PICTISE TH H ANIMALS OBSERVED by C. A. GORDON, F.S.A.SGOT.

THE animals to be examined are those depicted in the few freestanding animal portraits, containe Clasn di Romill f o sI y Alien's Early Christian Monuments of Scotland with another, execute muca t da h earlier date deee th , r engrave roca n Glen kdi o n Domhain, Argyll. Pictise Th 1 h design commonly called 'The Elephant' will alse ob considered. ROEDEER e GleTh n Domhain roedee immediatels i r y recognisabl whar fros ei fo e t mi tth outline of the body and antlers (PL XXVIII, i). The foreface, however, is drawn nearl ynaturen i twics i lont s i ea . s ga Thi characteristia s si c already see mucn i h more ancient representations of deer and is to be met with later among the Pictish designs. Alpublishee lth d drawings sho Glee wth n Domhain animal wit htaila membea , r which roebuck t possessno t whico sd bu ,d bee hha n clumsily retouched whee nth ston sees casy 1954en wa an t occurei i anatomn e I poina . th t sa n i t y whero en anima publishee ltaila eved Th . rha d drawing also show stina e stickin t frogou m foreheade th , whic perhaps hi originan sa l stonee fissurth , likallegee n i or ,e eth d tail deliberata , e 'improvement laten i ' r times.

FIG. i. Rock carving of reindeer from Nord-Tr0ndelag, Norway This blurrin roedeer'e th f go s identit bees yha n take nstaga e furthe locaa y b lr legend to the effect that the figure commemorates the 'last reindeer killed in Scot- land'. Apart from the late and romantic aspect of the story, this is no reindeer. Fig. i shows a Norwegian rock carving of a reindeer,2 of much earlier date, it is true, t carryinbu g convictio identite animath e th o t f ys o n a l represented.e Herth e ear 1 Antiquity, (1941)v x , 290. 2 Hagen, A., Rock Carvings Norwayn i (1965), 15. 215 2l6 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY, 1964-66 reindeer's shoulder hump, spreading horn pointed san d charactere tai wels th a l s a l - istic carriage of its head. RED DEER The Ardross red-deer head (PI. XXVIII, 2) may well be among the earliest of our Pictish stones.1 The identity of this animal as a red deer2 is made probable jad lowewe an th whic p y li r thos b e ruminanta h ar f eo , rather tha nhorsea t bu , certaint s arriveyi t fro a de clearl mth y indicated infraorbital gland r FraseD . r s kindlDarlingha o y examinewh , photographe th d , writes tha incisen a t d mark bettea s i e rbelo indicatioey e wth identitf no y than eithe thosf o r e just mentioned. Ver Royae y th luckil n i l Scottisp deeu yd t therre rse a hs e i Museum whics hha a striking resemblance to the Ardross deer, even including the extreme, and what seey unnaturae mma th l lengtforefacee th f ho . feature Thith s si e d whicle s hha to the description of the Ardross animal as a horse, but here is an actual deer with the foreface very nearly as long. This is a character very much admired by the Picts and many peoples before them and one which we have already found in the Glen Domhain deerlowee Th . rArdrose parth f o t s carving end straighn si t lines whic probably hma y have been complete squara s da e base, comparabl thao et t which is visible on the stone at Rhynie, described later, and to certain other Pictish designs. DOG It is characteristic of the unconsciously romantic temper in which these designs have been studied that the animal depicted on the other carved stone from Ardross always ha s been referre wolf.a s a o Wolvesdt , however, have prick ears which they

never depress excepthe y ears3 p t la mlo o no ,s t bacha angern d ki an g . do Thi a s si very large ones, but clearly to be distinguished, lying on the head above the conven- tional shadow curve, which crosses the neck (PI. XXVIII, 3). It also has round eyes, while wolves have sideways-glancing slit eyes shortn I . , afteconsideratioe du r d nan a comparison of the Ardross animal with members of the modern canine population of this countryvarietthe of y I woul,Canis dog a d familiaris be affir to mit intermedius, familg divisioa do e y th whic f no h include fact n houndi e , deer-hounda sth , is t I . . We have several representations of wolves' heads in the Pictish bestiary: the head of the composite animal at Manbean may stand as the type (PL XXIX, i). 4 The l steyal m fro numberlese mth s wolve wolf-headd san s foun botn di h Celtid can Scythia beae t sucth n ar ks h a flago n from Lorraine, little th er o anima appliqun li e

from a burial site near Kiev.6 5 BOAR The wild boar is celebrated for its ferocity and has often in early times appeared carven o d othen stonei d r san medi a wit intentioe hth n that this quality shoule db

