Little is know about Pictish religion prior to Christianity. All I knew when I started this research was that their neighbors, the Irish, have many myths involving fairies, the Vikings had many gods, and the Britons had Druids. Scotland has myths too, but after hundreds of years of exposure to Irish myths, I, at least, find it impossible to pull out what the Picts actually believed from the Scottish ones.
There is anecdotal evidence that the Picts had Druids and holy places and believed in spirits. St. Columba arrived in Scotland around 563 AD to spread Christianity to the Picts. According to St. Columba’s biographer, St. Columba exorcised a malevolent demon from a well where “the Picts paid divine honour”. St. Columba also had run-ins with the Druids. One story tells of a family that converted to Christianity only to have one of their sons die shortly afterwards. The Druids blamed it on the family’s conversion and berated them for following a lesser god. St. Columba heard the story and came and prayed for the boy, raising him from the dead. In another story, a Druid called Broichan told St. Columba he would prevent him from traveling as planned by calling on winds and darkness. When he proceeded to do so, the saint, of course, prayed and sailed safely away (https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/columba-e.asp).
Assuming the Pictish religious leaders (aka Druids) performed similar functions and held similar beliefs as their neighbors, what did they believe and what was their role in society? Julius Ceasar, speaking of the Gauls, wrote of the Druids in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico, Book VI in the 50s or 40s BCE. He claimed they were one of two of the upper classes, the other being knights, and
“are engaged in things sacred, conduct the public and the private sacrifices, and interpret all matters of religion. To these a large number of the young men resort for the purpose of instruction, and they [the Druids] are in great honor among them. For they determine respecting almost all controversies, public and private; and if any crime has been perpetrated, if murder has been committed, if there be any dispute about an inheritance, if any about boundaries, these same persons decide it; they decree rewards and punishments; if anyone, either in a private or public capacity, has not submitted to their decision, they interdict him from the sacrifices.”
Ceasar also said they did not go to war, pay taxes, had to learn by heart a great number of versus and trained up to twenty years. Does anyone else think this sounds very similar Christian priests?
The Druids believed in reincarnation and
“discuss and impart to the youth many things respecting the stars and their motion, respecting the extent of the world and of our earth, respecting the nature of things, respecting the power and the majesty of the immortal gods.”
Does this make sense with what little is known of the Picts?
- The Druids focused on nature. Many of the pictures on the Pictish stones, especially what is assumed to be the earlier stones with simpler carvings and no crosses, depict animals. This site (https://www.druidcircle.org/druid/index.php/en/component/content/article/166-other/articles/251-druid-symbols) lists many of the animals on the Pictish stones as symbols associated with Druidism and Druid gods.
- Circles and double spirals are Druid symbols. Several Pictish symbols are circles, notably the double disk and cauldron, but they are not exact matches to any of the known Druid symbols.
- Like the Picts, very little archaeological evidence exists for Druids (https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-famous-people/druid-history-0011625) which makes me wonder how reliable sites that list Druid gods and symbols are.
Complicating things a bit more, the biographer of St. Ninian claims the Picts worshiped “deaf and dumb idols.” (“Picts and Ancient Britons: An Exploration of Pictish Origins” by Paul Dunbavin). Did Druids worship idols? A post from Library Ireland (https://www.libraryireland.com/Druids/Idol-Worship.php) discusses evidence for idols in Ireland which also had Druids. The book “Druids” by Kendrick discusses the nature of the idols. It states,
“stones or post ornamented with metal plates, confirm the general suspicion that the visible divinities of the druids were natural objects, either left in their original form or distinguished only by some simple shaping of the ornament. The Kelts, said Maximus Tyrius, worshipped Zeus in the form of a tall oak” (page 144).
I have found very little evidence of Pictish idols in my research but perhaps this is because they were all destroyed. Pope Gregory the Great, in 596 AD, instructed the Abbot Millitus “by no means to destroy the temples of the idols belonging to the English, but only the idols which are found in them”. The Pictish stones fit the description of “natural objects [..] distinguished [..] by some simple shaping” as stated above, but if they were idols, why would the Christians have left them alone and even allowed the symbols to be etched onto the same stones as crosses?
I’ve been cogitating a hypothesis regarding the animal shapes for some time. I think I’ll expand on it more in other post, but what if each Pictish tribe chose a god or goddess as their patron and took on their symbol as a totem for their clan? This would mean the shapes weren’t really idols (or could at least be construed that way) and therefore didn’t have to be destroyed. It also means they could be used in conjunction with Christian decoration to show support from that clan. Considering how widespread crosses were on the stones once Christianity began to take hold, and it doesn’t appear that the Pictish people were atheists, it makes sense that the pre-Christian stones had religious significance.
As to the Druids, Scotland does have stone circles much like Ireland and other places (http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20161012-the-strange-origin-of-scotlands-stone-circles), which doesn’t necessarily relate to the Druids, but it does show that at some point in the past, the people shared similar beliefs. The Picts were known to conduct raids and trade with the Romans even while keeping them from invading their lands, so they weren’t isolated from outside influence. One reason I didn’t immediately associate Druids with the Picts was because when reading tales of King Bridei, who was the Pictish King when Columba arrived, there is no mention of religious Pict leaders. However, in the biography of St. Columba, there’s a story involving the Druid Broichan, a slave girl, and King Bridei (Brude in that document). The Druid Broichan is named as King Bridei’s foster father (https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/columba-e.asp, Chapter XXXIV). I’ve wondered why King Bridei seemed to like St. Columba (he gave him land for a monastery) but didn’t become Christian himself – or at least it’s unclear if he did. I’m guessing it would be a bit challenging to be Christian if his foster father, who clearly didn’t like St. Columba, was a Druid.
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