Saint Orland's Stone West of Forfar OS No NO401-500 Red sandstone 7ft 9ins tall x 2ft 4ins wide x 10ins approx thick. (236cm x 71cm x 25cm.) next stone stone index

SAINT ORLAND'S STONE

The stone is nearly rectangular, having a slight taper from bottom towards the top.
It is carved on the front and back, but not the sides.
At some point it has broken, or been broken, about one third of the way down, and originally it had been pinned back and front with iron straps. It has since had the back straps moved to the sides, and the holes plugged with mortar.
The dotted area on the drawing, below the double-disc and z-rod, is a missing slab. There are clear signs of chisel marks, which raises the question, was the section chiselled out, or do the marks represent someone's attempts to provide a key for mortar to cement the piece back in?
One possibility is that the stone fell, split in two, the piece sprung loose, and was not found when the stone was repaired.
A large section of the lacework on the cross side is still lost.
Another possibility is that someone found whatever was in the mini-frame offensive, and had it chiselled out, much in the way that people deface the relics of other people's religions by gouging out eyes, or chipping off faces etc. A mis-strike by the mason caused the stone to split right across.
Perhaps the "missing" bit is still lying at the top of the mound?

[Key to Diagram.]

1. Indistinct. (Interlace?)
2. Indistinct. (Interlace?)
3. Spiral Type A interlocking (3 rows)
4. Indistinct. (Interlace?)
5. Knotwork Type A.
6. Spiral Type B.
7. Spiral Type A (Mainly - slightly erratic in places).
8. Assorted knotwork.
9. Indistinct.
10. Interlocking beasts?
11. From bottom - Eel-like creature with knotted tail (with human head?) takes up about 1/3 of height. It is difficult to say whether the the other 2/3 are all one design. It appears to be a fish with a body made up of knotwork, ending in what looks like a human head, with arms raised above it, hands resting on the head. Above this again a carved semi-circle giving way to knotwork which seems to include a disc with a leg over it. Unfortunately, this knotwork disappears into the broken segment.

The Cross:-

• It gives the appearance of a cross overlaid on a larger wheeled cross, but both are carved in relief on a solid slab.
• It is richly ornamented with relief carving, all abstract except from a curious tangle at the bottom RH corner, which may include a human head. Other people see a face there, but it is difficult to decide whether it is a head, or just an accident of weathering. The carving is not of the best quality to begin with.
• Due to the breakage, a substantial chunk of carving is missing from the RH side, and the shaft of the cross, but the LH side is intact.
• The "squareness" of the wheel is apparently caused by using the lobes of the upper cross as centres to define the arcs of the lower cross. The asymetry of my drawing faithfully reflects the actual carving. It wasn't obvious at first, because our human mind tidies these things up, but an examination of the stone, or a good photo of it, shows up the discrepancies.
• The middle true circle is empty, although deeply cut, as if to receive a metal boss, or a stone of some other type.
  On the other hand, this area of plainness may have some symbolic value of its own.
  I don't know if this makes it unique, but I haven't heard of it before. Centres of crosses are usually decorated.

