the Picts & the Lost English Mythology

[Europa]

Map showing the approximate areas of the kingdom of Fortriu and neighbours c. 800, and the kingdom of Alba c. 900

[Europa]

Pictish kings and kingdoms
 
 
Map showing the approximate areas of the kingdom of Fortriu and neighbours c. 800, and the kingdom of Alba c. 900
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.[39] 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[40]
•   Fib, the modern Fife, known to this day as 'the Kingdom of Fife'
•   Fidach, location unknown
•   Fotla, modern Atholl (Ath-Fotla)[41]
•   Fortriu, cognate with the Verturiones of the Romans; recently shown to be centered around Moray[42]
More small kingdoms may have existed. Some evidence suggest that a Pictish kingdom also existed in Orkney.[43] 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.[44] 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.[45]
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.[46] 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.[47]
In Ireland, kings were expected to come from among those who had a great-grandfather who had been king.[48] 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.[49]
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.[50]
The later Mormaers are thought to have originated in Pictish times, and to have been copied from, or inspired by, Northumbrian usages.[51] 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.[52]

[Europa]

Pictish language

The Pictish language is the extinct language of the Picts, once spoken in what is now Scotland. Evidence of the language is limited to place names and to the names of people found on monuments and the contemporary records. At its height, it may have been spoken from Shetland down to Fife.

The classification of the Pictish language is still controversial. An influential review of Pictish was that by Jackson, who considered that Pictish may have been non Celtic or have a non Celtic substratum. However Forsyth denies this.

In 1582, the humanist scholar (and native Gaelic-speaker) George Buchanan, expressed the view that Pictish was similar to languages like Welsh, Gaulish and Gaelic. The rest of research into Pictish has been described as postscript to Buchanan's work. [1]

According to W. B. Lockwood (1975) the view that Pictish was a Celtic language is tentative. Referring to an inscription in Shetland he writes: "When the personal names are extracted, the residue is entirely incomprehensible. Thus the Lunnasting stone in Shetland reads ettocuhetts ahehhttann hccvvevv nehhtons. The last word is clearly the commonly occurring name Nechton, but the rest, even allowing for the perhaps arbitrary doubling of consonants in Ogam, appears so exotic that philologists conclude that Pictish was a non-Indo-European language of unknown affinities".

However, the evidence of place names and personal names argue strongly that the Picts spoke Insular Celtic languages related to the more southerly Brythonic languages[2] though it has also been proposed that the language was closer to Gaulish than the Brythonic languages.[3] Columba, a Gael, needed an interpreter in Pictland when conducting ceremonies in Latin; Bede claimed that the Picts spoke a different language from the Britons, statements which say nothing about the nature of the Pictish language. It has been argued that one or more non-Indo-European languages survived in Pictland, an argument that is considered to be primarily based on limited negative evidence and the long discarded view that languages and material cultures can spread only through invasion and migration.[4] Pre-Indo-European elements can be found fairly frequently in northern Scottish place names[citation needed], and it is theorised that some Pictish ogam inscriptions may also represent examples of this language.

Place names are often used to try to deduce the existence of historic Pictish settlements in Scotland. Those prefixed with "Aber-" (river mouth), "Lhan-" (churchyard), "Pit-" (portion, share, farm), or "Fin-" (hill [?]) lie in regions inhabited by Picts in the past (for example: Aberdeen, Lhanbryde, Pitmedden, Pittodrie, Findochty, etc). However, it is "Pit-" which is the most distinctive element, while "Aber-" can also be found in places which were Brythonic-speaking. Some of the Pictish elements, such as "Pit-", were formed after Pictish times and only attested therein, and the term refers to a unit of land. "Pit-" names occur in Scottish Gaelic place-names from the 12th century onwards as a generic element variation, showing that the word had this meaning in that language.[5] Other suggested place-name elements include "pert" (hedge, Welsh perth - Perth, Larbert), "carden" (thicket, Welsh cardden - Pluscarden, Kincardine), "pevr" (shining, Welsh pefr - Strathpeffer, Peffery).[6]

The evidence of place names may also reveal the advance of Gaelic into Pictland. As noted, Atholl, perhaps 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.[7] There are a number of Pictish loanwords in modern Scottish Gaelic.

