This was a super facinating book that I would recommend to no one. I have always wondered what exactly was happening in Scotland between the romans and King James. I thought we simply didn't have any idea of what happened, and that's sort of true in that there are very few written accounts, even fewer reliably truthful accounts, but there is some scattered information that's difficult to piece together, which is why you don't see books on this topic often. Also, it's rather boring as we only have this guy killed that guy and presumably that guy's son too because the next king on the list is that guy's brother instead of son. It's a chronology; there's no story to be had. Though with the popularity of vikings, I do expect to see some movies or series loosely based on the info we do have coming out in the future.
I'll sum up the key points: The romans f-ed up a whole lot and shouldn't have even wasted their time there. The gaels were from Ireland and culturally ate the picts. We don't have any info on the religion before Christianity showed up because it was the Christian monks doing all the recording. There were a ton of tiny kingdoms, not even that really, fiefdoms. 100 extra men in a battle could mean the difference between winning a losing. All the "kings" were warrior kings and basically just a bunch of bruts that died in battle fighting each other. It was all very rugged and barely civilized at all.
Overall, it was interesting to know, but rather forgetable and very boring.
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