To the Scots, through St Columba, who, about 563, settled in Iona, and
converted the Picts as far north as Inverness, we owe the introduction of
Christianity, for though the Roman Church of St Ninian (397), at Whithern
in Galloway, left embers of the faith not extinct near Glasgow, St
Kentigern's country, till Columba's time, the rites of Christian Scotland
were partly of the Celtic Irish type, even after St Wilfrid's victory at
the Synod of Whitby (664).
St Columba himself was of the royal line in Ulster, was learned, as
learning was then reckoned, and, if he had previously been turbulent, he
now desired to spread the Gospel. With twelve companions he settled in
Iona, established his cloister of cells, and journeyed to Inverness, the
capital of Pictland. Here his miracles overcame the magic of the King's
druids; and his Majesty, Brude, came into the fold, his people following
him. Columba was no less of a diplomatist than of an evangelist. In a
crystal he saw revealed the name of the rightful king of the Dalriad
Scots in Argyll--namely, Aidan--and in 575, at Drumceat in North Ireland,
he procured the recognition of Aidan, and brought the King of the Picts
also to confess Aidan's independent royalty.
In the 'Life of Columba,' by Adamnan, we get a clear and complete view of
everyday existence in the Highlands during that age. We are among the
red deer, and the salmon, and the cattle in the hills, among the second-
sighted men, too, of whom Columba was far the foremost. We see the
saint's inkpot upset by a clumsy but enthusiastic convert; we even make
acquaintance with the old white pony of the monastery, who mourned when
St Columba was dying; while among secular men we observe the differences
in rank, measured by degrees of wealth in cattle. Many centuries elapse
before, in Froissart, we find a picture of Scotland so distinct as that
painted by Adamnan.
The discipline of St Columba was of the monastic model. There were
settlements of clerics in fortified villages; the clerics were a kind of
monks, with more regard for abbots than for their many bishops, and with
peculiar tonsures, and a peculiar way of reckoning the date of Easter.
Each missionary was popularly called a Saint, and the _Kil_, or cell, of
many a Celtic missionary survives in hundreds of place-names.
The salt-water Loch Leven in Argyll was on the west the south frontier of
"Pictland," which, on the east, included all the country north of the
Firth of Forth. From Loch Leven south to Kintyre, a large cantle,
including the isles, was the land of the Scots from Ireland, the
Dalriadic kingdom. The south-west, from Dumbarton, including our modern
Cumberland and Westmorland, was named Strathclyde, and was peopled by
British folk, speaking an ancient form of Welsh. On the east, from
Ettrick forest into Lothian, the land was part of the early English
kingdom of Bernicia; here the invading Angles were already settled--though
river-names here remain Gaelic, and hill-names are often either Gaelic or
Welsh. The great Northern Pictland was divided into seven provinces, or
sub-kingdoms, while there was an over-King, or Ardrigh, with his capital
at Inverness and, later, in Angus or Forfarshire. The country about
Edinburgh was partly English, partly Cymric or Welsh. The south-west
corner, Galloway, was called Pictish, and was peopled by Gaelic-speaking
tribes.
In the course of time and events the dynasty of the Argyll Scoti from
Ireland gave its name to Scotland, while the English element gave its
language to the Lowlands; it was adopted by the Celtic kings of the whole
country and became dominant, while the Celtic speech withdrew into the
hills of the north and northwest.
The nation was thus evolved out of alien and hostile elements, Irish,
Pictish, Gaelic, Cymric, English, and on the northern and western shores,
Scandinavian.