Ex
libris necessarius VerSache obscurus barbarus
:
Compiled, Photographed, Edited, Rebound
and Translated by Marjorie Chillblaine
:
The
most ancient of the VerSache obscurus
collection exists as 600 leaves (or
folios) made from hemp, Some folios
are of single sheets, most are twice the
width, then folded to accommodate 2 pages
of text, The decorated pages often occurred
on single sheets. The folios had lines
drawn for the text, sometimes on both
sides. Prick marks and guide lines can
still be seen on some pages. The hemp
is of high quality, although the folios
have an uneven thickness, with some being
almost leather, while others are so thin
as to be almost translucent. Food, beer
and coffee stains abound throughout...
The
Records of eary Scottish history are
not written. They lie rather in the standing
stones, the brochs and forts which guarded
most of its western and northern coastline, and
the very sites of royal or eccesiastical
centres, or in the terrain itself.
The Picts
were a confederation of tribes in central
and northern Caledonia (know
to us as
Scotland) from at least the
time of the Roman invasions of the British
Isles until the 10th century. Their
territory started north of the Forth-Clyde
line. They were assumed by some to be
the descendants of the Caledonii (referenced
in the prologue) and other northern
tribes. Pictland,
also known as Pictavia,
became the Kingdom of Alba during
the 10th century and the Picts
became the Fir Alban,
the men of Scotland.
The
name by which the Picts
called themselves remains unknown to us
. The Greek word Πικτοί
(Latin Picti) first appears in
a panegyric (delivered in 297, and
usually attributed to Eumenius: In
Praise of Later Roman Emperors: The Panegyric
Latini (Transformation of the Classical
Heritage)
)
making a poetic reference to "the
hitherto semi-naked Picts and Hibernians",
and is taken to mean "painted
or tattooed people" (Latin pingere
"paint"). This may, however,
be due to early folk etymology and the
term likely has a Celtic origin, perhaps
Pehta, Peihta (translated as "fighters").
The Gaels of Ireland and Dál
Riata called the Picts
Cruithne, (Old Irish
cru(i)then-túath), presumably
from Proto-Celtic *kwriteno-touta. There
were also people referred to as Cruithne
in Ulster, in particular
the kings of Dál nAraidi.
The Britons (later the Welsh
and Cornish) in the
south knew them, in the P-Celtic form
of
"Cruithne",
as
Prydyn; the terms "Britain"
and "Briton"
come from the same root. Their Old English
name gave the modern Scots
form Pechts.
Archaeology
attemps, as always, to give an impression
of the society of the Picts.
Although very little in the way of Pictish
writing has survived, Pictish history,
from the late 6th century onwards, is
known from a variety of sources, including
saints' lives, such as that of Columba
by Adomnán :Life
of St. Columba (Penguin Classics)
,
and various Irish annals. Tthe Picts
may be thought of as an obscure, almost
occult people, this is far from being the
case. When compared with the generality
of Northern, Central and Eastern Europe in
Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages,
the hisory of the Picts and its society
are well attested.
Distortions
regarding the nature of the Picts developed
over time. Folklore insists that the first
Vikings who sailed to Rousey island (north
of the Orkney main island ) refused
to set foot on the island due to the elves
or trolls (trows) armed with shining
spears awaiting them onshore. An anonymous
Norwegian historian wrote in the 12th century
" The Picts were little more than pygmies
in stature....and lurked through fear in
little underground houses."