Romilly Alien, E.G.M.S., in, fig. 54. 1 Thi firss st wa . MacDougalsuggeste MisO y . b e sM m o dt , formerly curato Museue th f ro mt Invernessa .

23 E.C.M.S., . , figm 53 . 4 E.C.M.S., , figm . 134. Jacobsthal6 , P., Early Celtic Art, n, No. 381. ' Minns, E., Scythians and Greeks, fig. 77, No. 407. THE PICTISH ANIMALS OBSERVED 217 emphasise communicatedd dan strikinA . g exampl figure seeth s e i t Euffig n ea no - neix,1 perhap firse th tf scenturo y B.C., wher aggressive eth e attitud unmistakables ei , though the tusk is missing, having perhaps presented difficulties of representation in low relief- in any case there is a break in the surface of the stone where it should come. Another wild boar, equally agressiv witd mistako ean h n e abou tuske th tfro s i , ma Secone coith f no d Legion (Parthica) heae 2 :Carausiuth f do obversee th n so , date, sit thire th do t quarte thire th df o r century e legionarA.DTh . y boar show relien ni f carvin distancn go e slabs fro e Antoninmth e Wall also illustrate a deliberatels y 3 aggressive animal. It would be easy to find many other examples of aggressive or quasi-heraldic boar sfamoue sucth s ha s ultra-stylised Withae desigth n n i no m e Shielon d dan Pictland itself, the fierce boar mask on the Deskford carnyx, intended to augment 4 terrifyine th g battle-musie effecth f o t c which this trumpes it f o t producep to e th t sa long, erect stem muse W .t not, however, expect tha l representational t f thio s s animal were intended to display the qualities of brute force and aggressiveness. e boarth l s Al mentione r belon fa tima o ds o gt e well befor e earliesth e t date suggested for the two Pictish boars from Knocknagael and Dunadd. First, Knock- nagael5 (PI. XXIX, 2): here immediatelon e y seem recogniso t s e wilg th epi d familiar from pictures of Indian pigsticking and clearly comparable to the wild boar and wild sow from the Wiener Wald illustrated by Zeuner.6 There is an apparent absence of ears in some of these animals. In nature the ears lie flat on the t see profileno n n i t represente e no ar the heao e s Pictis,d e yar dth an y dhb artist. All published drawings of the Knocknagael boar show ears projecting forward in the foreheade linth f eo modere th , n artist having mistake prolongatioe nth naturaa f no l fissurchancstona e d th en an ei e diagonal flaking eare th s expectinr s whicfo , wa e hh g in that situation. 'Peoplt breeno o ded wild boarss beeha nt i ' said t Zeune Historys bu , hi f n i ro Domesticated Animals'7 shows that it is very nearly what they in fact do. 'The European domesticated pig', he says, 'was the descendant of local wild forms almost every- where. This is not surprising since in spite of its physical strength, it is easily tamed Wit. . omnivorou. s hit s habits therdifficulto n s ei gettinn yi t gaccustomei d to the food available in a settlement. In many places it was independently and repeatedly raised from wild stock.' The Dunadd 'boar' (PI. XXX, i) so called, with its downcast appearance, can hardly have been intended to inspire ideas of ferocity or even of courage, and both Knocknagaee th d an t i l animal, crested alon bac e modestld gth kan y tusked though I believ d an , sugges, e is suggeste t me i o Pictse t t th o ,dt valuable hogs rather than the fury of the battle charge. At Dunadd we see the 'hero's portion' after the capture citadele ofth milk-fea , d hog animan a , l likPige Mannananef th so , 'to protece th t warrior survivo t s t frokille e their ye aged b e foomfo r ol d o t rd,fo d an sustenance' .

