Note (return) — Chapter III

In 844, Kenneth, king of the Scots, the small North Irish sept which, as stated above, had crossed over from Erin and held the Dalriadic kingdom of Argyll with its capital at Dunadd near the modern Crinan Canal, succeeded in making good his title, on his mother's side, to the Pictish crown by a successful attack from the west on the southern Picts2 at the same time as their territory was being invaded from the east coast by the Danes. Thereafter, these Picts and the Scots gradually became and ever afterwards remained one nation, a course which suited both peoples as a safeguard not only against their foreign foes the Northmen, but also against the Berenicians of Lothian on the south. With the object of ensuring the union of the two peoples Kenneth is said to have transferred some of the relics of Columba, who had become the patron saint of both, from Iona to Dunkeld, which thus definitely remained not only the ecclesiastical capital of the united Picts and Scots, but the common centre of their religious sentiment and veneration. Incidentally, too, the Pictish language gradually became disused, as that people were absorbed in the Scots; and unfortunately, through the fact that no written literature survived to preserve it, that language has almost entirely disappeared. The better opinion is that it was more closely akin to Welsh and Breton than to Erse or Gaelic, the Welsh and the Picts being termed "P" Celts, and the other races "Q" Celts, because in words of the same meaning the Welsh used "P" where the Gaelic speaking Celt used the hard "C". For instance, "Pen" and "Map" in Welsh became "Ken" (or Ceann) and "Mac" in Gaelic.3