Pagan Symbols of the Picts by Stuart McHardy sampler

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the pagan symbols of the picts has shown that stories containing factual, provable data have survived upwards of 30,000 years in Australia, the idea that memories of such an event could survive for 10,000 years in Scotland is hardly impossible. The first written references we have to people in this part of the world come from the Romans. They called the people here Caledonians and Picts. In fact, the terms seem to have been inter - changeable and were applied effectively to the entire population north of Hadrian’s Wall. In their references to the people here they seem to have been using both terms as generic descriptors of the tribal peoples they came across. While the Romans were only in Scotland for one extended period – nowadays the Antonine Wall is seen as having lasted no more than about 15 to 20 years at the most (McCann 1988), and the campaign of Severus lasted only a few seasons in the early 3rd century – they do tell us quite a lot about the inhabitants. This is from the Roman Dio Cassius writing at the beginning of the 3rd century ce, There are two principal tribes of the Britons, the Caledonii and the Maeatae, and the names of the others have been merged in these two. The Maeatae live next to the cross-wall which cuts the island in half, and the Caledonians are beyond them. Both tribes inhabit wild and waterless mountains and desolate swampy plains, and possess neither walls, cities, nor tilled fields, but live on their flocks, wild game, and certain fruits; for they do not touch the fish which are found in immense and inexhaustible quantities. They dwell in tents, naked and unshod, possess their women in common and in common rear all their offspring. Their form of rule is democratic for the most part, and they are fond of plundering; consequently they choose their boldest men as rulers. They go into battle in chariots, and have small swift horses; there are also foot soldiers, very swift in running and very firm in standing their ground. For arms 16
who were the picts? they have a shield and a short spear, with a bronze apple attached to the end of the spear-shaft, so that when it is shaken it may clash and terrify the enemy; and they also have daggers. They can endure hunger and cold and any kind of hardship; for they plunge into the swamps and exist there for many days with only their heads above water, and in the forests they support themselves upon bark and roots, and for all emergencies they prepare a certain kind of food, the eating of a small portion of which, the size of a bean, prevents them from feeling either hunger or thirst. 1927, p.264 This is a description of a tribal warrior society and in the 2nd century, the Roman geographer Ptolemy gave a list of what were supposed to be the dominant tribes throughout the north of the British Isles. The inter pretation of what were essentially tribal areas as being in some way akin to modern nation states with defined boundaries and centralised political structures is anachronistic, certainly before the 7th century when the expanding Northumbrians perhaps began to force the natives of Scotland into tighter political and military alignments. Dio Cassius also tells us that one of the two main tribes of the Caledonians, the Maetae, lived up against the wall, that cuts the island in half’ (Ibid.). He was writing in 217ce, half a century after the Antonine Wall was finally abandoned, so is clearly writing about Hadrian’s Wall. The Maetae are generally accepted as the equivalent of the southern Picts so what this tells us is that, certainly from the Roman point of view, the Picts were the inhabitants of all of what we now think of as Scotland. Folklore talks of Pechs or Pechts from the Borders to Shetland. From this perspective, the Scots can be understood as one of the Pictish tribes, and certainly as part of the Pictish world. The reference by Cassius to the Caledonians being democratic is easily understood. We know that well into the late Medieval period the Highland tribes of Scotland, by now called clans, had an element of election in the selection of their chiefs and this is in fact 17
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Pagan Symbols of the Picts by Stuart McHardy sampler

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