This
vision of tiny Picts living tiny underground
lives persisted into the 20th century :
|
Wild
and lonely country, predominates in
John Buchan's story 'No-Man's Land'
, favouring a Scottish setting, Graves
of St. Chads, an Oxford man, is talking
to one of his students about traditions
of the Brownie and the Picts. He is
shown an eccentric's scrapbook, one
which starts with extracts from local
folklore, but continues with newspaper
cuttings reporting the disappearance
of young girls, and the horrible deaths
of men in lonely shielings. Thoughts
of this recur to him as he goes on
a fishing holiday to a mountainous
district on the edge of the Highland
Line. The old shepherd with whom he
is lodging tells stories of faces
in the mist and footsteps round the
house at night; he is almost driven
mad by the thought that there are
devils in the hills, and by way of
proof he shows what has been left
during a raid on his sheepfold - a
stone arrowhead. The adventure continues
with Graves' capture by the Folk of the
Hills, and his imprisonment in the
caverns which are their hiding place.
The sister of his friend the shepherd
is also brought into these underground
chambers; she is prepared as a human
sacrifice, but at this climactic
moment the hillside is shattered
by a rockfall, and they both break
free. In Oxford, Graves is met by
universal disbelief, and he destroys
himself in repeated attempts to return
to the hills in search of proof. The
Folk in Buchan's story are a natural
race of men; and yet everything about
the way in which they are presented
hints at something more eerie. Their
small outlines, rough and hairy,
are seen fleetingly against a background
of darkness and mist; they inspire
a frantic loathing and dread. MacRitchie's
work, which set out to strip away
superstitious accretions from a real
origin, has been subverted: here,
the members of his Pictish race are
described as if they were devils
incarnate.
In Terry Pratchett's 'The
Wee Free Men (Discworld) '
(the Nac Mac Feegle), the
Feegles had to be mound-dwellers,
and they had to conform to the genuine
fairy stereotype of north-west
Europe - i.e., not automatically
friendly, and fond of a drink or
two, possibly more. As female Feegles
appear rare, Terry felt a need to
come up with a bee-like social structure,
as well as a need to explain why
they were so insanely courageous
and brave, which was this : they
think their dead , and in their
equivalent of Valhalla, where boozing
and fighting are all part of the
daily routine. You dont have to
be nice and quiet and good anymore,
youve been all that and now your
hear for your reward....their language
is gibberish, but sometimes quite
carefully crafted gibberish, made
up of slurred Gaelic, fractured
Auld Scots, a certain amount of
Glaswegian slang and some nonsense,
but nonsense made out of real ingredients.
Pictish
Society :
The archaeological
record provides evidence suggesting the
nature of the material culture of the Picts.
It tells of a society not readily distinguishable
from its similar Gaelic and British neighbours,
nor very different from the Anglo-Saxons
to the south. Although analogy and knowledge
of other "Celtic" societies
may be a useful guide, these extended
across a very large area. Relying on
knowledge of pre-Roman Gaul, or 13th
century Ireland, as
a guide to the Picts of
the 6th century may be misleading if
analogy is pursued too far.
As
with most peoples in the north of
Europe in Late Antiquity, the Picts
were farmers living in small communities.
Cattle and horses were an obvious
sign of wealth and prestige, sheep
and pigs were kept in large numbers,
and place names suggest that transhumance
was common. Animals were small by
later standards, although horses
from Britain were imported into Ireland
as breed-stock to enlarge native
horses. From Irish sources it appears
that the élite engaged in
competitive cattle-breeding for size,
and this may have been the case in
Pictland also. Carvings show hunting
with dogs, and also, unlike in Ireland,
with falcons. Cereal crops included
wheat, barley, oats and rye. Vegetables
included kale, cabbage, onions and
leeks, peas and beans, turnips and
carrots, and some types no longer
common, such as skirret. Plants such
as wild garlic, nettles and watercress
may have been gathered in the wild.
The pastoral economy meant that hides
and leather were readily available.
Wool was the main source of fibres
for clothing, and flax was also common,
although it is not clear if it was
grown for fibres, for oil, or as
a foodstuff. Fish, shellfish, seals
and whales were exploited along coasts
and rivers. The importance of domesticated
animals argues that meat and milk
products were a major part of the
diet of ordinary people, while the élite
would have eaten a diet rich in meat
from farming and hunting.
