If the 8th century sculptured stone at Fowlis Wester is anything to go by, the Picts were a dapper looking bunch. The men, that is, as they’re the ones depicted on the carved stones we see today. With razor-sharp beards and nifty topknots, they’d be quite at home amongst today’s hirsute males. And as both mirrors and combs feature among the symbols carved on Pictish stones, they must have been deemed to be of great importance to be given such lasting status. Cool dudes, indeed!
Yet they’re an elusive bunch, our Pictish ancestors. We know they were tribes in northern and eastern Scotland who spoke a Celtic language and flourished from the 3rd to the 9th centuries, spanning the late Iron Age and the early medieval period. Yet there’s still much about them we don’t know.
Fortunately, there have been a number of Pictish-related archaeological projects in recent years. These excavations have unearthed (and are still unearthing) finds that have added greatly to our knowledge and understanding of the Picts. And as knowledge of the past is not static, as any archaeologist worth his or her salt knows, there’s always more to discover.
East of Fowlis Wester is the village of Forteviot: a small, unassuming place, yet one with a remarkable past. It was once the heart of the mighty kingdom of the southern Picts and would go on to be acknowledged as the ‘cradle of Scotland’. The place where the Scots and the Picts finally came together as the Kingdom of Alba, which in turn gave birth to the nation that would become Scotland.
That transformation is a fascinating story. And one which I examine in this month’s article. The story of our Pictish ancestors is riveting history. And slowly but surely, bit by bit, we’re learning more.
The 25th of January 2019 sees the 260th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns. Burns has been voted the Greatest Scot by the Scots themselves and his work is known and admired the world over. For a man who died when he was only thirty-seven, that really is an amazing achievement.
How fortunate we are to have a man like Burns as part of our nation’s history and culture. How worthwhile it is to take a longer look at who he was and what he did. How worthy he is of that glass raised in his honour at your Burns Supper – a man whose works are definitely worth remembering, not just on the 25th of January, but all year round!
Spent time in a queue in the Post Office recently? Stamps for Christmas cards? Parcels to post? This is probably the one time of year many of us use stamps. They’re such small things that we tend to take them for granted. Yet, before their introduction in 1840, you had to be rich to communicate with anyone who didn’t live close to home. The Penny Post was a huge, beneficial, change for ordinary people and letter writing flourished. Postcards appeared and greeting cards for every occasion soon followed.
The vital contribution made by postal workers was celebrated in the 1936 GPO film Night Mail, with W.H. Auden’s famous poem recited to the rhythm of the rushing wheels of the train.
How quick we can be to label other people. To slot them into categories. Pigeonhole them. And, yes, it can make them easier to deal with. But also easier to ignore or dehumanise. Shades of “But of course s/he’s (add your own label), and you know what they’re like!” Case dismissed.
And perhaps we have choices to make as well. Do we go along with the ‘buffoonery’ that in reality hides a toxic attitude to any kind of social justice, and which is damaging not just individuals, but actively dismantling the very fabric of our society; or do we say ‘Enough is enough’? What sort of country do we want to live in and leave to the next generation? We look back and applaud the Chartists, the Abolitionists, the Suffragettes, the young men who died in senseless wars. But we face as grave a challenge to our society as they ever did – the ball’s in our court now. What are we going to do with it?
Gerda Stevenson is a woman of very many talents: actor, playwright, director, poet, singer, song-writer, to name but a few. Now she’s turned again to poetry to draw our attention to the lives and achievements – as well as the hardships and challenges – of sixty-seven amazing Scottish women. Women who deserve our admiration and respect. But first of all we need to know of their existence, for too often women are written out of history and allowed to become invisible.
Quines: poems in tribute to women of Scotland was four years in the writing. Much reading, researching and tracking down of sources went into getting to know the women she wanted to write about. Women whom she found inspiring and hopes others will find inspirational too.
I’m grateful that Gerda has brought these women out of the shadows and back into the light. And we need as much light as we can get these days! But I also feel strongly that it’s Gerda’s own strength of character and determination that has achieved this. Her life and beliefs are inspirational too. She’s as much one of these Quines as any of her subjects. And I hope that’s what my article conveys.
In many ways The Black Island is a straightforward detective thriller, its lasting popularity boosted by the “ripping yarn” nature of its plot. Hitchcock’s film version of John Buchan’s The 39 Steps had come out not long before the first edition of The Black Island and there are similarities between the two. Both have a hero who accidentally stumbles across a gang of villains, who is then wrongly accused of a crime, but escapes capture and heads for the wilds of Scotland, all the while being pursued by criminals and police alike. Though the police in Buchan’s ‘shocker’ could never have been quite as incompetent as that pompous pair, Thomson and Thompson! Despite them however, both stories share exciting pacing and plotting, leading to a denouement in the rugged, wild and isolated Scottish countryside.
And how did this villainous band manage to get on and off the island? The answer to that comes again from Barra, as Hergé used the beach landing strip at Barra Airport as the model for the landing strip on the beach of the Black Island. All in all, it’s one of the best constructed and thrilling of Hergé’s Tintin canon – thanks in no small measure to the islands of Arran and Barra!
What wonderful, bold and stirring words! Perhaps doubly so when you realise they were written by a woman living in 16th-17th century Scotland. Even though I studied Scottish History at Edinburgh University, I have to confess I’d never heard of Elizabeth Melville. Though as I was a student some decades ago now, that’s perhaps not totally surprising. Women have tended to be left on the back-burner when it comes to academic recognition. So it’s great that she’s finally being acknowledged for all that she achieved.
It’s thanks to Dr Jamie Reid-Baxter, a Scottish historian and former European Parliament translator, who has championed her work and brought it to attention as never before. In March 2017 he wrote a lengthy and fascinating article for iScot magazine, and from reading that I learned that Elizabeth was published in 1603, making her Scotland’s first woman in print. Her poem, Ane Godlie Dreame, was such a success that by 1606 it was into its third edition, and by 1735 had gone through at least thirteen editions. Jamie describes the work thus, “480 lines long, it is a dramatic account of the human spirit’s journey from depression and despair to final affirmation, on a cosmic scale.”
exist because of the struggles of people like Elizabeth Melville. To simply shrug off their beliefs and actions is to demean and belittle the sacrifices of previous generations. And who knows what future generations will smile at about the things we hold dear today!
the women who went before us. As Jamie says, “People do want to take ownership of long-suppressed aspects of Scotland’s past. The role of the female 50% in creating what we know as Scotland is acknowledged in the Great Tapestry of Scotland, but most of the female images are anonymous because history has been written by men for men.”
For those living in the Central Belt of Scotland the countryside is never far away. Despite being the area with the highest population density in Scotland (3.5 million out of 5.4 million), it doesn’t take long to reach the clean air and open spaces of the countryside.