For almost a century, Britain had been under intermittent attack. From the north, fierce, tattooed Picts came down from the Caledonian mountains of Scotland. In the second century A.D., the Emperor Hadrian had built a wall from east to west between the River Tyne and the Solway Firth to keep the Picts out of the Romanized country farther south. But once the legions that had defended it were gone, the Picts clambered over the abandoned ramparts and swarmed south toward the Humber. The Picts were followed by the Scotti, marauders from Ireland, who sailed across the Irish Sea in their light
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