1 Powell, T. G. E., The Celts, PI. 67. 2 Zeuner, F. E., A History of Domesticated Animals (1963), 271. . Collingwoo3cf Wrightd dan Romane Th , Inscriptions of Britain, , NosI . 2184, 2197- 2208d 9an . 4 Antiqu. , xxxiJ. x (1959) ff4 .2 , 6 E.C.M.S., in, fig. 108. 8 op. cit., 268 f., figs. 10, 15 and 16. 7 ibid., 267. 2l8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY, 1964-66 t suggestinno m a I gt hun wiltha e Pictno e th td th t sdi boar knoe ;w w that they did fro Clase mth I stont Vigean's.sI S t ea 1 Suc hhuna t woul naturalle db y com- bined with the capture of piglets for domestication. OTTER ottee t RhyniTh a r bees eha n describe 'seaa lon e s otter'r da th o l gt forefacbu , e may give one pause. However, I believe that, here again, the foreface is exaggerated

in the Pictish manner2 . In any case, there is no reason to drag in the seal, when we find the Rhynie animal within a hundred yards of a small river, the Bogie, still today inhabite ottersy db , whil nearese eth t sea nearls li mile0 y4 s away desige Th . n shows squara e base like that already indicate Ardrose th n do s red-deer carving. BULL Pictish cattl representee ear famoue th y db s Burghead bulls whicf 3o h there ear six, with two outliers of coarse execution from Inverness. One other outlier, the animal from the fort on Lomoncl Hill, Fife, relates to Burghead. It, too, is a rough drawing, but instinct with life, and showing considerable directness of vision. It would be wrong to say, with Romilly Alien, that these designs are 'highly conventionalised' representatione th : drawe sar n withi Pictise nth h conventions i t i , true, with the familiar overemphasised indications of shadows, inherited from far earlier sources, but in other respects, when compared with the calf in the Book of Durro exampler wfo degree th , conventionalisatiof eo t highno s n.i Here indeee dar bulls directly observed, very much alive and all in different poses. The extreme shortness of the horns of the Burghead bulls led James Wilson in 1909, followed in 1950 by John Hammond,4 to believe that some of them at least were polled cattle, imported by the Vikings, who had ultimately obtained them from southern Russia. This would be in convenient agreement with the old suppositions of Scythian origin for Pictish art, but it cannot be sustained. The projections, which Wilson must have mistaken for ears, are very short, but unmistakable, horns, and the inference that we have here one of the ancestors of the polled Angus must be give . Thanup t these animals were imported from Scandinavi , howeverais t no , only possible but likely and demands investigation. The origins of the present-day breeds of cattle have not been exhaustively studied and it is not necessary for our purpose to assign the Burghead bulls as ancestors to any of them. It suffices to make two points: (1) These animal domesticatede ar s ; they hav resemblanco en auroche th o et s primigeniuss Bo r wils o it dn i state. (2) The bull mask at Mortlach5 stems from a different source; its background is that of the bull masks with long horns in the same plane as the face, and pointed cow-lick whicf o , ultimatn ha e predecesso visibls i rOrdon a n ei s bronze illustrated by Minns (Art of the Northern Nomads, PI. XIX, 5).

