Following the story of the Britons through the troubled centuries between 400 and 1100, this salient account reveals the critical role these native Celtic people played in the shaping of Scottish history during the first millennium AD—and how, unlike the Picts and the Vikings, their place in history has often been ignored. Studying the rise and fall of the northern Britons—from their departure of Rome to the birth of medieval Scotland, their heroic poetry commemorating the valor of their warriors, images of warfare, political rivalry, and the influence of Christianity running like a thread through the centuries—this remarkable discourse considers how and why the once-powerful Britons lost their distinct identity to join their old enemies the Picts as one of Scotland's vanished nations.