[77] We would infer from the recently published _Book of Deer_, that down at least to the time of David II., the inhabitants were still a Gaelic speaking population; all the entries in that book as to land are in that language. [78] Burton, vol. i. p. 200. CHAPTER III. A.D. 446-843. Early History--Scottish Settlement--Origin of Scots--Dalriada--Conversion of Picts--Druidism--St. Columba--Iona--Spread of Christianity--Brude and his Successors--Dun-Nechtan--Pictish Wars--Ungus--Contests--Norsemen--Union of Picts and Scots--Scoto-Irish or Dalriads--Lorn, Fergus, Angus and their Successors--Aidan--Contest at Degsastan--Donal Breac--Wars with Irish and Picts--Conal II. and Successors--Ferchar Fada--Selvach and Duncha Beg--Eocha III. unites Dalriada--Muredach--Contests with Picts--Aodh-fin--Eocha IV. or Achaius--Alpin--Kenneth--Union of Picts and Scots--Dalriadic Government--Tanist--Brehon--Laws--Fosterage--Lists of Kings. As we have already said, the materials for the internal history of the Highlands during the Roman occupation are of the scantiest, nearly all that can be recorded being the struggles of the northern tribes with the Roman invaders, and the incursions of the former and their allies into the territories of the Romanized Britons. Doubtless many events as worthy of record as these, an account of which has been preserved, were during this period being transacted in the northern part of Scotland, and we have seen that many additions, from various quarters, must have been made to the population. However, there are no records extant which enable us to form any distinct notion of the nature of these events, and history cannot be manufactured. After the departure of the Romans, the provincial Britons of the south of Scotland were completely at the mercy of the Picts as well as the Saxons, who had been invited over by the South Britons to assist them against the northern barbarians. These Saxons, we know, very soon entered into alliance with those whom they came to repel, and between them the Britons south of the friths were eventually driven into the West, where for centuries they appear to have maintained an independent kingdom under the name of Strathclyde, until ultimately they were incorporated with the Scots.[79] Although both the external and internal history of the Highlands during this period is much better known than in the case of the Roman period, still the materials are exceedingly scanty. Scottish historians, from Fordun and Boece downwards, made it their business to fill up from their own imaginations what is wanting, so that, until the simple-minded but acute Innes put it in its true light, the early history of Scotland was a mass of fable. Undoubtedly the two most momentous events of this period are the firm settlement in Argyle of a colony of Scots from Ireland and some of the neighbouring isles in 503,[80] and the conversion of the Northern Picts to Christianity by Columba about 563.