E.C.M.S., m, fig. 2506. ibid., fig. 198. 2

E.C.M.S.,1 in, figs. 123-8. 43 Wilson, J., Evolution of British Cattle, 63: Hammond, J., in Whitehead, G. K., Ancient British Cattle and their Descendants, . 92 5 E.G.M.S., , figm . 1620. THE PIGTISH ANIMALS OBSERVED 21Q Other Pictise recentl th e see b n h o n o ycattlt publishee ar e d enigmatian d c Clas I stonI s e from Reay.1 These hav naturao en l connection wit Burgheae hth d bulls but are domesticated animals, in appearance much like the long-horned 'Highlan dayn dow . cattler ou f o ' HORSE Ther s onlei e hors yon e among these naturalistic animal portraits, a tha n o t ston Inverurin ei e churchyard.2 Though thermeano n s ei f bein so g certaie th f no size of the animal represented, it has the appearance of a lively small horse or pony (PL XXX . Sixt2) , y . yearCossaJ o sag r Ewart distinguished three main varieties persisting among living horses e wilth , d e Gobhorsth f io e desert knowe th s a n Prejevalski horse, the Norse horse and the Celtic pony. Of these the Prejevalski is ruled out by its characteristic Roman or arched nose, the Norse by its heavier character and eyes set a good deal further forward than the Celtic pony. It is true that the concave or 'dished' face of the Inverurie horse has suggested some Irania r 'Arabno ' influence unnecessars i t i t bu , calo yt sucn i l h later intro- duction havd an es d stilwheha le fronw m Wales Celtia , c horse which form neaa s r counterpart to our Pictish horse and is known today as the Welsh mountain pony. unaccommodatins hi n i Inverurie n whao ca Th d e o h tt d e artisha g s mediuha t mo t portra manee yth , whic lon s hi heavyd g an fore-lock e th , , also heavy eved e an ,n th tail-lock, individua Celtie th o clt breed givind an , g valuable protection against snow. FISH considew no s u rt 'thLe e fish'. These drawing salmonf o e sar , identifiable with certainty bac e fro adiposth e kmth n neao tail. e n famile Salmone efi rth th Th 3f yo - idaothes it e d ralon membersan thi s n esha fi troue graylingd th , tan comparaf o e ar , - tive insignificance e omissio Th adipose . th f nfroo n Dunrobie fi m th n salmona s i

mistake caused by the artist's having carrie4 d on the line of the back behind the dorsal fin at one operation, after which the addition of the adipose fin would have been a botch. It is possible, alternatively, that a pike is represented here; it seems rathe rouno pika to rr edfo (PI. XXXI, i). Ther e sixteeear n representation f salmoo s n amon e Pictisgth r presumablho y Pictish stones, ten of them in Class I. All of these except one were found within a few hundred yard f quie so d easil an t y fished rivers single th , e exception beine gth fragmentary stone from Percylieu, whic a mil s r hmori eo e fro e Bogiemth o N . 5 salmon stone foune sar d nea Nairne rth Findhorne th , Speye Deveroth e , th , n below its confluence with the Bogie, or the Dee, all of them either large or rapid rivers or both. This distinctio indicaty nma e that representation f salmoo s n were desired near the places where they could be easily secured by the means at the disposal of contemporary fishers. These were:

Cruive.e iTh .baske A r woodeo t n crib (the words 'cruivet no 'cribd e an ' ar '

2 P.S.A.S.,1 LXXXIV (1949-50), 218. E.C.M.S., , figm . 182.

e.gKintore th . e salmon, E.G.M.S., , figm . 185. 43 E.C.M.S., m, fig. 39. 5 ibid., fig. 196. 0 22 PROCEEDING SOCIETYE TH F O S , 1964-66 distinguished in North-eastern vernacular) fixed at the upstream end of a narrow diversion in, or narrowing of, the river channel, and in which ascending salmon are recoverable by hand. Leistere 2Th .r fis o h r 4-prongespearo - 3 shallon a ,i e d us for wr kwaterfo . 3. Nets. It is customary to say that 'all early peoples had nets'. The only direct evidence for prehistoric nets known to me is in the plate in J. G. D. Clark's Prehistoric Europe, showing a fragment of a mesolithic net. The Picts grew flax and nets can be made from other materials, but I know of no evidence that nets of a size and rapin i strengt e dus riverr hfo s were available evidence th d have an ,ew e goeo t s show that contemporary fishers were exclusively interested in smallish and more manageable fish. carvinge Nonth f eo s represen largee th t r fish, which have grown the 'kype' on the lower jaw: in every case these are fish whose upper jaw extends slightly beyond the lower, grilse or young salmon in the pink of condition.