No
Pictish counterparts to the areas
of denser settlement around important
fortresses in Gaul and southern Britain,
or any other significant urban settlements,
are known. Larger, but not large,
settlements existed around royal
forts, such as at Burghead, or associated
with religious foundations. No towns
are known in Scotland until the 12th
century.
The
technology of everyday life is not
well recorded, but archaeological
evidence shows it to have been similar
to that in Ireland and Anglo-Saxon
England. Recently evidence has been
found of watermills in Pictland.
Kilns were used for drying kernels
of wheat or barley, not otherwise
easy in the changeable, temperate
climate.
The
early Picts are associated with piracy
and raiding along the coasts of Roman
Britain. Even in the Late Middle
Ages, the line between traders and
pirates was unclear, so that Pictish
pirates were probably merchants on
other occasions. It is generally
assumed that trade collapsed with
the Roman Empire, but this is to
overstate the case. There is only
limited evidence of long-distance
trade with Pictland, but tableware
and storage vessels from Gaul, probably
transported up the Irish Sea, have
been found. This trade may have been
controlled from Dunadd in Dál
Riata, where such goods appear to
have been common. While long-distance
travel was unusual in Pictish times,
it was far from unknown as stories
of missionaries, travelling clerics
and exiles show.
Brochs
are popularly associated with the
Picts. Although these were built
earlier in the Iron Age, with construction
ending around 100 AD, they remained
in use into and beyond the Pictish
period. Crannogs, which may originate
in Neolithic Scotland, may have been
rebuilt, and
some were still in use in the time of the
Picts.The most common sort of buildings
would have been roundhouses and rectangular
timbered halls. While many churches were
built in wood, from the early 8th century,
if not earlier, some were built in stone.
The Picts are
often said to have tattooed themselves,
but evidence for this is limited.
Naturalistic depictions of Pictish
nobles, hunters and warriors, male
and female, without obvious tattoos,
are found on monumental stones. These
stones include inscriptions in Latin
and Ogham script, not all of which
have been deciphered. The well known
Pictish symbols found on stones,
and elsewhere, are obscure in meaning.
A variety of esoteric explanations
have been offered, but the simplest
conclusion may be that these symbols
represent the names of those who
had raised, or are commemorated on
the stones. Pictish art can be classed
as Celtic, and later as Insular.
Irish poets portrayed their Pictish
counterparts as very much like themselves. |
Heather
Ale: A Galloway Legend
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94)
FROM the bonny bells of heather
They brewed a drink long-syne,
Was sweeter far than honey,
Was stronger far than wine.
They brewed it and they drank it,
And lay in a blessed swound
For days and days together
In their dwellings underground.
There rose a king in Scotland,
A fell man to his foes,
He smote the Picts in battle,
He hunted them like roes.
Over miles of the red mountain
He hunted as they fled,
And strewed the dwarfish bodies
Of the dying and the dead.
Summer came in the country,
Red was the heather bell;
But the manner of the brewing
Was none alive to tell.
In graves that were like children’s
On many a mountain head,
The Brewsters of the Heather
Lay numbered with the dead.
The king in the red moorland
Rode on a summer’s day;
And the bees hummed, and the curlews
Cried beside the way.
The king rode, and was angry;
Black was his brow and pale,
To rule in a land of heather
And lack the Heather Ale.
It fortuned that his vassals,
Riding free on the heath,
Came on a stone that was fallen
And vermin hid beneath.
Rudely plucked from their hiding,
Never a word they spoke:
A son and his aged father—
Last of the dwarfish folk.
The king sat high on his charger,
He looked on the little men;
And the dwarfish and swarthy couple
Looked at the king again.
Down by the shore he had them;
And there on the giddy brink—
“I will give you life, ye vermin,
For the secret of the drink.”
There stood the son and father
And they looked high and low;
The heather was red around them,
The sea rumbled below.
