St Columba himself was of the royal line in Ulster, was learned, as
learning was then reckoned, and, if he had previously been turbulent, he
now desired to spread the Gospel. With twelve companions he settled in
Iona, established his cloister of cells, and journeyed to Inverness, the
capital of Pictland. Here his miracles overcame the magic of the King's
druids; and his Majesty, Brude, came into the fold, his people following
him. Columba was no less of a diplomatist than of an evangelist. In a
crystal he saw revealed the name of the rightful king of the Dalriad
Scots in Argyll--namely, Aidan--and in 575, at Drumceat in North Ireland,
he procured the recognition of Aidan, and brought the King of the Picts
also to confess Aidan's independent royalty.

In the 'Life of Columba,' by Adamnan, we get a clear and complete view of
everyday existence in the Highlands during that age. We are among the
red deer, and the salmon, and the cattle in the hills, among the second-
sighted men, too, of whom Columba was far the foremost. We see the
saint's inkpot upset by a clumsy but enthusiastic convert; we even make
acquaintance with the old white pony of the monastery, who mourned when
St Columba was dying; while among secular men we observe the differences
in rank, measured by degrees of wealth in cattle. Many centuries elapse
before, in Froissart, we find a picture of Scotland so distinct as that
painted by Adamnan.

The discipline of St Columba was of the monastic model. There were
settlements of clerics in fortified villages; the clerics were a kind of
monks, with more regard for abbots than for their many bishops, and with
peculiar tonsures, and a peculiar way of reckoning the date of Easter.
Each missionary was popularly called a Saint, and the _Kil_, or cell, of
many a Celtic missionary survives in hundreds of place-names.