FIG. 2. Comparison sketch of ventral fins of salmon on the Percylieu (Aberdeens.) stone, above, and the Borthwick Mains (Roxburghs.) stone, below otherse th l Thersalmoal e , f whoso on . s eS i n ee carvin originath o t r gfa l location was certainly near Commonside on the upper Teviot, but which now stands in the garden of Borthwick Mains, 4 miles W. of Hawick.1 Though there is no reason why the artist's intention should have been different from that of the Pictish artists, he was not trained in their school, and indeed cannot be claimed as a trained artist at all. His fish is shown as a pair of compass-drawn arcs ending in front in an unmodi- fied acute angle fine th :s look like group parallef so l hairs. Fig show2 . gild e sth an l ventral fins as shown on the Borthwick Mains stone, and above, the same fins drawn fro mrubbina stone th f ego from Percylieu, Aberdeenshire Teviotdale Th . e salmon also lacks the median line shown in all Pictish representations of salmon. GOOSE The only Pictish goose, of which a complete image remains among the Class I monuments finele th s y,i drawn bird from Easterto Roseislef no bees ha n t I include. d Thomar by M suggestiv s hi n si e bird/fisstude th f yo h grou Asiatipn i othed can r art.2

R.C.A.M., Inventory of Roxburghshire, No. 855.

1 2 E.G.M.S., in, fig. 1300: Thomas, Arch. J., cxx (1963), 72. THE PICTISH ANIMALS OBSERVED 221 Zeuner1 illustrates a link in the descent joining Thomas' Pazirik goose with Easterton, namel samygoose a th en e i posture Macedoniaa n o , n silve rfifte oboth h f centurlo y B.Cconsidere H . s tha goose th s beet eha n domesticated sinc Bronze eth e Aget bu , notes Caesar's statement that the goose was considered a sacred bird in Britain and not eaten by the natives. This may or may not be true of Pictland, where the grey lag nested and still nests, the nestlings being easily domesticated, as are chance- caught adults. So much for the animals bred or captured for food. There are three others, the eagle famoue snakee th th ,d san , 'elephant' whicf o l al h, must have been portrayed for different attempt reasonsno o d explai o t I . n what these reasons were woult ,bu d point out that all three, in contrast to the food animals, stem from the distant Central-Asiatic background describe Elliy db s Minn lated san r writers. EAGLE e StrathpeffeTh rrese thosf eagleth o t d e an 2Mounte nort th f ho h suc thas ha t in Inveravon churchyard, though they vary in detail, have much of the Pictish 3 naturalism t theiYe .r ancestr roune cleas yi th n di r head ,muc d starinan he gey overemphasized hooked beak seen in an eagle from south Russia,4 which may serve as an example. Much further south than the rest of our Pictish eagles, at Walton in Fife, there exceptionn isa , conspicuou havinn si flattee gth r skull mord an , e moderately hooked eaglee bea th t onl f kno o ,naturen y i representationn i t bu , eaglef so s from Roman sources. I suggest that the Walton eagle is a copy of a Roman Legionary emblem, whether or not the artist were a Pict.5 'ELEPHANT' The Pictish animal known as 'the elephant' belongs to an order of design quite different from all the foregoing. As has been suggested by Charles Thomas, it has a likely ancesto leapine th n ri g stag fro Pazirie mth k mounds.6 Still more significant, perhaps vere th ys i ,simila desigm ra r n fro same mth e source. botn I h these predecessor stild slan 'elephante morth n e i artis e th e 't itselfse e w , yielding to a temptation known to beset the uninhibited designer at all times in the history of art, namely to draw curves and still more curves, only dimly remembering, or not remembering at all, the object which originally set him at work. In Celtic art a good example of this tendency is seen in the Heidelberg Janus head, on the reverse sid whicf eo humae hth n facbees eha n reduce whao dt t Jacobsthal calls 'an ornamental variation on the theme "face" '. A much earlier rock carving from

Norway illustrates the persistence in other age7 s of this tendency to draw in curves. Two birds are here combined in a pattern of curves elegantly transcending nature8

1 op. cit., 467, fig. 24, 7. 2 E.C.M.S., in, fig. 57.

ibid., fig. 158. Minnsot f Ar th , e NorthernE. , Nomads, PI. n.

