Although much had happened long before,
In Scotia's Brythonic days of yore,
The start of this history I choose to be
From aroundabout 500 AD,
When we find this Commonwealth,
Whether acquired by war or by stealth,
Peopled by three, a strict divide,
Picts and Scots1 and Brits in Strathclyde.
The Picts and Brits were Celts of old,
Who together fought Romans, so we are told,
(Tacitus tells of brave Galgàcus2
Narrowly beaten at Mons Graupius).
The Scots to both were distant cousins,3
The Irish Sea they crossed in dozens,
Landing in Pictland's shores in style,
They settled down in North Argyll.4
Much bickering then twixt Pict and Scot,
The war painted Picts were a pagan lot
And so from Ireland, Columba was sought5
To tame those Celts and so he taught
The Christian Faith to old King Brude6
In Inverness and so made good
The rift, which later led the way
To a united front, from the Forth or Tay
Named Alba, whose king, MacAlpin may7
Pictish have been, perplexing to say,
But likely as not was one of the Scots.
What's in a name? Perhaps they drew lots.
But Scot beat Pict and now we have Scotland,
And people are Scots from Tweed to Pentland.
But times were far from hunky-dorey,
We come to the invasions part of the story.
From far-flung Norway the Norsemen came,8
In Caithness and the Isles they made their claim,
Their plundering, warring and going berserk
Brought self-satisfied Scots up with a jerk.
Up warring Angles from Northumbria came,
As in West Cumbria they'd done the same,
Anglo-Scots border pushed far to the north,
Lothian was Saxon from Tyne to the Forth,
Peoples, all four combined then to tangle,
The Pict, the Scot, the Brit and the Angle9
Notes
1 The Scots were originally the Dál Riata people who occupied part of modern Ulster.
Scotti was the Roman name for the Irish.
2 Galcacus, leader of the Caledonian tribes, fought the Romans supposedly in the area of Bennachie,
Aberdeenshire, Ca 79-84AD. He is reported as describing the Roman strategy of so-called pacification
in these words, "Solutudinem faciunt, pacem appellant", "Where they make a desert they call it peace."
A later scribal error mistook the "u" of Graupius for an "m" and so today we have Grampian Mountains.
3 The ancient tribes in Ireland were "Q"-Celtic rather than the Brythonic "P"-Celtic
4 Called Dalriada from their Irish tribal name, c.500.
5 563.
6 Bridei mac Máelchú, king of the Northern Picts.
7 Cináed mac Ailpín, Kenneth I, (r.843-858).
8 (780-850) and (893-933).
9 The Four Peoples.
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