Pictland Quotes

“Why resist the Iona hypthesis? In part to play devil's advocate, but mostly because the wit, verve and apparent sponteneity - the daredevil quality of the Book of Kells is not in evidence in Iona. It is, however, abundantly present in Pictish sculpture, and thanks to new research we now know that Pictland has a monastic site that once rivalled Iona.”
― Victoria Whitworth, The Book of Kells: Unlocking the Enigma

“philologists, archaeoligists and historians, differing among themslves at many points, would probably all agree that the historical Picts were a heterogeneous people and that the antecedents of Pictland should not be sought in a single race or culture.”
― Frederick T. Wainwright, The Problem of the Picts

“Just as mythology is psychology by another name so cattle translate as wealth, status, currency, religion. For the clan Gunn cattle are the essential totem. Their river started high in the hills of time, before the Vikings and the Gaels from Ireland came into the North.

Their headwaters spilled out from the land of the Picts. They were not, in their latter days, migrant. They were the very essence of native. Behind the face of a relative, were 3000 years of totems on poles, of bull's heads on birch stakes, of fire and the ceremony of the seasons. The real blood of history, of meaning.”
― George Gunn, A Boy Stands on a Headland