In a crystal he saw revealed the name of the rightful king of the Dalriad Scots in Argyll--namely, Aidan--and in 575, at Drumceat in North Ireland, he procured the recognition of Aidan, and brought the King of the Picts also to confess Aidan's independent royalty.
In the 'Life of Columba,' by Adamnan, we get a clear and complete view of everyday existence in the Highlands during that age.

We are among the red deer, and the salmon, and the cattle in the hills, among the second- sighted men, too, of whom Columba was far the foremost.

We see the saint's inkpot upset by a clumsy but enthusiastic convert; we even make acquaintance with the old white pony of the monastery, who mourned when St Columba was dying; while among secular men we observe the differences in rank, measured by degrees of wealth in cattle.

Many centuries elapse before, in Froissart, we find a picture of Scotland so distinct as that painted by Adamnan.
The discipline of St Columba was of the monastic model.

There were settlements of clerics in fortified villages; the clerics were a kind of monks, with more regard for abbots than for their many bishops, and with peculiar tonsures, and a peculiar way of reckoning the date of Easter.
Each missionary was popularly called a Saint, and the _Kil_, or cell, of many a Celtic missionary survives in hundreds of place-names.
The salt-water Loch Leven in Argyll was on the west the south frontier of "Pictland," which, on the east, included all the country north of the Firth of Forth.