And up and spoke the father,
Shrill was his voice to hear:
“I have a word in private,
A word for the royal ear.
“Life is dear to the aged,
And honor a little thing;
I would gladly sell the secret,”
Quoth the Pict to the King.
His voice was small as a sparrow’s,
And shrill and wonderful clear:
“I would gladly sell my secret,
Only my son I fear.
“For life is a little matter,
And death is nought to the young;
And I dare not sell my honor
Under the eye of my son.
Take him, O king, and bind him,
And cast him far in the deep;
And it ’s I will tell the secret
That I have sworn to keep.”
They took the son and bound him,
Neck and heels in a thong,
And a lad took him and swung him,
And flung him far and strong,
And the sea swallowed his body,
Like that of a child of ten;—
And there on the cliff stood the father,
Last of the dwarfish men.
“True was the word I told you:
Only my son I feared;
For I doubt the sapling courage
That goes without the beard.
But now in vain is the torture,
Fire shall never avail:
Here dies in my bosom
The secret of Heather Ale.” |
Pictish
Religion :
Early Pictish
religion is presumed by some to have resembled
Celtic polytheism in general, although
only place names remain from the pre-Christian
era. The date at which the Pictish elite
converted to Christianity is uncertain,
but there are traditions which place Saint
Palladius in Pictland after leaving
Ireland, and link Abernethy with Saint
Brigid of Kildare. Saint Patrick refers
to "apostate
Picts", while the poem Y Gododdin
does not remark on the Picts as pagans.
Bede wrote that Saint Ninian (identified
with Saint Finnian of Moville, who died
c. 589), had converted the southern
Picts.Recent archaeological work at Portmahomack
places the foundation of the monastery there,
an area once assumed to be among the last
converted, in the late 6th century.This
is contemporary with Bridei mac Maelchon
and Columba, but the process of establishing
Christianity throughout Pictland will have
extended over a much longer period.
Pictland
was not solely influenced by Iona and Ireland.
It also had ties to churches in Northumbria,
as seen in the reign of Nechtan mac Der
Ilei. The reported expulsion of Ionan monks
and clergy by Nechtan in 717 may have been
related to the controversy over the dating
of Easter, and the manner of tonsure, where
Nechtan appears to have supported the Roman
usages, but may equally have been intended
to increase royal power over the church.
Nonetheless, the evidence of place names
suggests a wide area of Ionan influence
in Pictland. Likewise, the Cáin Adomnáin
(Law of Adomnán, Lex Innocentium)
counts Nechtan's brother Bridei among its
guarantors.
The
importance of monastic centres in Pictland
was not perhaps as great as in Ireland.
In areas which had been studied, such as
Strathspey and Perthshire, it appears that
the parochial structure of the High Middle
Ages existed in early medieval times. Among
the major religious sites of eastern Pictland
were Portmahomack, Cennrígmonaid
(later St Andrews), Dunkeld, Abernethy
and Rosemarkie. It appears that these are
associated with Pictish kings, which argues
for a considerable degree of royal patronage
and control of the church.
The
cult of Saints was, as throughout Christian
lands, of great importance in later Pictland.
While kings might patronise great Saints,
such as Saint Peter in the case of Nechtan,
and perhaps Saint Andrew in the case of
the second Óengus mac Fergusa, many
lesser Saints, some now obscure, were important.
The Pictish Saint Drostan appears to have
had a wide following in the north in earlier
times, although all but forgotten by the
12th century. Saint Serf of Culross was
associated with Nechtan's brother Bridei.
It appears, as is well known in later times,
that noble kin groups had their own patron
saints, and their own churches or abbeys.
History :
The means by
which the Pictish confederation formed in
Late Antiquity from a number of tribes is
as obscure as the processes which created
the Franks, the Alamanni
and similar confederations in Germany.
The presence of the Roman Empire, unfamiliar
in size, culture, political systems and
ways of making war, should be noted. Nor
can we ignore the wealth and prestige that
control of trade with Rome offered.
