in the legendary history of Scotland, when the supposed destruction of the Picts by the Scots in the ninth century is said to have been effected in the same manner, the nobles of the Picts having been cut off by the Scots at a great banquet.[151] [Sidenote: The twofold division of the Picts and the establishment of Scone as the capital of the kingdom.] The twofold division of the Scots, supposed to have taken place in the reign of Conn of the hundred battles, has also its parallelism in Scotland; and if Bede recognised the division of Ireland into the two provinces of the Northern and the Southern Scots, he equally viewed the territory occupied by the great Pictish nation as consisting of the two provinces of the Northern and the Southern Picts, who were separated from each other ‘by steep and rugged mountain chains, within which the latter had seats,’ a description which can only apply to the great chain of the Mounth, extending from the Eastern Sea to the Western Sea, and separating the counties of Aberdeen and Inverness from those of Kincardine, Forfar, and Perth; and to those minor chains proceeding from it on the south, which, as they terminate in the more level country, form the great barrier of the so-called Grampians. Towards the end of the great Pictish kingdom we find Scone appearing as the principal seat and central point of the monarchy, and Fordun gives as one tradition ‘that it had been anciently fixed as the principal seat of the kingdom by both the Pictish and Scottish kings;’ and as another ‘that the ancient kings, even from the time of Cruithne, the first king of the Picts, had made it the seat of the kingdom of Alban.’[152] Scone is situated on the left bank of the river Tay, and within the ancient district of Gouerin or Gowry, and the circumstances connected with this district, and with Scone as the ancient capital of Scotland, present features very analogous to those recorded in the legend by which the province of Meath was formed, and Teamhair or Tara constituted the chief seat of the monarchy. As Meath was situated where the four ancient provinces of Ulster, Connaught, Munster, and Leinster meet, so also Gowry is placed in a central position where the four ancient provinces of Alban—namely those of Stratherne and Menteath, of Atholl (to which it appears at one time to have been attached), of Angus and Mearns, and of Fife and Fothreve—touch each other. As the originally small district of Meath was enlarged into a province by adding four districts, each of which was taken from one of the other districts, so we find that there were four royal manors of Gowry, viz. those of Scone, Cubert, Forgrund, and Straderdel.[153] These too surround a small central district, and each lies contiguous to one of the four provinces. Scone, forming the western district of Gowry, is separated by the river Tay from the old province of Fortrenn; Cubert or Coupar-Angus, on the north-east, adjoins