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Posted: 28-02-2006 22:43 Post subject:

Margaret Murray mentioned that witches were said to have a blue mark upon them, -presumably a tattoo?

And in the Hogmany celebrations the `first footer` was said to be a dark person. Now most scots are blonde or light brown haired, in old scotland if you had really dark hair it would mean you were another race, a pict perhaps? or in west coastal areas, a saami? (and so presumably a magician)

(I dont know if there were many true romanies in scotland; were the tinkers dark haired?

Posted: 01-03-2006 14:56 Post subject:

The Celts of Britain traded fairly extensively with Gaul and were master jewlery makers and goldsmiths, part of the reason the Romans invaded...that and I think there is some speculation we used to help fund Gaulish efforts to beat the crap out of them on a regular basis.
Britian used to export metalwork, though it lacked the mass manufacture of the Romans.

Let us not forget there were people already in Britain before the Celtic tribes arrived, the megalith constructors for one. So yes, the dark haired picts were separate from the Celts, though seemingly they were influenced by the Celts and no doubt interbreeding, at least later on, as evidenced by Pictish artwork in the north of Scotland. Spirals and cup and ring markings etc.

Posted: 01-03-2006 23:51 Post subject:

The term 'True Romanies' is somewhat pejorative and usually employed by those wishing to impose sanctions on those of a nomadic bent. Whatever you may think of that, it's probably best left here to the Kilroys of the world.

But, yes Scotland does have a Romany (that is, Romani-speaking and observant of cultural taboos and mores found across Romani populations in Europe) community mostly concentrated in the lowlands, particularly numerous in Larkhall, West Lothian and the borders. Scotland had its own Gypsy Kings, crowned at Yetholm until the late nineteenth century. Most of them are from the Kalderash tribe.

The position of the 'Tinkers' is somewhat different. There has been a great deal of intermarriage in some parts, giving rise to the 'Gypsy Traveller' epithet. Generally though, the two groups do not get on, the Tinkers referring to the Romanies as 'thae foreigners' while the Romanies turn their nose up at them and think up much more creative names, usually in Romani.

Scottish Tinkers are of a kind with the Irish and speak Cant, although in the highlands they spoke a Gaelic backslang known as buerla regaird. Timothy Neat's The Summer Walkers was published a few years ago and is probably the most authoritative recent account of these northern Tinkers, known as the Ceardannan. their roots go back at least as far as Celtic/Gaelic Scotland, though others have posited that due to their distinctive use of words not-cognate with Gaelic, Scots or English and their physical appearance, they may be a Pictish or Neolithic throwback. Neat himself plumps for a relationship with the Lapps and Sami, supported somewhat by cultural similarities and their facial appearance. He describes Tinkers as broad-headed, relatively flat faced and stocky, often dark haired but sometimes fair-headed, like the Sami. And it is true, if you know what to look for you can usually detect Tinker ancestry among some individuals from these features - although Neat's association is very much a circumstantial theory.

However, Traveller populations are no more static than settled - the ranks of Scotland's Travelling people have been swollen since the process of land clearance began in the 17th century, reaching a height with the Highland clearances, the Scottish Potato Famine and movement towards an enclosure system. Not sure if any of these DNA wizards have been conducting any tests in this area or not.

Anyway, hope that clears up some of your questions

Posted: 01-03-2006 23:56 Post subject: Ps...

In both Scotland and Ireland the instances of 'Iberians' - dark haired, relatively dark skinned people among the population has been long reported. In Ireland, folklore attributes it to a throwback from Milesius, the Spanish Celt who allegedly brought the current day residents over to Ireland in his prehistoric conquest of the country. The Iberians have also been linked to Spanish survivors of the Armada, washed ashore and taken up with local girls.It has also, of course, been linked to signs of the Pretani or Cruithne, the early pre-Celtic population of Scotland and Ireland and apparent progenitors of the Picts still extant among the population.

I'll shut up now.

