Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/113

 PREFACE. cv 592 to 626, and a period of 150 years taken from these dates gives us a year between 442 and 476 for the commencement of the Pictish monarchy, — a date not many years after the event recorded by Gildas, where he says, " Picti in extrema " parte insulse tum primum et deinceps requi- " everunt." Finechta is followed by four kings, the last two of whom are Gest and Urgest, and then follows Brude Pont, and it is added, that there were thirty Brudes, but twenty-eight only are enumerated ; fourteen of them have a mono- syllabic epithet after then' name, and the other fourteen the same monosyllable, with the prefix Ur. It is probable, therefore, that Gest and Urgest should be added to make up the thirty. It is added that these are the names of the men, and the portions of the men ; and the whole is said to be taken from the books of the Picts. That these monosyllables enter into the composition of the Pictish proper names is plain enough ; but they probably also entered into the names of smaller districts, which cannot now be identified. The southern portion of the Picts, which, according to Bede, were divided from the northern, " Arduis " atque horrentibus montium jugis," had been before this time converted to Christianity by the preaching of St. Ninian ; and Bede states that in the ninth year of Brude, son of Maelcon, who reigned over the northern Picts, that division of the nation was con- verted to Christianity by St. Columba. We now