themselves, and later between them and the Scots, resulting,
generally, in the Picts being driven eastward and northward from
the south centre of Alban, which the Scots seized, into the Grampian
hills.

After this very brief statement of previous history we may now attempt
to give some description of the land and the people of Caithness and
Sutherland as the Northmen found them in the ninth century.




CHAPTER II.

_The Pict and the Northman._


The present counties of Caithness and Sutherland A together made up
the old Province of Cait or Cat, so called after the name of one
of the seven legendary sons of _Cruithne_, the eponymous hero who
represented the Picts of Alban, as the whole mainland north of the
Forth was then called, and whose seven sons' names were said to stand
for its seven main divisions,[1] _Cait_ for Caithness and Sutherland,
_Ce_ for Keith or Mar, _Cirig_ for Magh-Circinn or Mearns, _Fib_ for
Fife, _Fidach_ (Woody) for Moray, _Fotla_ for Ath-Fodla or Athol, and
_Fortrenn_ for Menteith.

Immediately to the south of Cat lay the great province of Moray
including Ross, and, in the extreme west, a part of north Argyll; and
the boundary between Cat and Ross was approximately the tidal River