Alba is the gaelic name for Scotland. This Irish legend is repeated in three texts. Again, we have the name ‘Cruithne’ only this time it refers to an individual rather than a tribe. Interestingly “De Situ Albanie”, a 14th (or possibly 12th or 13th) century manuscript divides Alba into seven regions while omitting the region now known as Argyll. This was probably because that area was under the control of an Irish tribe, the Scots. (That’s right – the Scots were Irish!)
Cruithne’s seven sons left their mark on Alba – in fact some place names can be traced back to them e.g. Caithness from Cait, Keith from Ce, Fife from Fib. (Fifers still refer to the "Kingdom of Fife", although this area has not been a separate kingdom since the time of the Picts. When I lived there, I knew people who stated that they were not Scots but Picts!) From the “Pictish Chronicles” most historians agree that there were 69 Pictish kings. But how do we define ‘kings’? If we look at Irish records, we can see that there were three types of kings.
In Ireland, there were three types of king. The rí or rí túaithe was king of a tribe; the ruirí or 'great king' was, as well as being a tribal king, the overlord of a number of other tribes and tribal kings. And above all of these was the rí ruirech, 'king of overkings'. It is likely that, given the social and cultural connections between Scotland and Ireland, a similar system existed in Scotland.
The only information that we have about most of the Pictish kings is their names. However there is some evidence that inheritance passed through the mother, not the father. Although men ruled, their power did not pass to their sons. From Argyll, the Scots mounted a number of campaigns against the Picts. During this period, Christianity also arrived on the shores of Iona, in the person of St Columbus.
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