The pagan Picts followed a broadly similar religion to other Celtic peoples, overseen by the Druids. While there is little concrete information on Pictish religious practices, the general flavour of Pictish beliefs is well recorded through the eyes of Irish churchmen such as St Columba and his biographer St Adomnan in the 6th and 7th centuries.
Like other pagan Celts, the Picts believed in a pantheon of gods and a supernatural ‘otherworld’, and an imaginative and colourful mythology permeated every aspect of Pictish life. It was a world where rivers and trees were sacred, where islands were rocks cast by giants, and where every well had sprung up from the touch of a saint’s staff. The Irish missionaries regarded the Picts as particularly superstitious, and Adomnan recorded that, ‘when the blessed man [St Columba] abode for some days in the kingdom of the Picts, he heard a rumour spread among the heathen people concerning another fountain, which the stupid folk reverenced as a god’.
A Pictish bull sacrifice (left) and two images of human sacrifice, from Glamis Manse and St Vigeans.
Magic was extremely important; the Druids at Brude mac Maelchon’s court were described as magi, and strenuously opposed Columba’s efforts with curses and incantations, while the king was deeply impressed by St Columba’s own magical signs. The Picts also seem to have had a deep connection with the animals that shared their land. Animal symbolism was obviously important, and it has often been remarked that the Pictish sculptors captured a spark of life in their animals that they rarely achieved with their human subjects.
Encounters between the Pictish Druids and the first Christians were sometimes hostile, but in general Pictish society underwent a peaceful transition to Christianity. St Ninian began conversion of the Southern Picts around 450, and in 486 St Darlugdach, Abbess of Kildare, was granted land at Abernethy by the Southern Pictish king Nechtan. By the time St Columba began his mission to the Northern Picts in 565 the Southern Picts ‘are said to have abandoned the errors of idolatry long before this date and accepted the true faith’. Iona’s speedy success with the Northern Picts was probably due to the ambition of Brude mac Maelchon to become king of both kingdoms – he needed a single religion to unite his people.
Rhynie Man is a tonsured figure who may be a local warrior-saint, perhaps St Columba himself. His two-handed battle-axe resembles that of the Sutton Hoo find.
Like most early churchmen, St Columba usually sought to sanctify rather than extirpate native traditions, and when he came across phenomena such as a Pictish sacred spring he would bless it so that ‘from that day the demon separated from the water’. The Pictish church, like other Celtic churches, achieved a tolerant synthesis with Druidic spirituality and local superstition. The survival of headhunting has already been noted, and it is clear that the Picts continued to believe in the magical power of symbols and animals. Divination through the ‘second sight’ was probably as important to Pictish society as it was to later Highlanders, and small painted charm-stones, similar to those used by Highlanders, are a common Pictish artefact.
One surviving link with Pictish beliefs may be that of the ‘horse whisperers’, practitioners of ancient craft that is said to have originated with the Picts or in the north-east. ‘Horse whisperers’ once formed a legendary elite among farm workers, and used several arcane methods to control and manipulate their animals. A low, whispering mumbling in the horse’s ear ‘in their own language’ and the use of body language was combined with spells, potions, and equine aromatherapy. Repellent or ‘jading’ scents, such as a dead mole or bracken spores, could cause a horse to stop dead, and aromatic ‘drawing’ oils, involving oregano, rosemary, cinnamon, fennel and ginger, were used to neutralise ‘jaders’ or calm difficult horses. Such secrets could confer great advantages if, for example, horse whisperers managed to distribute ‘jaders’ across the path of the enemy cavalry.
Pictish art is at its best when depicting animals, indicating a close observation of the natural world, with both reverence and the practical eye of the hunter.
Pictish stones also record images of sacrifice, which was clearly an important part of Pictish rites. There is one bull sacrifice, a custom recorded as late as the 17th century in the Highlands. Even more remarkably there are two carvings of human sacrifice, apparently by drowning in a cauldron. This practice is confirmed by references in the Annals of Tigernach to the Picts drowning enemy leaders in 734 and 739. Human sacrifice was widespread in the Celtic world, and a Briton named Odran even offered himself as a foundational sacrifice for St Columba to chase away the demons from Iona. The victims of ritual execution were usually criminals or prisoners of war; Bede recorded that following the battle of Dunnichenin in AD 685, ‘many of the English at this time were killed’, and Sueno’s stone also depicts ritual beheadings following a battle. Although the Irish church abhorred human sacrifice, the Picts apparently retained a ritual manner of execution.
Pictish burials also provide evidence of Pictish religion, with cemeteries of long stone-lined cists, oriented east-west. Unlike earlier burials there are no grave-goods, indicating the graves were probably Christian, though the orientation of the bodies with the head to the west (the direction of the Celtic Otherworld) indicates a strong survival of pagan folk-belief as well. The Pictish church was never integrated in the Irish church, and tended towards alignment with Rome rather than Iona, probably due to the early efforts of St Ninian. In 717 the Pictish king Nechtan finally brought the Pictish church into communion with Rome and expelled the Columban monks ‘across the spine of Britain’.
