Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/169

PEEFACE. clxi overthrown, not only because they despised Domini missam ac precei^tum, i.e., the doctrine and ritual of the Columban Church, but because they would not tolerate the Church itself. If the influx of the secular clergy under King Nectan is indicated by the "Legend of St. Bonifacius," the return of the Col- umban clergy under Kenneth Mac Alpin seems like- wise shadowed forth in the "Legend of St. Adrian," on 4th March (App. No. viii.) He is said to have arrived "ad orientales Scocie partes que tunc a " Pictis occupabantur," and to have landed there with 6606 confessors, clergy, and people. These men, with their bishop Adrian, the Pictish kingdom being destroyed, dilati regno Pictorum, did many signs, but afterwards desired to have a residence on the Isle of May. The Danes, who then devastated the whole of Britain, came to the island, and there slew them. Their martyrdom is said to have taken place in the year 875. It wUl be observed that they are here said to have settled in the east part of Scotland, opj^osite to the Isle of May — that is, in Fife, — while the Picts stiU occupied it ; that the Pictish kingdom is then said to have been de- stroyed ; and that their martyrdom took place in 875, thii'ty years after the Scottish conquest under Kenneth Mac Alpin. Their arrival was therefore almost coincident with the Scottish conquest ; and the large number said to have come — not the modest 21 who arrived with Regulus, but 6606 confessors, clergy, and people — shows that the traditionary