Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/201

 PREFACE. cxciii the same person who is placed by Fordun among the early kings under the name of Rether, and is said to have brought a large body of men from Ireland, and to have entered Britain with them, along with the Scots of the islands, and those in- habiting the mainland of Albania. It is remarkable enough that Hector Boece gives this colony a direc- tion which exactly corresponds with the line of that invasion given in the " Life of Cadroe." He says, " that he passed over from Ireland into the " Hebrides, and there having collected forces in " Albion, he entered Loch Broom, and proceeding " to the south, arrived at DingwaU, and thence " penetrated into the south of Britain." By these legends, the Scots, led by Kenneth Mac Alpin, are made to emerge from Galloway, the very district, to which Alpin, the last king of Dal- riada, led his Scots on his expulsion by Angus king of the Picts. We know, from the "Chi'onicle of " Huntingdon," that the Danish pirates played a great part in the revolution which placed Kenneth, a man of Scottish race, on the throne of the Picts. The Norwegian or Danish pirates appeared on the west coast in the end of the eighth century, and the " Irish Annals " record their frequent incursions on the coasts of Ireland and Scotland, while, at this very time, the Gallgaeclhel, or Gallwegians, appear as a body of Celtic pirates, taking part in their ravages ; and at the same period a great effort appears to have been made by the Scottish clergy P