Above: Map of Scotland revealing Pictland

“It was a daring adventure,” writes Mr. Morrison in his Life of Columba, ” full of hazard, thus to pierce into the heart of Pictland. It called for undaunted courage and resource, and unwavering trust in the leader. Yet how few of the travellers who pass through that glen to-day with its deep lochs and its dark and solemn forests, and all its mystery of light and shadow, know anything of the little band of heroes who threaded it many centuries ago ?” Brude, King of the Picts, barred his gates against the mission, and his Druids and their followers opposed it in every way.

Columcille and his followers triumphed over all natural and human obstacles, and the handful of undaunted men bore the standard of the Cross into the country where the legions of Caesar had failed to subdue the inhabitants. The devoted little company of Irishmen worked incessantly and in-defatigably for many years amongst the Picts of the mainland, and throughout the islands on the west coast.

They founded their churches and schools everywhere, and instructed the people in the faith, baptising and preaching. The gospel was brought to the Orknej^s, Shetlands, the Hebrides and the Faroes. Even within the lifetime of its founder Iona sent forth missionaries to Northumbria, the Isle of Man, and South Britain.

Above: A Dalraida Insignia

St. Columcille returned to Ireland in the year 575 to attend the great Convention of Drumceatt, near Limavady. He was attended, as an old poem tells us, by forty priests, twenty bishops of noble worth, thirty deacons and fifty youths. He had two important objects in being present at the Convention. He desired to secure that Dalriada, an Irish colony in Scotland, should be freed from an annual tribute, which was paid to the Mother Country, and also that the bards of Ireland, who were under sentence of banishment on account of their burdensomeness, should not be sent from the country. In both objects, owing to his great personal influence and power over men, he was successful.

The colony of Dalriada was freed from all tribute to the supreme King of Ireland, on condition that its inhabitants should join in expeditions or ‘ hostings’ organised in Ireland, and that the Mother Country and her colony should mutually assist one another against the Saxons, Danes or Norsemen. The sentence of banishment on the bards was revoked on condition that they should lessen their claims to refection and maintenance at the hands of the people, and that they should curtail the retinues of their followers. Dalian Forgaill, the chief of the bards, expressed the thanks of the brotherhood to Columcille by composing a poem in his honour ‘ Arnhra Columcille’—’ The Praises of Columcille.’ Dalian tells us in the poem that the twelve hundred poets who were at the Convention composed a song of praise for their preserver, and that they sang it with music and chorus, ‘ and a surpassing music it was.’ But Columcille forbade his praise to be further produced or published, adding that no one should be praised in a life that might end badly, and that he alone who had run well and ended his race successfully should be praised after death.