4 53 E.C.M.S., , figm . 358 possiblr fo : e native copyin classicaf go l eagl Roman eo n parade helmet founn di . WensumR , Norfolk J.R.S.,. cf , xxxvin (1948), 120, PI. m . Thomas, Arch. J., cxvin (1961), 53 ff. and fig. 16. '6 op. cit., 9 f. 8 Hagen, A., op. cit., 17. 222 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY, 1964-66 (fig. 3). Even so in Scotland a pattern at Mortlach (PI. XXXI, 3) found on the same stone wit verha y ordinary Pictish elephant, show decorativa s e variatio than no t theme.1

FIG . Roc3 . k carving of'swans' from Leiknes, near Tysfjord, Norway

CONCLUSIONS retur o naturalistie T th o nt c animal portraits whar Fo . t purpose were they made? They were include Romilly db y AlieEarlys hi n i Christian Monuments of Scotlandd an were considered to have a religious significance. To that extent I feel sure that he was right, thoug significance Christiaha th t no s newa one. The nineteenth-century examination of the Pictish stones was made at a time when most Christian churches includin e Episcopagth l Churc n Scotlanhi d and, after some interva f time o l Churce th , f Scotlanho d itself beginnings wa , somo t , e extent under the influence of the romantic movement, a revival of ritual and liturgi- cal practices. As a result, it was readily accepted that, St Columba having crossed Drumalban and converted King Brude in 565, the Pictish designs, presumably of later date, must have had some Christian significance as symbols or otherwise. Joseph Anderson was non-committal about this and Francis Diack incredulous, but on the whole the position was accepted.2 Similarly, we, who still live in a strongly heraldic atmosphere, when many burghs, many families and many public companies display crests and arms assigned theo t law my conditionee b ar , acceptancn a o dt insignif eo symbolif ao c impord tan reade ar , attributo yt be y thus ma quasi-heraldiea t i , c significanc theso t e e animal portraits, which (apart from those depending on eastern origins) represent farm animal quarre hunte e fishermanth e th r th sf o y r o ro t onlno ,y desirabl t urgentlebu y necessar preservatioe th r yfo liff no e durin monthe gth wintef so earld an r y spring. probabls i t I ethesf thao l etal creatures sam e havth t eea tim religiouea s significance, but only one, the eagle, appears as perhaps a badge of rank. That the animal portraits, and the symbol stones which accompany them in oftee Clasar n, sI foun churchyardn di s doe t necessarilsno y implybees ha ns a ,sug - gested, that they are funerary monuments, though it does indicate that they are religiou r magicao s l s onesconfirmei s a , y theib d r appearance, along wite th h Christian elaborat e crossth n o , e monument Clasn si . sII

1 P.S.A.S., LX (1925-6). f 4 27 , 2 Anderson, Scotland in Early Christian Times (1881) passim: Diack, F. C., Inscriptions of Pictland (Spalding Club 1944). 23 , THE PICTISH ANIMALS OBSERVED 223 It is noticeable that the five animals of the Pictish bestiary, deer, hound, ox, pig, horse, are the same as those mentioned by writers on Celtic religion as 'holy animals'. There is also the salmon, which has, in Ireland, a well recognised mystique. We know nothing about Pictish religioPicte th st werenbu , ratepartly Celtif an o ,t ya c origin and it looks as if the mystique behind the animal carvings may have been of a Celtic cast. It is not necessary to import the Celtic gods, Cernunnos, Teutates, and the rest, of whom there is not the least trace, unless it be the more than doubtful presence of the birds of Esus in what may be a triskele at Corrachree. Our animals