Other
tribes said to have lived in the area included
the Verturiones, Taexali
and Venicones. Except for
the Caledonians, the names
may be second- or third-hand: perhaps as
reported to the Romans by speakers of Brythonic
or Gaulish languages.
Pictish
recorded history begins in the so-called
Dark Ages. It appears that they were not
the dominant power in Northern Britain for
the entire period. Firstly the Gaels
of Dál Riata dominated the
region, but suffered a series of defeats
in the first third of the 7th century. The
Angles of Bernicia overwhelmed
the adjacent British kingdoms, and the neighbouring
Anglian kingdom of Deira (Bernicia and
Deira later being called Northumbria),
was to become the most powerful kingdom
in Britain. The Picts were probably tributary
to Northumbria until the reign of Bridei
map Beli, when the Anglians suffered a defeat
at the battle of Dunnichen which halted
their expansion northwards. The Northumbrians
continued to dominate southern Scotland
for the remainder of the Pictish period.
In
the reign of Óengus mac Fergusa
(729–761), Dál Riata
was very much subject to the Pictish king.
Although it had its own kings from the 760s,
it appears that Dál Riata did not
recover. A later Pictish king, Caustantín
mac Fergusa (793–820) placed
his son Domnall on the throne of Dál
Riata (811–835). Pictish
attempts to achieve a similar dominance
over the Britons of Alt Clut (Dumbarton)
were not successful.
The
Viking Age brought great changes in Britain
and Ireland, no less in Scotland than elsewhere.
The kingdom of Dál Riata was destroyed,
certainly by the middle of the 9th century,
when Ketil Flatnose is said to have founded
the Kingdom of the Isles. Northumbria too
succumbed to the Vikings, who founded the
Kingdom of York, and the kingdom of Strathclyde
was also greatly affected. The king of Fortriu
Eógan mac Óengusa, the king
of Dál Riata Áed mac Boanta,
and many more, were killed in a major battle
against the Vikings in 839. The rise of
Cínaed mac Ailpín (Kenneth
MacAlpin) in the 840s, in the aftermath
of this disaster, brought to power the family
who would preside over the last days of
the Pictish kingdom and found the new kingdom
of Alba, although Cínaed himself
was never other than king of the Picts.
In
the reign of Cínaed's grandson, Caustantín
mac Áeda (900–943),
the kingdom of the Picts became the kingdom
of Alba. The change from Pictland to Alba
may not have been noticeable at first; indeed,
as we do not know the Pictish name for their
land, it may not have been a change at all.
The Picts, along with their language, did
not disappear suddenly. The process of Gaelicisation,
which may have begun generations earlier,
continued under Caustantín and his
successors. When the last inhabitants of
Alba were fully Gaelicised, becoming Scots,
probably during the 11th century, the Picts
were soon forgotten.Later they would reappear
in myth and legend.
Pictish
Kings and Kingdoms :
The early history
of Pictland is, as has
been said, unclear. In later periods multiple
kings existed, ruling over separate kingdoms,
with one king, sometimes two, more or less
dominating their lesser neighbours. De Situ
Albanie, a late document, the Pictish Chronicle,
the Duan Albanach, along with Irish legends,
have been used to argue the existence of
seven Pictish kingdoms. These are as follows,
those in bold are known to have had kings,
or are otherwise attested in the Pictish
period:
Cait,
situated in modern Caithness and Sutherland
Ce, situated in modern Mar and Buchan
Circinn, perhaps situated in modern Angus
and the Mearns
Fib, the modern Fife, known to this day
as 'the Kingdom of Fife'
Fidach, location unknown
Fotla, modern Atholl (Ath-Fotla)
Fortriu, cognate with the Verturiones of
the Romans; recently shown to be centered
around Moray
More small kingdoms may have existed. Some
evidence suggest that a Pictish kingdom
also existed in Orkney.De Situ Albanie is
not the most reliable of sources, and the
number of kingdoms, one for each of the
seven sons of Cruithne, the eponymous founder
of the Picts, may well be grounds enough
for disbelief. Regardless of the exact number
of kingdoms and their names, the Pictish
nation was not a united one.
