Vikings 'were warned to avoid Scotland'

Correct.

The great Scots historian Nigel Tranter believed that the Picts outnumbered the Dalriadic Celts at least 5 to 1, maybe 10-15 to 1, so the notion of a Pictish annihilation is now regarded as outdated.

The Picts and Dalriadic Celts fought each other then intermarried over time. King Kenneth McAlpine, the ‘first king of Scotland’ (843ad) was himself half-Pictish and inherited the throne due to his Pictish princess mother (the Picts only picked male rulers, but did so only from the female line-—progressive for the time)

It is really confusing. Ancestry.com now claims it was a derivative of a McIn- Dal Riada Clan from Ireland, but we also have a detailed account that claims it was taken anew as a surname and was derived from the name of an old Irish Stronghold along the coast of Scotland. A stronghold built to protect from early Viking Raiders. That account also has some extensive details of specific individuals between the 1100-1600's. We all eventually left Scotland due to the Jacobite problems. Our old clan is apparently not even associated with a Tartan at all, since we had mostly left by the time England lifted their ban on the clan tartans and actually embraced the clan history.

When I stated that Celtic Royals had fled to the Scottish lowlands during the Roman invasion, I was wrong about that. Always get confused on the subject. According to that detailed clan history, it was following the Norman invasion in the south that British Celtic Royalty from the south fled to the Scottish lowlands. Apparently the fleeing Royal families of Britain (refugees from the Normans) settled into the Scottish lowlands and at that point the British Royalty freely intermarried into the Scottish Royalty/clans of the Lowlands. So it was mostly Picts north of Hadrian's Walls unless the same refugee situation occurred back in the Roman invasion. Our clan apparently was given a large Manor house and a small Keep from Robert the Bruce for services rendered. We were supporters but not major supporters. Some of the clans got big Castles for services rendered in the War for Independence. We eventually lost all the holdings during the Jacobite Rebellions but held a couple for 300 years.

Interesting history, also small parts Polish and Austrian. I gave up tracking the Polish roots. Hitler apparently burned all their records. He had plans to exterminate the Poles. Wonder what he would have done with a small part Austrian mix like me ? Someday would like to read about the early Germanic tribes. After Rome fell they pretty much conquered all of Western Europe, Central Europe and North African Mediterranean coast. They were also the later Saxons who took England back from the Normans.

Simplistically, Southern Scotland was a mixture of Celtic tribes, whilst the north was Pictish, also probably a Celtic race, albeit an older variant hence the difference in Pictish and the other Celtic languages in southern Scotland.

So we can assume that Hadrian's wall was meant to protect from a mix of Celtic Tribes that might have included some old Celtic Pictish ? Perhaps the newer Celtic Tribes also took up the Blue Body Painting habit and that may have led the Romans to just assume they were all Pictish ?

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