Posted: 02-03-2006 00:12 Post subject:

Yes, that is what I meant, Cruithne

Posted: 06-08-2008 08:33 Post subject:

Long but interesting article here on the Pictish monastery at Portmahomack on the Tarbat peninsula in Easter Ross. (Apparently they used the Golden Section,amongst other things.)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-truth-about-the-picts-886098.html

Posted: 06-08-2008 17:08 Post subject:

Oh and extracting the blue dye from woad produces a really strong foul smell and processing it was banned from within city limits during medeival times. Apparently it smells like excrement and boiled cabbage.

Posted: 10-08-2008 20:14 Post subject:

A link to article on a pictish stone near my home.
http://www.ancient-scotland.co.uk/site.php?a=141

There is the site of a Pictish fort at nearby Burghead, although as usual with sites in Scotland, not much has been done to exploit this site or educate people about the Pictish life.

Then of course theres Robbie the Pict, who is an interesting individual and who keeps coming up with little gems which have embarrased the government and succeeded in the abolition of tolls on the Skye Bridge.
http://www.highlanderweb.co.uk/robpict.htm

Posted: 11-08-2008 10:21 Post subject:

Posted: 11-08-2010 08:54 Post subject:

Ancient language mystery deepens
By Victoria Gill, Science reporter, BBC News

A linguistic mystery has arisen surrounding symbol-inscribed stones in Scotland that predate the formation of the country itself.

The stones are believed to have been carved by members of an ancient people known as the Picts, who thrived in what is now Scotland from the 4th to the 9th Centuries.

These symbols, researchers say, are probably "words" rather than images.

But their conclusions have raised criticism from some linguists.

The research team, led by Professor Rob Lee from Exeter University in the UK, examined symbols on more than 200 carved stones.

They used a mathematical method to quantify patterns contained within the symbols, in an effort to find out if they conveyed meaning.

Professor Lee described the basis of this method.

"It I told you the first letter of a word in English was 'Q' and asked you to predict the next letter, you would probably say 'U' and you would probably be right," he explained.

"But if I told you the first letter was 'T' you would probably take many more guesses to get it right - that's a measure of uncertainty."

Using the symbols, or characters, from the stones, Professor Lee and his colleagues measured this feature of so-called "character to character uncertainty".

They concluded that the Pictish carvings were "symbolic markings that communicated information" - that these were words rather than pictures.

Professor Lee first published these conclusions in April of this year. But a recent article by French linguist Arnaud Fournet opened up the mystery once again.

Mr Fournet said that, by examining Pictish carvings as if they were "linear symbols", and by applying the rules of written language to them, the scientists could have produced biased results.

He commented to BBC News: "It looks like their method is transforming two-dimensional glyphs into a one-dimensional string of symbols.

"The carvings must have some kind of purpose- some kind of meanings, but... it's very difficult to determine if their conclusion is contained in the raw data or if it's an artefact of their method."

Mr Fournet also suggested that the researchers' methods should be tested and verified for other ancient symbols.

"The line between writing and drawing is not as clear-cut as categorised in the paper," Mr Fournet wrote in his article. "On the whole the conclusion remains pending."

But Professor Lee says that his most recent analysis of the symbols, which has yet to be published, has reinforced his original conclusions.

He also stressed he did not claim that the carvings were a full and detailed record of the Pictish language.

"The symbols themselves are a very constrained vocabulary," he said. "But that doesn't mean that Pictish had such a constrained vocabulary."

He said the carvings might convey the same sort of meaning as a list, perhaps of significant names, which would explain the limited number of words used.

"It's like finding a menu for a restaurant [written in English], and that being your sole repository of the English language."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10924743

Posted: 11-08-2010 09:09 Post subject:

So they were Pictograms, yes?

I was in Pictland in April, took Dad to see a few stones (and a Souterrain)

He was most upset when I told him no one knew what they meant.

Posted: 11-02-2013 02:06 Post subject:

Well, I presume Picts were the ancestors of the Scots? So I am putting this here:

Posted: 11-02-2013 12:06 Post subject:

Posted: 11-02-2013 12:32 Post subject:

I knew I was going to be corrected on this one! Laughing

But there isn't a Scoti thread and this statue would be of the time of the Picts, right? Wrong, no doubt...

Posted: 11-02-2013 12:34 Post subject: