The Cruithne or Priteni are believed to be the first Celtic group to inhabit the northern third of the British Isles. They settled in Britain and Ireland between 700 and 500 BCE. They used iron and spoke a P-Celtic language. In Ireland they then were the Cruithne, a Q-Celtic adaptation of Priteni. Among the Cruithne tribes that survived into the Christian era, the Dal nAraide and the Loiges (Laois or Leix) and Fothairt in Leinster. The Gaelic word Cruithne means wheat-grower, implying a settled civilization of agriculturalists in an age of hunters, raiders, and nomads. King Cruithne was the son of Cinge, mac Luthtai, Mac Parthalan, Mac Agnoinn right back to Japeth mac Noah... The Picts of Alba came from the Euphrates Valley, or since James VI, from the Garden of Eden, and had emigrated round the northern Mediterranean shores into Spain where they left the Basques and deposited the Bretons to Ireland. The Romans gave them the name of Picts to the sun-worshippers.

The name Pict as if it derived from the Latin the word Picti meaning "painted folk" or possibly "tattooed ones"; and this may relate to the Welsh word Pryd meaning "to mark" or "to draw". Popular etymology has long interpreted. The placename for Picts as Celts deduces the existence of historical settlments in Scotland, furthermore they spoke a Brythonic language is uncertain that Picts were Celts. Those prefixed with "Aber-", "Lhan-", "Pit-" or "Fin-" indicate regions inhabited by Picts in the past (for example: Aberdeen, Lhanbryde, Pitmedden, Pittodrie, Findochty, etc). Gaelic tradition sees the Picts as identical with or descended from the Brythonic group which the Gaels called, and still call, the Cruithne. Cruithne has a likely cognate in the Welsh Prydain, in which we can see the standard /k/ to /p/ Goidelic to Brythonic sound correspondence (both sounds come from /kw/). From the Brythonic Celtic Prydain (or rather from its older form Pretani) comes (via Latin) the English word Britain. And possible Scythian origins revolving around no language similarity.

Pictland comprised all of modern Scotland north of the Forth and Clyde except for Argyll. Two overkingdoms existed: one north of the Mounth with its core in Moray; the other to the south with the capital at Forteviot. Mention of priesta and armour indicates that they were religiously minded, but also warriors until the New World beckoned with their descendants. Linguists generally translate the Latin word vitro as "with woad". Subsequent commentators may have displaced the 1st-century BC southern practices (of the Brittani, a tribe south of the Thames) to the northern peoples in an attempt to explain the name Picti, which came into use only in the 3rd century AD. If they used woad, then it probably penetrated under the skin as a tattoo. More likely, the Celts used copper for blue tattoos (they had plenty of it) and soot-ash carbon for black. Further study of bog bodies may provide more information on the specific tattooing techniques (if any) used by the Picts.

The boar symbol represents the emblem of the High Kings of Alba, and remained that of the later Kings of Scots until the 1200s when William the Lyon changed it to the Lion Rampant. A number of other Border families also have a boar's head in their arms (Gordons, Elphinstones, Nisbets, Hoggs, Swintons) and may be descended from the Anglo-Saxon rulers of Bernicia in Northunbria. The Celtic beast was sometimes called the Elephant- occuring from the Northern Isles to Galloway. The symbol stones or the pointers to Pictish ancestry, like Ogham change character suddenly from the seventh century onwards.

Ninian, a Galloway Pict born in the mid fourth century had brought the Gospel back from a visit to Rome and St. Martin of Tours, founding Candida Casa, or the church of Whithorn in 397. The southern Picts, among missionary efforts and the people of Strathclyde succeeded the century before Columba and his Brethren from Ireland. At Alba, it was the arrival of the Scots in the last decade of the fifth century. Fergus MacErc and his five brothers came from Dalriada in Ireland and took over the Pictish area of Ergadia (Argyll). The subkingdom of Alba which they named Dalriada after their homeland was made by a band of Irish called the Scots, being descended from Scota, a pharoh's daughter who had eloped with a Celtic princeling and brought with her to Ireland, Jacob's famous pillow of stone (Lia Faill) or the Stone of Destiny. The Argyll area was then Scotia minor as the High King was elected by sub-kings (ri) and from the ruling house-of Tara and also the Picts. The Picts used this system; the High King of the Cruithne or Alba appointed by the ri of the seven great provinces of Fife, Strathearn, Angus, Mar, Moray, Ross, and Caithness. These were known as the Mormaors. MacBeth was mormaor of Ross and Moray before he became King. Later the mormaors became the Seven Earls of Scotland. Three Celtic earldoms were added; all north of Forth and Clyde: Buchan, Monteith, and Lennox. Alba proper or Caledonia never existed south of that line.

The Southern Picts having their capital at Traprain in East Lothian. Lothian derives from King Loth of the Southern Picts and the Galloway Picts occupying much of the southwest of Scotland into Strathclyde. Strathclyde extended into England. It was Alba out of which Scotland grew and there St. Columba of the house of the MacErcs and Tara who had founded Dalriada, to Iona. Columba looked to Alba since the Mull of Kintyre in the south of Argyll is about a dozen miles from the Antrim coast. He gave his name to Cowal, the southern region of Argyll. Every island in the southern Inner Hebrides and the mainland has its tradition of Columba landing there at the part of the MacErc's Dalriada. Columba converted Brude macMaelchon, High King of Picts and ordained Aidan as King of Dalriada at Iona, with certainty, on the Stone of Destiny which the Scots had brought to Argyll and his base on the Isle of Incholm. At Lismore, the isle off the Appin coast of the Firth of Lorn , at St. Moluag's shire eventually became the seat of the Bishopric of Argyll. From Tiree, the Scots of Alba and Dalriada continued to coexist with occasions of Pictish kings reign at Dunadd, the Dalriadic capital and later in 843 with the reign of Kenneth MacAlpin.. Onuist sacked Dunadd and captured the sons of the King of Dalriada. Constantine put his son on the throne of Dalriada and his brother, son and nephew succeeded him as Kings of Pictland until Viking invaders defeated the Picts in 839. Kenneth MacAlpin married Constantine's daughter; the end of the ancient Pictish line. Picts started to call themselves Scots rather than Cruithne, and their kingdom Scotland instead of Alba.

In the Viking age Norse invaders conquered much of northern Pictland - Caithness, Sutherland, the Western Isles and Ross. In southern Pictland, wars with the Vikings continued until the reign of Constantine mac Aeda (900 - 942/3), grandson of Kenneth mac Alpin. Constantine reigned as the first King of Alba. Christian missionaries completed the conversion of Pictland in the 7th century, having converted southern kingdoms in the 5th or 6th centuries. Although the Britons of southern Scotland and then the Northumbrian church played a part in this process, the Celtic church of Saint Columba and his successors proved the most influential in the missionary work. They established strong and enduring links between Pictland and Iona. Iona had to be abandoned after savage raids and massacres by the Norsemen. Indication that the Irish Church was still looked upon as the Mother Church and the functioning headquarters of the Columban faith moved inland to Dunkeld in Atholl and then to Scone. The Stone of Destiny went from Dunadd likewise. Kenneth MacAlpin moved his capital southwards from Inverness to Forteviot in Fortrenn; the area around Perth. The Forres and Moray Firth area remained important for the rulers as the heartland of Moray.

The Southern Picts, being less numerous and warlike than those of Alba, provoked the Scots. Sixteen kings until Malcolm II the Destroyer it is that there is a more detaile history such as Donald, Kenneth's brother; Constantine II; Aed; Eochaid; Giric; Donald II; Constantine III; Malcolm; Indulf; Dubh or Duffus; Culen; Kenneth II; Constantine IV; Gryme; Kenneth III; Giric II; Malcolm II. They were almost all Pictish rather than Dalriadic Scots. As for Dubh or Duffus who was assissinated in 967, the sun did not rise until he was found and astronomers tell that there was an eclipse of the sun that month of that year. Again Kenneth III also died at Fettercairn in the Mearns who had occasion to Malcolm, the son of the mormaor of Angus.
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