2) Tharain
Tharain, it has been suggested, may be a corrupted form of the Gaelic word ‘dara’, as in ‘an dara aon’ — the second one; but it is more likely to be cognate to a Gaulish word meaning thunder.

3) —23) Inclusive.
We have no information on these kings apart from their names and supposed lengths of reign. As stated above, other writers have made various suggestions as to their meanings, but mostly without much sign of success. The names are just too obscure.

24) Drust son of Irb
Known as Drust of the Hundred Battles’, who lived a hundred years, this hero king probably became a legend in his own lifetime. He was born around 407 A.D. when the Romans were leaving Britain. A true leader, he took control during the ensuing disruption and united all the Southern Picts under his banner, (which probably depicted a wild boar), and is thought to have set up safe harbours to protect his coasthne from invasion by the Britons.

What is believed to be his fort, known as Trusty’s (i.e. Drust’s) Hill, lies at Anwoth near Gatehouse of Fleet in Galloway in Southwest Scotland. The ruins of this fort still exist, along with Pictish symbols comprising a double disc and ‘Z’ rod, a sea serpent, a geometric symbol which it has been suggested looks like a dagger, and what appears to be an insect’s head, all carved on an outcrop of rock near the fort’s entrance. This fort was partially excavated in 1960 by Charles Thomas and was found to date from pre-Roman times. Apart from the carvings no other evidence of Pictish occupation was discovered, so it is possible that Drust occupied the fort for a relatively short time before moving further north, probably to Abernethy in Perthshire.

A fresh water spring, thought to commemorate him, or his mysterious name-sake, St. Drostan, lies on the slopes of Dumbarrow Hill just south of Abernethy. This spring, known as the ‘Katie Thirsty Well,’ (note. not Katie’s), gives the visitor beautiful extensive views across to the Lomond Hills in Fife, but is sadly neglected, and is now nothing more than a group of four or five large stones showing where the water flows out of the ground. The name Katie is believed to be in remembrance of St. Katherine of Alexandria, thought to have been

martyred early in the fourth century by the Emperor Maxentius who supposedly had her tied to a revolving wheel set with knives. The Catherine Wheel firework is named after her. Interestingly, Abernethy’s northern namesake, Abernethy on Spey, absorbed an ancient parish that was dedicated to this same St. Katherine.
Drust himself can be found in the second word ‘Thirsty’ which is a corruption of his name; similar to that of ‘Trusty’, but incorporating a linguistic phenomenon known as metathesis, where two letters inside a word switch places, altering the sound. If there is any truth at all in this old legend then the Katie Thirsty well must be one of the oldest Christian sites in the whole of Scotland. Drust son of Irb died in 478 A.D.

25) Tholarg son of Anile
We have no information on this king apart from his length of reign, which was of either two or four years.

26) Nechtan Morbet son of Irb
Unless his supposed brother Drust (No.24) beat him to it, this king was the first to introduce Christianity to his people, c.485 A.D. Note that this was 80 years before St. Columba’s mission to the Northern Picts in 565 A.D. Nechtan dedicated Abernethy church in Perthshire to St. Brigid, the first abbess of Kildare, whom he had met in Ireland while apparently banished there by King Drust. We are not told the reason why Nechtan was sent to Ireland by his elder brother, and in fact they may not even have been brothers. The age difference between the two seems too great to be realistic as Nechtan reigned for another 10, or possibly even 24 years. It is possible however that they both came from the same family tree and this could account for them both being sons of ‘Irb’, without them having the same father.
Whatever the truth of the matter, Nechtan’s exile in Ireland seems to have affected him greatly, and he took very much to the new religion. He granted the land around Abernethy to Brigid’s favourite pupil Darlugdach, who was on a Christian mission to the Picts and Britons at the time. Darlugdach became the second abbess of Kildare when St. Brigid died around 500 A.D.
The 10th century round tower of the Abernethy Celtic church, where many of the Pictish Chronicles and other important documents relating to the Picts and Scots were written, still stands to this day, as does its twin tower in Kildare, Ireland. The only other round tower in Scotland, dating from around the period of the Celtic Church, is in Brechin, Angus.
At the foot of the Abernethy tower is a fme example of an early pre-Christian Pictish carved stone, badly damaged but still fascinating. On it can be seen a hammer, an anvil, part of a ‘Crescent and V rod’ symbol, and an enigmatic object, called by some a tuning fork, but believed by several archaeologists to be a representation of a burial chamber. There is also a fine set of iron ‘Jougs’ (probably from an old French word, Joug, a yoke) hanging on the wall where those proven guilty of some misdemeanour or other would have found themselves secured by having one of these iron collars clamped around their throat. This old Scottish form of pillory doesn’t date from the time of the Picts however, but is of post-reformation date and belongs to an age when our Scottish fore-fathers believed that public opprobrium was enough to cause a person to desist from their evil ways. Doubtless the Pictish kings had their own slightly more direct methods of dealing with miscreants, malefactors and other sorts of malcontents. (‘Put him in the Jougs you say? Aye right! He should be so lucky”.)
Stairs within the tower, which is 72 feet (22 metres) in height, allow access to the roof, thereby giving the visitor excellent panoramic views of the surrounding countryside. The big iron key that opens the door to the tower is kept in the nearby tea-room. (It is called the ‘Pitblae’-a truly Pictish name if ever there was one). Be prepared for a wee surprise, however, when you attempt to open the lock. Upon your first efforts to do so, you may be reminded that this splendid tower was built according to Irish specifications.

27) - 37) Inclusive
On these kings we have almost no information whatsoever, except that one of the kings called Drust sent his daughter Dusticc to be educated by Mugint, the abbot of Whithorn in Galloway.
W.A. Cummins, in his influential work, “The Age of the Picts”, (1995) suggests that the name Drust or Drostan may be cognate with the Welsh name Tristan, from trystau, meaning thunder. He posits that the well known Pictish symbol of the double disc and Z rod may represent thunder and lightning, as the double disc could be a depiction of clashing cymbals, and the Z rod a bolt of forked lightning. Certainly, at Trusty’s hill fort in Galloway (see No.24), this symbol is carved near the fort’s entrance.
Regarding the name ‘Gurum’, an interesting tradition of the Graham Clan is that their progenitor was a Caledonian chieftain called ‘Greme’ or ‘Girim’ who, according to legend, was the first Pict to breach the Roman Antonine Wall. This wall, built in 142 A.D., crossed Scotland for a remarkable 37 miles from Old Kilpatrick in the West to Bridgeness in the East. Is it possible that Gurum, the father of Drust, (Nos.29 and 31) Garthnac (No.32) and Cailtran (No.33) was a descendant of this man? Gurum is a very old word whose interpretation we can only guess at. There is, however, an obsolete Gaelic word ‘Griom’, meaning War’ and ‘Battle’, so can we speculate that ‘Gurum’ might possibly be understood to signify ‘The Warrior?
On the old maps of Scotland, Antonine’s Wall is named as Grim’s, or Graham’s, Dyke, in honour of this hero.