing is fine – the evocation of ‘Gunn land’ is strong. Neil M. Gunn viewed himself as a ‘remnant of an ancient race among mere upstart Gaels ... and parvenu Norsemen.’ Page 155 Selected Letters And he believed that ‘the people got on very well without a chief. The old feeling of equality among themselves remained...' Pages 117-119, The Atom of Delight 'Clan' Gunn origin
Ptolemy's map issues and the proto-Gunn name, refined and revisited -
1) Above is the Blau map with clear definition of what is accepted as being Dunnet Head and Noss Head. 2) Around Dunnet Head we have the Kournaovioi / Cornavii. Skene in 1836 gives their area as being Strathnaver and Kaithness. So we have Courns / Kourns living in the first century in what is now viewed as the Gunn area.... The similarity in sound of the names is, at the very least, of interest as a possible origin for the name Gunn as we now have it... Etymology? Possibly 'people of the horn' - consider the coastline. And consider the possible origin of Cornwall... Time to consider Ptolemy's first century Scottish map as it applied to the Gunn area. See the above Blau version of 1654; the tribes are given as Cornabij (more normally Cornavii), Carini, Carnonacae, and Creones / Cernotes. They are accepted as being, at the very least, linked tribes. Skene in 1836 has them as • Kournaovioi • Kairinoi • Karnones • Kreones Say the first part of the names of the tribes who inhabited Gunn lands in the first century - Kourn, Kairin, Karn and Kreon - and they all sound quite linked to the name Gunn some 1500 or so years later... It's not impossible to believe that a proto-Gunn name was around in the first century... **** The K-G and general spelling issues are irrelevant as the Scottish societies were illiterate and Ptolemaic textual corruption over time will also make life difficult; it is the sound which matters. The second part of the tribal names concern Latin issues of making plurals. |
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