Orkney in the Pictish Period
Slipping from
history
In Orkney,
little more than a scattering of Pictish archaeological sites and a handful
of placenames have survived.
Although once the overlords of
Orkney, and a powerful political and military force in their own
right, by the time of the Norsemen, Orkney's Picts had already
slipped from history into the shadowy realm of folklore.
As time went
on, the line between historical fact and fable blurred further. As early
as the twelfth century, the historical Picts were regarded as a semi-mythical
race with distinctly mythical attributes. With each century that
passed, the pre-Norse inhabitants of Orkney became thoroughly confused
with elements of trow
and fairy folklore.
The Norse accounts
The Norsemen
began arriving in Orkney in the eighth century but, surprisingly,
their historical records make little mention of Orkney's indigenous
inhabitants. The Orkneyinga Saga, for
example, pays absolutely no attention to any pre-Norse population
of the islands.
The Historia Norvegiae, however, describes
them as beings that were small in stature who "performed miracles
in the building of walled cities".
Written around 1200AD, this
Latin document states that Orkney's inhabitants lost their strength
and courage completely in the middle of the day. This, it claims,
forced them to hide themselves away in little underground houses.
Aside from an obvious connection between Orkney's Picts and the
builders of the brochs, there
is little of historical value in this account. But what it clearly shows is that, even by
the twelfth century, Orkney's Picts had become creatures of folklore.
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