These shadowy monarchs, for all their relative obscurity, have played their part in the formation of a modern Scotland
Historians generally agree that the first king of Scotland was Kenneth MacAlpin, King of Dál Riata, who ruled over Scotland’s western seaboard, which took in much of what is now Argyll and the Western Isles. In AD843 MacAlpin also ascended the throne of the Pictish kingdom to the east, which at its height, stretched as far south as Fife, thus uniting both realms to form what later became known as Alba, and finally, Scotland.
The primary sources for the early kings of Scotland were written centuries later, relying on oral traditions, so are in some ways unreliable and contradictory. They include the , written in the 13th century, and, because Dál Riata included Antrim in Northern Ireland, , written in the 15th or
