After the Romans

[crying-charlie]

The Romans left Britain never having conquered Scotland. When the Romans first arrived, there were 17 Tribes, within 250 years there were four main People.


A Pictish Warrior
The most enigmatic of these people were the Picts who ruled the north, east and most of central Scotland. Originally a coastal people, like so many of the early tribes, these early Celtic people left no written language, no records of their descendency, which was through the female line. They were, in time, after mixing with other cultures, assimilated in with the new settlers and cultures. But in their height of power , the north and south Pictish culture was a rich and powerful one. Their Federated Kingdom, stretched from the Pictland hills to the Pentland Firth.


They left ornate symbol stones and advanced practices of art and culture as well as a formidable military. Proof of a cultured people, that there can be no doubt, and they were an older Celtic race than either the Irish or the Scots. Unfortunately, their form of the Celtic language was much different from that of the Scots, Irish, Welsh and other Celtic races in Britain, and with no written history of the Picts, little else is known.


Other settlers came in from the coasts or from the Continent (mainland Europe) and carved out their own territories. The second of the four main groups left after the Romans, were the Britons or the Britons of Strathclyde. They would dominate the west of lower Scotland and some of England. Their lands stretched through Strathclyde south through Cumbria to Wales. This is most likely the Celtic people that helped settle Wales, or at the very least were strongly associated with the Welsh both in culture and language.


The third group, the Angles, from Germany settled southeast Scotland and portions of England. Warlike and hungry for land they drove out the Britons living near them, and carved out their kingdom. The Angles were the only non-Celtic race of the four main early settlers of Scotland. And this would prove to be a major problem for the Celts later on, especially when the Angles and Saxons combined to form the powerful Anglo-Saxons -- the early English.


Lastly, the fourth Tribe to settle in Scotland. They were also known as a warlike people, descended from Ireland. The Origins of their name -- Scots is a corrupted form of Scottus or Scotti , which meant "raiders". A Celtic, warrior, combative and expansive race, the Scots came in about 500 A.D. Dalriada was the Kingdom of the Scots and stretched from east Ireland through the Western Isles to Argyll, in western Scotland.

[ANDY-J]

When the Romans left Britain in the fifth century the area to the south of the Forth/Clyde isthmus was controlled by a Romanised Celtic tribe called the Mannau Gododdin(who gave their name to the modern county of Clackmannan and the town of Slammanan).They were skilled horsemen and one of their battles against the Angles was fought at Catterick and is recorded in an epic poem entitled the Gododdin.There is convincing evidence to link this tribe with the legend of King Arthur.It is known that the legend of Arthur was based on a historical Romano-Celtic warlord who led an army of mounted warriors and whose existence was recorded by chroniclers such as the venerable Bede.It is known that he fought against both Picts and Anglo-Saxons,as did the Goddodin,and of several battles which he took part in only one has been certainly identified-the forest of Celadon,or the great Caledonian forest which once covered Southern Scotland-the area controlled by the Gododdin.Also the Roman fort at Camelon outside of Falkirk was used by the Gododdin and Camelon could be a corruption of Cam-lan which Bede records as Arthurs final battle where he was slain by his fellow Britons.