Pagan Symbols of the Picts by Stuart McHardy sampler

the pagan symbols of the picts
Historians have long been obsessed with what they perceive as elite
behaviour, though the growth of social history over the past half
century is beginning to give us a more rounded picture of what the
past was like.
In this work I draw heavily upon material that initially survived
through oral transmission and was thus not subject to the control
of religious, military or economic elites, as written history has
always been. In A New History of the Picts, I have gone so far as to
suggest that in tribal Britain the modern concept of the elite would
have been anachronistic and is unhelpful in trying to understand
our common past. At least some of my ancestors were Picts – the
name McHardy seems to have originated in what was the Pictish
province of Mar – but some were Irish and, according to family
tradition, there are Norse antecedents in there too. However, I
make no claim to being a Pict, or even a Celt, a term that has no
ethnic significance whatsoever. I am a Scot who believes that the
past of my country has been badly interpreted and considerably
mis understood and it is in pursuit of a greater under standing of
that past that I have developed the ideas here presented.
Thanks, as ever, are due to the Luath crew for teasing this work
into print. Additionally thanks to Nick Simpson and Davie Moir
for help with illustrations and stimulating discussions. Thanks to
my long-term Pictish colleague Nick Simpson for his help with the
images throughout the book and a thank you to Dave Moir for
helping me clarify my thoughts.
Stuart McHardy
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