reflect a hunting and agricultural society unconcerned with anthropomorphi1 c gods meano n y b s sucd urbanisen an ha d societ thas ya t which Gauln i , , turned Cer- nunnos into a banker with sacks of coin. There is no Cernunnos figure at Ardross Pictise th n i h r repertoiro occurrence th t all ea t ,bu thesf animalseo o etw deee th , r and the hound, close together, at a place where a useful arable exposure is backed by vast spaces of hill and forest, suggests interest in the hunted animal and its hunter, rather than the chance interment of two men, one of whom had a hind and the other tribas hi r l fo emblemg do a . Representation ramf so sheer so absene par t fro Clase mth smonumentsI , though Cassius Dio makes the earlier Caledonians mainly dependent on their flocks.2 The only certain Pictish sheep appears on a Class II monument at Nigg. It is of interest 3 to note there that the clearly indicated curly fleece shows its status as a wool-bearing animal, rather than an edible one. So do the references to sheep in early Irish literature, where monk offey sma r mutto hospitalityn i t king heroed bu , san s must have beef or pork. The sheep, indeed, has always been, and still is, a creature despised by country peopl North-eastt evee th no no n ei concedd o name th wh , t ei 'animal', that term being confined to cattle. e PictTh smean o wern y eb primitiva s e people e availablTh . e evidence from pottery impressions suggests that they were turnin gcultivatioe oveth o t r oatsf no , which, as a food grain, has nearly twice the protein content of barley, or bere, previousl e staplth y e crop. Judgin e locatio e carveth th y gf b o n d stones, their chosen area of inhabitation was primarily the rich and easily worked lands of the Garioch, though their political commonsense had enabled them to form a nation holding the whole of the best land north of the Mounth (what they held south of it is mostly not relevant to the present enquiry.) The scarcity of Pictish evidence in Bucha unprofitabl e probabls ni th o t e ydu e natur lane th df eo ther e befor clears eit - ance of stones at the turn of the eighteenth century, though other considerations could be advanced. While notin gratefulld gan y accepting mos whaf o t t Charles y Thomassa o t s 4ha reasone th retention r o sfo animaf no Scotlann i earlt e ar lth yn d i centurie s A.D.I , feel sure that all the Class I animal portraits have behind them a mystique which was traditional and of a kind which had, and still has, deep instinctive roots in country-bred humanity. These portrait magice sar art, working magic sora f o ,tdistinguishe e whicb o t s hi d

E.C.M.S., m, fig. 166. Cassius Dio, LXXVI, 12. a 1 3 E.G.M.S., m81d , .an figs 2 7 . 4 Arch. , cxvJ. m (1961) ff.9 3 ,; ibid. (1963)x . ox ,f 2 6 , 224 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY, 1964-66 from the magic of fairies and giants: there is a serious purpose behind our stones and magicaa s i t i l one. Working magi t pseudo-scienceno s ci ; say thao exhibit e s th ,i t - tio designf no s suc t directedthess ha no s ei scientifis ,a c procedures are, immediately effeco t t result sgerminatioe sucth s ha growtd nan productivite cropf ho th r so f yo animals workins i r No .g magi cneurosisa irrationan a ,f thinking o y wa l , which makes people believe that certain practices achieve their ends directly. Bot thesf ho e interpretations of magic are still acted upon in Scotland, I am informed on good authority, but they are marginal and calculated to impose upon credulous people. The essential function of working magic was, and still is, for it is far more widespread today tha commonls ni y realised develoo t , conservd pan e morale. Thi bees sha n suggeste Malinowsky db othersd farmina an i d ,an g society likPicte eth s expresses its attitude towards the animals to which it owes its survival, in these magical designs. animale ClasTh e th f sstoneI o s are, then, Object Powerf so usefu,a l term borrowed from Turville-Petrie's MythReligiond an of the North. That autho name th r uses ea t si objectsf o t se fo a ,r som whicf eo magicae har l incitement piraticao st l braveryr Ou . mild-looking animals, on the other hand, are Objects of Power designed to sustain huntin agriculturad gan l morale. There fea o neen re dthab t this interpretatios ni drawn, as Annette Laming puts it in writing of the Lascaux paintings, from some preconceived idea of what a society is likely to have been interested in. We can tell with certainty fro habitae mth Picte th t s chose that they were farmerse , andth n i , part theif so r country where deeotterd ran s foundwere b o et , hunters knoe w wd an , from these life-like portraits what their daily occupations were. Editor's note photographie Th c recor Pictisf do h symbol stone late s th whice y buils b hp wa u t source th s . platemanGordof e eo A th wa . f yC sd o illustratinnan g this paper, will be lodged wit Nationae hth l Monuments Recor f Scotlanddo , 52/54 Melville St., Edinburgh, 3.