Dub mac Maíl Coluim (died 967) was king of
Alba. In older histories his name may be found
anglicised as
Duff; the modern
Gaelic version is
Dubh, which has the sense of dark or black, especially in reference to skin colour; in the
Chronicle of the Kings of Alba and related Scoto-Latin texts he is called
Niger ("Black"), a literal Latin translation of Dub. It may be that Dub was an
epithet, as the
Duan Albanach refers to him as
Dubhoda dén, Dubod the vehement or impetuous. He was son of
Máel Coluim mac Domnaill and succeeded to the throne when
Ildulb mac Causantín was killed in 962.
While later chroniclers such as
John of Fordun supplied a great deal of information on Dub's life and reign, including tales of
witchcraft and treason, almost all of this is rejected by modern historians. There are very few sources for the reign of Dub, of which the
Chronicle of the Kings of Alba and a single entry in the
Annals of Ulster are the closest to contemporary.
The Chronicle records that during Dub's reign bishop Fothach, most likely bishop of
St Andrews or of
Dunkeld, died. The remaining report is of a battle between Dub and
Cuilén, son of king Ildulb. Dub won the battle, fought "upon the ridge of Crup", in which Duchad, abbot of Dunkeld, sometimes supposed to be an ancestor of
Crínán of Dunkeld, and
Dubdon, the
mormaer of Atholl, died.
The various accounts differ on what happened afterwards. The Chronicle claims that Dub was driven out of the kingdom. The
Latin material interpolated in
Andrew of Wyntoun's Orygynale Cronykl states that he was murdered at
Forres, and links this to an eclipse of the sun which can be dated to 20 July 966. The Annals of Ulster report only: "Dub mac Maíl Coluim, king of Alba, was killed by the Scots themselves"; the usual way of reporting a death in internal strife, and place the death in 967. It has been suggested that
Sueno's Stone, near Forres, may be a monument to Dub, erected by his brother
Cináed. It is presumed that Dub was killed or driven out by Cuilén, who became king after Dub's death, or by his supporters.
Dub left at least one son,
Cináed. Although his descendants did not compete successfully for the kingship of Alba after Cináed was killed in 1005, they did hold the
mormaerdom of Fife. The MacDuib (or MacDuff) held the mormaerdom, and later earldom, until 1371.
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