For
most of Pictish recorded history the kingdom
of Fortriu appears dominant, so much so
that king of Fortriu and king of the Picts
may mean one and the same thing in the annals.
This was previously thought to lie in the
area around Perth and the southern Strathearn,
whereas recent work has convinced those
working in the field that Moray (a name
referring to a very much larger area in
the High Middle Ages than the county of
Moray), was the core of Fortriu.
The
Picts are often said to
have practised matrilineal succession on
the basis of Irish legends and a statement
in Bede's history. In fact, Bede merely
says that the Picts used
matrilineal succession in exceptional cases.
The kings of the Picts
when Bede was writing were Bridei
and Nechtan, sons of Der
Ilei, who indeed claimed the throne through
their mother Der Ilei, daughter of an earlier
Pictish king.
In
Ireland, kings were expected to come from
among those who had a great-grandfather
who had been king. Kingly fathers were not
frequently succeeded by their sons, not
because the Picts practised matrilineal
succession, but because they were usually
followed by their brothers or cousins, more
likely to be experienced men with the authority
and the support necessary to be king.
The
nature of kingship changed considerably
during the centuries of Pictish history.
While kings had to be successful war leaders
to maintain their authority, kingship became
rather less personalised and more institutionalised
during this time. Bureaucratic kingship
was still far in the future when Pictland
became Alba, but the support of the church,
and the apparent ability of a small number
of families to control the kingship for
much of the period from the later 7th century
onwards, provided a considerable degree
of continuity. In the much same period,
the Picts' neighbours in Dál Riata
and Northumbria faced considerable difficulties
as the stability of succession and rule
which they had previously benefitted from
came to an end.
The
later Mormaers are thought to have originated
in Pictish times, and to have been copied
from, or inspired by, Northumbrian usages.
It is unclear whether the Mormaers were
originally former kings, royal officials,
or local nobles, or some combination of
these. Likewise, the Pictish shires and
thanages, traces of which are found in later
times, are thought to have been adopted
from their southern neighbours.
Pictish
Language :
The Pictish language
has not survived in a form that Historians
recognize. Excepted Evidence is limited
to place names and to the names of people
found on stone monuments and the contemporary
records in a language which was not far
in design from the Celtic "Ogham"
script but was not Celtic in context. The
evidence of place-names and personal names
argue strongly that the Picts spoke Insular
Celtic languages related to the more southerly
Brythonic languages. A number of inscriptions
have been argued to be non-Celtic, and on
this basis, it has been suggested that non-Celtic
languages were also in use.
The
absence of surviving written material in
Pictish does not mean a pre-literate society.
The church certainly required literacy,
and could not function without copyists
to produce liturgical documents. Pictish
iconography shows books being read, and
carried, and its naturalistic style gives
every reason to suppose that such images
were of real life. Literacy was not widespread,
but among the senior clergy, and in monasteries,
it would have been common enough.
Place-names
often allow us to deduce the existence of
historic Pictish settlements in Scotland.
Those prefixed with "Aber-", "Lhan-",
or "Pit-" indicate regions inhabited
by Picts in the past (for example: Aberdeen,
Lhanbryde, Pitmedden, Pittodrie etc).
Some of these, such as "Pit-"
(portion, share), were formed after Pictish
times, and may refer to previous "shires"
or "thanages".
The
evidence of place-names may also reveal
the advance of Gaelic into Pictland. As
noted, Atholl, meaning New Ireland, is attested
in the early 8th century. This may be an
indication of the advance of Gaelic. Fortriu
also contains place-names suggesting Gaelic
settlement, or Gaelic influences.
). 