Apart from personal names, Bede provides a single Pictish place name (HE, I, 12), when discussing the Antonine Wall:

It begins at about two miles' distance from the monastery of Abercurnig, on the west, at a place called in the Pictish language, Peanfahel, but in the English tongue, Penneltun, and running to the westward, ends near the city Alcluith.

Peanfahel - modern Kinneil, by Bo'ness - appears to contain elements cognate with Brythonic penn 'at the end' and Goidelic fal 'wall'. It is notable that this place is south of the Forth, in West Lothian, outside of what is traditionally regarded as "Pictland". Alcluith, 'rock of the Clyde', is modern Dumbarton Rock, site of a major early medieval fortress and later castle.

[Europa]

In other media

•   At 13, Robert E. Howard, being of Scottish descent, began his studies of Scottish history and became fascinated with the Picts, whom he called "the small dark Mediterranean aborigines of Britain."[58] Later, as an author, he created the character Bran Mak Morn, the last king of the Picts, who appeared in stories in Weird Tales. The Picts also appeared as savages in many Conan the Barbarian books and comic books. It should be noted, however, that the Picts of Howard's Conan stories bear more resemblance with indigenous Native Americans than anything else, with particularly similarity in parts to pre-Colombian Central and South American cultures. In "Conan the Usurper", Conan journeys through the Pictish wilderness.[59]
•   The Picts are a faction in the Medieval: Total War expansion "Viking Invasion." The faction consists of the entirety of Pictish lands, rather than a single kingdom. A player can command a group of Pictish forces.[60]
•   In Werewolf: the Apocalypse, the lost tribe of the White Howlers was aid to have interbred with the Picts. They were ultimately corrupted into the Black Spiral Dancers, a perversion of all that is sacred to the Garou.

[Zeptepi]

Europa,
Thanks for digging up all these reference to the ‘Picts’ still, quite romantically, it  seems ‘pict’uring them as being a race apart. 

They we not.  Indeed they have never been proved otherwise.  It is just a Romanised name for a people they could not dominate. Tests your sources!

Perhaps any serious interest would be better served investigating the DNA pool these people belonged to.  That pool is hardly any different to the Celts, Anglo/Saxons or the Norwegians.  However, it may be noted that the ‘small Mediterranean types’ were exactly that.  Scotland became home  to many seafarers and settlers since 10000BP.  More lately in 2000BP - the Romans and North Africans (Carthaginians) Spanish and so on - all from the Mediterranean  rim.  These are people who stayed on.  That is the nature of immigration.  For example last century, after the WWII, many of the thousands of Italian POW’s,  kept captive in Scotland, choose to remain where they were rather than go home.  As Mac Donald is very common in Scotland so now is Valerio. Italo-Scots, Scots-Italians or Scottish-Italian has a proud heritage, one that Scotland has benefited over the years.  And of course Italo-Scots were here long before the 1940’s.  This is the same many other races, from all over the world, that proudly inhabit my land.

A ‘Pict’ may be turning in his/her grave that mere mention of them beckons them to be any different from those survivors dating back to 11500BP.  Those days till now are hardly different.

I do hope that your quest is not some silly race purity pursuit that so many in the US engage with.  Just like your forum picture depicting  you to be some idealised  blonde blue eyed goddess called ‘Europa’.

Yes, this is a bit of a telling off, a polite one.  Look beyond Goggle or what ever easy source came your way to fit in with your own idea of the cosmos.

John.

[Europa]

John,

I have looked over my last few posts concerning the Picts, and I honestly don't see what you are complaining about.  The past posts reference Pict society, religion and their kings.  Apart from that, we have a picture and then some references to how the Picts have been depicted in popular culture.

There is no intent to make of them anything more than another tribe, and I doubt that they would take offensive to any of the ways they have been  depicted, which is simply as another tribe.  Note that this topic falls under the category of the "Celts," it is not anywhere else.  The Iceni are another Celtic tribe that I feel warrant some study, and, of course one can also spend much time devoted to the Druids as well.

The study of these people alone does not set them apart from other Celtic tribes.  As for studying them being part of a quest for "racial superemacy" I don't see where that is coming from at all.  I have started topics here not simply on the Picts, but on the Sumerians, Basques, Berbers & Guanches as well, and the great majority of those people were hardly said to have blond hair and blue eyes.  My picture, incidentally, happens to be me.

You might wish to look at my research on the Sumerians if you want to enter into a more constructtive conversation.

Europa