Gaeldom



The divergence of this timeline comes in 325BC when on a journey to cirumnavigate the british isles the greek explorer pytheas of massilia is caught in a storm of the western coast of scotland and an island called mull, here he is shipwrecked with his crew. The crew is united and harm is done to only one of them who has a broken leg, much of the ships cargo is also later salvaged on a beach. From here on pytheas keeps detailed journals of the events unfolding.

After two days wandering with his crew they encounter a pictish farming village. This particular tribe had good experience with other tribes and traded gold ingots with the mainland. Despite the language barrier phytheas traded jewlery and precious stones with the tribe and he remained there for 2 months as they repaired what was left of their ship. Later pytheas would complete his navigations, but for now he had returned to massilia where his exploits became famous and tales of the northern gold became famous too. Gold hunters soon began to descend upon mull in 323BC and the locals on the island were assilimated by the greeks. A few years later in 319 greek settlers attempted to explore and assilimate the mainland where they were driven back by much more hostile tribes. A greek army was raised to subdue these tribes who were all in conflict with eachother anyway.

These small mainland tribes united under Óchách Odení to form a small force capable of taking on the greek contingent called Celdonul, when the greeks invaded a small portion of western scotland Óchách wages geurilla war for 21 years until he died, in these 21 years the tribes had been united in trade but also a mutual dislike of their greek overlords who officially administrated the area, this resulted in peace beetween the tribes but when Óchách died there was a contest amongst his son as to who would be the heir as cheif of the tribe. The contest resulted in his eldest Ech becoming heir to the tribe. Ech was sympathetic towards the occupying greeks and made moves with the Celdonul to stop fighting the greeks, this annoyed the other cheifs who were much older and experienced that Ech and fealt that they should be in charge of the Celdonul. Echs other 3 brothers were annoyed at Ech for getting the position of chief of their tribe (Dedre) each brother then took harder lines to gain the support of the other tribes in the celdonul, in the sech died mummer of 318 ech died under mysterious circumstances, most agree it was from a disallusioned dedre farmer who was simply concerned for his farm being siezed by greeks. When this happened civil war ensued between all three brothers and it waged for 3 years, it ended in the destruction of the tribal system in this area and for another 250 years the greeks administered the area in peace.

in 168 after the romans had taken control of much of of greece, the colony, now known as mullymn declared independance under Mythr Óch, the first half celtic governer of the area. It had prospered as a trade hub from the other picts, irish and scandinavians to the greeks romans and etruscans therefore they had the best boat technology in the world. Most of the industry was driven within the cities that had 50/50 celt greek mix, the class divide was now almost non-existant with the wealthiest being mainly greek but the poorest were greek and celtic, this is due to the gold industry running dry and being replaced with the trading industry, therefore the initial prospectors lines had movd to the cities after gold had gone. Some stayed in the countryside but 80% of the were picts.

As the city grew and prospered alongside the prospering roman empire Mythr Óch attempted to invade central scotland, but the land was useless and locals hostile therefore decided to invade antrim and donegal which he did in 158 and where many celts and greeks emigrated in equal numbers to take up the land there. Myth was a clever man and therefore he did not attempt to subdue the local Scotti tribe, rather he allowed them to govern themselves and provided the area with infrastructure. Due to the Scotti fighting amongst themselves they did not orginise a resistance until 60. Until that point mullymn was very succesfull and had expanded greatly and was trading frequently around the baltic and throughout the british isles, the rhine and france. But in 60 the scotti tribe united under Angus Ghadh and with the support of southern irish tribes attempted to push the celts back through northern ireland, in 58 they suceeded due to the celts weak army and the fact it was already fighting the britons in the south.

The newly unified scotti began now to gain prominence as a tribe in northern ireland and the celts were concerned about mull being invaded. In 55BC the celts approached julius ceasar with the proposition that they would attack the britons from the north if he promised to offer the celts autonomy and protection from the scotti.In 46BC the romans invaded southern britain and the celts attacked the britons in the north. Quickly both forces had met on a line stretching from the wirral to just south of the humber.

Here it was decided that a peace agreement with the mullynms would be drawn up as they were very important for the luxury goods and timber trade.

In 107Ad the govenor Angus declared himself king Angus, this was met with little resistance as he was an excellent govenor having quelled rebelions by britons in humber and having expanded territory northwards into sutherland and the outer hebrides to assilimate the caledonii. In 196Ad though Angus's grandson Eoin Óhg died and left no heir to the throne. The area was thrown into a civil war between Eoins elderly cousin and Eoins infant nephew. After a bloody civil war, the nephew Andrew was chosen, he was at the time 9 and it was decided he would not be given control until aged 14. Until then a roman administration was brought into keep the peace.

In 412 mullymn officially severed any ties with rome after it left britain and therefore left the mullymn alone. Due to this and decreased trade the mullynm entered a period of little prosperity with the great city of mull being more or less abandoned and the greco-celtic inhabitants were in a dark age.

In 500Ad exactly, a large flux of scotti came to scotland peacefully and with them a breed of celtic christianity. They co-existed and bred with the local population easily and enstated a king, king Dara. This new kingdom called dal-raita administered ex-mullynm lands and people peacefully and after only 100 years the populations of both were indistinguishable.The city of mullynm was in an overgrown state, as the new capitol for dal-riata was on the island of iona. But nonetheless it was still lived in and administered as the largest city. Slowly it was re-inhabited by the country dwellers over the next 300 years.

In 754Ad the first recorded viking raid occured on the abbey area of humber, subsequent raiding occured and in 812 the vikings invaded sutherland, here the first major war for dal riata was fought, and there was a resounding dal riata sucess at the battle of loch shin. not long after in 843 humber was subject to anglo saxon raids which were also repelled easily, cullminating in the battle of york. In 890 the vikings invaded york again and occupied it and it's area until 992 when king calum took it back along with other viking possesions such as the faroe, shetland and orkney islands.

On an unrelated note in 770 a hebridean sailor by the name of Úle discovered iceland which he named Úlaithe, the king at the time claimed it and begun an agressive colonisation project offering free land grants to any freeman of dal-riata ( now called scotland ).

in 1066 the normans had invaded england and this frightened the scots as they were concerned that it would be followed by a norman invasion of humber. They were correct, in 1072 the city of Úpla was invaded by king william and his army, quickly it was taken, as the army was expecting an invasion from further east and closer to the coast. Presuming williams next strike would be on york the king at the time (Alisdair?) moved all his troops there. He was correct but he did not do what would have been presumed of him. He moved all of his troops to south of york, here they suffered a disasterous defeat and york was soon taken and sacked.

For the next 40 years scotland up to berwick was under the control of william, in 1112 a man by the name of bruce, born in alnwick to an unassumming land owning couple he became an outlaw after his wife was raped at age 22 (braveheart much :T). outlawed he was subject to a manhunt around alnwick, in the summer of 1112 he managed to arrange a meet up with one of his brothers, Robert, a sheep farmer in the dales. His brother sympathetic of bruce's sit he contacted another group of farmers in the small town of Achn. In achn bruce and his brother met with 3 other men to speak about what bruce should do. One was a merchant seaman and he suggested smuggeling bruce to norway.