The Pictorial Side:-

• The other side of the slab is framed by knotwork patterns that end at the top with a pair of animal heads facing each other. These heads each appear to be biting a disc in their long jaws. They both have one outstretched leg which may or may not have been holding something. The area is too defaced to make out.
  At the bottom of the slab, the interlace ends in two fishtails facing one another.
• Immediately below this is a crescent-and-V-rod. The crescent has the two-spiral decoration.
• Below this, a double-disc-and-Z-rod. The top of the Z cuts into the bottom of the V. Each disc carries the 4-spiral decoration.
• Next comes the mini-framed missing section.
  Whether you talk about 4 or 5 panels depends on whether you regard this topless frame as a panel in its own right, or merely part of the crescent and double-disc section.
  N.B. The frame was only ever 3-sided. The carving indicates this. The fourth side was not lost when the stone broke.
• The next part is distinctly separated and different.
  Two horsemen ride from Left to Right, here. The LH horseman has long hair and appears to be cleanshaven, with either a collar or ponytail. The RH rider has long hair and a beard. Both appear to have saddlecloths which cover their bottom legs. Both horses have bobbed tails. The downward sloping ridge between them and the panel below acts as the ground their horses walk on.
• The next panel has two hounds stretched out in pursuit, up in the LH corner, filling the gap above the LH horseman, who appears to be short-haired and cleanshaven. The RH horseman appears to be bearded, with long wavy hair. Both horses have long tails, and both riders have distinctly visible forelegs and feet, so no saddlecloths. The divider here slopes upwards.
• The bottom-most panel has five definite people sitting in a boat with upcurved ends. The sixth, larger shape is indistinct, but judging by photos taken about 1900, it might represent an important person (made larger than lesser mortals) with long hair, looking back at the others in the boat.
  There is no sign of sails or oars, although it has been suggested that the now indistinct shape is a sail.
  I thought it might be a wicker "cabin".
  At any rate, it lacks the detail that often gives Pictish art its character. Either the carver didn't know exactly how to depict it, or the bald statement 'He came in a boat' was sufficient. Who knows?
  Boats are rare on Pictish carving, so its inclusion must be significant.
• Beneath the boat there is the bizarre scene of a horned cow or bull being gripped by the head, by a strange beast looking like an 'S' turned through 90 degrees. At first glance, the beast looks like a camel, but its spindly legs end in vicious claws, with prominent hackles on the back of the lower legs.
  Is the weird animal attacking the ox a reference to a successful conversion of bull-cultists? Or is it about a folk-tale of some kind?

The stone stands on a sandy outcrop in a marshy area. Before it was drained, it must have represented the classic hermit's retreat - an island in inhospitable bogland.
So far so good.
The stone is easily described, but then the questions start:-

1. Who was St Orland?
2. Why is the farm that surrounds it called Cossins?
3. Why the boat? Boats are extremely rare in Pictish carving.
4. Why is what appears to be a freestanding cross on a plinth, portrayed in shallow relief, overlying another cross?

1. Is he a lost saint? I have found no reference to St Orland.
   Was there a confusion with some other saint? Say St Orwin's Land? Or St Oran?
   Margaret Gelling, in her "Place-names in the Landscape", gives the word 'alor' and its various pronunciations as Old English for Alder tree. Alor-land would have been appropriate for a boggy morass because alders prefer wet surroundings.
   The same book gives the word 'gore', as meaning a wedge of dry ground, again appropriate to the site, and also because the word comes from N. Yorkshire, a source of missionaries to Pictland.
   Kenneth Cameron's "English Placenames" gives 'or' as a prefix from Old English 'ora' which means border, bank, or riverbank.
   These are English derivations, but 'land' would not have been in use in Pictish times, unless Pictish had a Nordic or Germanic element in it. Apparently the Scots Gaelic for 'land' is 'tir', although what it was a thousand years ago, I don't know.
   It might derive from the Doric 'orra' (pronounced with a flat 'oh' as opposed to the English 'aw') meaning dirty/undesirable land, in the same way as the lowest labourer on a farm was called the 'orraman', the one who did all the filthiest, most unpleasant tasks.
   For a last speculation, see item 3 (b).
2. (a) Cossans/ Cossins might derive from the Gaelic 'coissin' - to win- which would be appropriate to land that has had to be drained to be usable.
   Indeed, the day we went to examine the stone, there was evidence that a combine harvester had become bogged down in the peat. Either it had broken the field drains in its struggle to get out, or the drains had blocked or broken and caused the quagmire the machine had sunk into. Some of the surrounding fields are still full of reeds.
   (b) Might 'cossins' refer to a battle, or the conversion or 'winning-over' of the local tribe?
3. (a) Did the person who caused the stone to be erected come by boat originally? Was he an evangelical from Iona, or did he sail up the coast from Northumbria?
   (b) One of the derivations of Orland might be 'Irish land' Apparently there is a word 'or' which means 'West' or 'Irish' , as in Orford - Irishmen's Ford, and given the Irish tendency to talk about 'Oireland', I don't find it too far-fetched. Modern Scots Gaelic has 'an iar' for 'westerly'.
4. This question might be answered by studying the stylistic differences between sculptors. Did the free-standing 'Celtic' crosses from Iona, with separate bases not appeal to the Picts of North-East Scotland? It certainly resembles a free-standing wheeled cross, but as said, it is all carved on the flat.
   When we come to the so-called Aberlemno No2 Cross-slab, we shall see what appears to be someone beginning to make the cross more similar to the free-standing variety by cutting through the 'eyes' in the cross.