enerations of Scottish schoolchildren were taught a satisfyingly neat story about the foundation of the Scottish kingdom. Following a disastrous defeat at the hands of the Vikings in 839, so the story goes, the Picts of northern Scotland were fatally weakened. This allowed Cináed mac Alpín, king of the Gaelic-speaking realm of Dál Riata, centred on the western seaboard, to take control of Pictland, either by dynastic union or conquest, and forge the two kingdoms into a single entity. In this way, Cináed became the first ruler of Alba or
