Picts Scots and Romans

As I pursued the research for the history talk, I was surprised to find how many people in England believed the Romans only went as far as Hadrian's wall. In fact the Roman legions marched up beyond Aberdeen and the King of Orkney submitted to Claudius at the time of the 43AD invasion. They built Antonine's Wall between the Clyde and Forth before pulling back to Hadrian's more southerly version. In researching this I found that the names Picts and Scots, which I had believed stretched back into antiquity came with the Romans; Picts being late Latin for a barbarian painted people, which explains the legend of Brits being painted blue, Scotii being the Roman's name for a bunch of Irish pirates who kept Scotland's west coast province of Dalriada in terror. The Painted People were still taking off plaids and shirts to charge half naked at the Redcoats in 1745, by the way. All of this goes to confirm my wife's uncle Ken's warning not to get involved in family history or you'll find you are related to tinkers.

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