The so-called "Pictish Chronicle" exists in several
versions, and it is not a proper chronicle in the same mould as
the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
It/they basically contain a collection of names that purports to
be a succession of Pictish Kings stretching for hundreds of years.
Unfortunately, the various versions do not tally too well,
especially once you get past the beginning of the Irish monks'
versions of it.
There are no actual "Pictish" lists, or manuscripts.
It seems the Picts had no writing of their own.
Writing was brought amongst the Picts by evangelizing monks from
the West, based on Iona, or from the South, the monks from
Northumbria.
These people had Bibles and commentaries on the Bible, and the
Lives of Saints etc, and relied on the written word, rather than
the ancient system of Bardic feats of memory.
Like all religious fanatics, they were not much interested in
what did not concern their religion, and they did not record much
about their converts, although they did spend much time and
effort criticizing their enemies. To some extent, the lack of
comment on things that suited them is understandable, because of
the vast expense of vellum and the amount of time needed to write
anything up, thenadays. What was recorded had to be worthwhile.
The idea of writing for entertainment was a long way off.
Writing was for propaganda of some sort.
Besides, committing barbarian beliefs to writing would give them
the same validity as the Scriptures, and that wasn't the
intention at all.
This lack of Pictish writing affected their only definite
relics.
Unlike the Greeks, or the Romans, or the Egyptians, Pictish
stonework is sparse and untitled (as far as we know at present).
If Alexander or Claudius, or any of the Pharoahs slew an enemy or
stole his treasure, then they wanted the World and his uncle to
know about it.
All we have from the Picts are these mute stones, untitled,
uninscribed and inscrutable.
There are approximately 50 symbols (there is considerable debate
over which are actually symbols), depictions of holy men,
angels, warriors, horsemen and assorted scenes which may or may
not be religiously inspired, but there are no inscriptions that
correspond to the Rosetta Stone. Nothing that says "Angus
the Pict knocked seven shades of Hell out of General Maximus the
Shiny Roman at the boundary between Pictland and Northumbria,
which just happens to be....etc, etc." in Pictish, Latin,
and Old Irish Gaelic for good measure. Not a peep.
There are the famous/infamous so-called Pictish Oghams,
but since we do not know the actual language the Picts spoke, we
cannot say what they were telling, or trying to tell, their
readers. I think the often-repeated statement that these Oghams
were cut as intentional gibberish, is gibberish.
Sometime in the 6th Century CE, Saint Columba sent
missionaries into Pictland, possibly helped by his aristocratic
connexions amongst the Irish settlers, and he started compiling a
list of the Pictish Kings. His motives can only be guessed at,
but they must undoubtedly be some form of self-serving propaganda.
The Kings that were sympathetic to Christianity, on the one hand,
and those who opposed it, on the other, would have to get a
mention. Others might be ignored. Relatively dispassionate
recording of history is a modern phenomenon.
It is interesting however that there is an Irish
tradition that the original Cruithne (the Irish name for
the Picts) were supposed to be sons of Cruithne, and they all had
surprisingly Irish names:-
1. Circinn.
2. Fotla
3. Fortrenn
4. Fib.
5. Ce.
6. Fidach.
7. Cait.
Without being too unkind to good old Columba, it would have done
no harm to his cause to have the original rulers of Pictland all
descended from Irish royalty. (Especially if there was
documentary proof! )
Fotla appears as part of the name of a Pictish? province Athfotla,
or Athfoithle, mentioned in 739, a full hundred years
before the traditional merging of the Irish and Pictish kindoms
in Scotland, but it is said to mean "New Ireland". It
kind of implies a sizeable Irish colony, or at least a non-Pictish
ruler. The name survives into modern times as Atholl.
All the manuscripts that were composed were compiled by
outsiders, writing in Latin, or Old Irish, and in the process of
reading someone else's handwriting and handwriting it yourself,
the names became distorted.
For instance, in Group 1 manuscripts of the "Pictish
Chronicle", Fotla is also rendered Fodla,
Floclaid, Foltlaid, Foltlaig.
There is also the problem of pronunciation.
My name is SANDY.
Americans read the word and pronounce it SENNY.
Upper-crust people with psuedo-Etonian accents pronounce it SE-E-ENDY,
swapping 'AH' for 'E' as in 'Egg', and stretching it out.
Londoners pronounce it similarly, but more nasally.
A French student I met said it SENDEE.
A woman I worked for called me SAN-DEE as if it were an Asian
name.
Only Scots and people with unaccented English pronounce it SANDY.
If I tell them my christened name is Alexander, I get all sorts
of regional variations. You get the drift....
Now, although all monks wrote Latin, they might come from all
parts of Europe, or even just England, Wales, Ireland and
Scotland, where language was not so levelled-out by universal
education as it is now. They might hear or interpret what they
heard differently, and if say a Scot with deep guttural vowels
says something to a nasal Frenchman, who then transmits it in
writing which is perhaps difficult to read in the first place,
the Greek coming to read it later is in deep trouible, whether he
is aware of it or not.
Enough of Chinese whispers and bizarre writing
I hope you can see the problems we face, trying to sift what
is at best a limited number of mentions of names and places, to
make a coherent picture.
For some people, the Pictish Chronicles are only valid
for the two or three hundred years prior to 843 CE, which is the
traditionally accepted date for the final assimilation of the
Picts into Gaelicdom. Unfortunately, even disallowing the "mythical"
kings does not leave much definite.
A lot more research needs to be done to provide firm footing for
further theorizing.