All Celtic warriors were proud and boastful, and extremely concerned with outward appearances. They loved the external trappings of wealth and privilege, as Pictish tattoos and silver jewellery testify, but it was more important to appear courageous and honourable. Because of this, they were prone to swagger and exaggerate. Emer describes herself to Cú Chulainn as ‘Tara among women, fairest of maidens, a paragon of chastity’, while Cú Chulainn boasts that ‘At my weakest, I’m a match for twenty. A third of my strength is enough for thirty…Warriors avoid the battlefield for fear of me, and whole armies flee before me’, to which Emer nonchalantly replies ‘Not bad for a boy’.
Pictish centaurs may be symbolic of horse-whisperers or an Epona cult. A supernatural origin is suggested in the Irish tale The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel, where the ‘Room of the Cupbearers’ contains ‘six men…Fair yellow manes upon them: green mantles about them: tin brooches at the opening of their mantles. Half-horses are they, like Conall Cernach…Those are the King of Tara’s six cupbearers…They will share prowess with any six in the Hostel, and they will escape from their foes, for they are out of the elfmounds’.
A Pictish concern with honour and bravery would perhaps explain their lack of armour and even helmets. Fighting unarmoured was a deliberate choice by the Picts, who would certainly have had access to excess amounts of leather for cuir bouilli, and were sophisticated and capable metalworkers. The motivation may have been similar to that for fighting naked, in that it proved the warrior’s courage and invoked the protection of the gods, or God. This possibility is suggested by the attitudes of other Celtic warriors, such as at Caratacus’ last battle in AD 50, where the Britons forewent ‘the protection of breastplates or helmets’, believing their shields were all the protection a warrior needed. At the battle of the Standard in AD 1138 the unarmoured Galloway tribesmen were initially placed at the rear of the Scottish formation. Regarding this as an insult to their valour, the Gallovidian chieftain declared ‘I wear no armour, yet they who do will not advance beyond me this day’, indicating that relying upon armour was seen as cowardly.
All Celtic societies held the warrior in high social esteem, and they fought within a strict code of honour. Celtic folklore abounds in incidents where heroes, assailed by multiple opponents, are chivalrously attacked one by one – there was no glory or honour in simply swarming over an enemy. The Pictish choice of small bucklers and broad, cutting swords indicates that single combat also played a large part in Pictish military encounters, as this combination confers considerable advantages in duelling, but is far from ideal in large-scale battle. Sueno’s Stone shows two figures, presumably champions, duelling with sword-and-buckler in front of the watching army, indicating a Pictish custom of single combat much like that recorded by the Romans amongst ancient Celts.
Despite such bravado, outsmarting a stronger enemy was considered perfectly honourable, and the Celts were not above resorting to trickery. For example, when the legendary Pictish warrior-woman Scatha went to war with her rival Aife, whom she ‘dreaded as the hardest woman warrior in the world . . . Aife challenged Scathach to single combat. Cú Chulainn went up to Scathach and asked her what Aife held most dear above all else.
‘Three things she holds most dear,’ said Scathach. ‘Are her two horses, her chariot and her charioteer.’
Cú Chulainn met Aife and fought her on the ‘rope of feats’. Aife smashed Cú Chulainn’s weapon. All she left him was a part of his sword no bigger than a fist.
‘Look, oh look!’ Cú Chulainn said, ‘Aife’s charioteer and her two horses and the chariot have fallen into the valley, they are all dead!’
Aife looked around and Cú Chulainn leaped at her and seized her by the two breasts. He took her on his back like a sack, and brought her back to his own army. He threw her heavily onto the ground and held a naked sword over her.’
The Pictish warrior was part of a close-knit unit, in which the clannishness of the Celts was at its most extreme, with the warriors living, eating, sleeping, fighting, killing and dying together. The respect a warrior won from a glorious death did, to some extent, mitigate the sorrow at their loss, but Dark Age British poetry indicates that the death of a beloved leader had an intense impact on the warrior’s mind.
A head I carry in my cloak:
The head of Urien, generous ruler of his court.
On his white chest ravens glut themselves.
A head I carry in my hand:
The head of the pillar of Britain has been toppled.
My arm has become numb.
My breast beats.
My heart is broken.
This reverence for leaders stemmed from an ancient belief that the well-being of the chief or king reflected itself in the well-being of the land. If the king was in harmony with his duties then the land flourished, but if a king was unjust or neglected his obligations, this was reflected back on the land. In practice a king’s rule was often judged by the state of his country, rather than the other way round, and the ‘self-evident’ proofs of the falsehood of a king were signs such as defeat in battle, dryness of cows or scarcity of corn. Aeden of Dalriada was removed from office early in the 7th century after he was defeated by the Angles at Degastan, and the Pictish king-lists indicate several instances where the Pictish nobles would seem to have removed a king.
