Papers by Stuart A McHardy
A comparative history of literatures in European languages, Jan 22, 2016
§320 Revisited, 2021
A new online take on one of the most important documents in western history.
It has often been said that the origin of the name was due to the PIcts being tattooed. This howe... more It has often been said that the origin of the name was due to the PIcts being tattooed. This however makes no sense as tattooing was common across the ancient world and many Roman legionnaires were themselves tattooed. Tattooing itself was already ancient even then as illustrated by the 5.000 year-old 'ice-mummy " known as Otzi, found in the Tyrolean Alps. From the time of Julius Caesar onwards there are references to natives of these islands painting themselves, though none of the Romans writing of the tribes north of Hadrian's Wall makes any such reference. The first references to tattooing are made by Isidore of Seville, writing in the 7 th century, who Wainwright accepted was not a totally reliable source. It may well have been that some, or even all of the tribal peoples of the British Isles when the Romans arrived painted their bodies, but the association with the Picts appears to rest on the understanding of the name meaning 'painted " , and not much else. There has long been a tendency in Western scholarship to see the world through a process of thinking that has effectively been defined by an adherence to the fundamental importance of Christian and Classical learning. This is understandable given how our education, and legal, systems have developed over the centuries, but it does create problems. The idea that civilization is defined by literacy and the urbanisation that both helps define, and accompanies the centralization of power in the modern nation state leads to an assumption of superiority on the part of societies who have gone through this process towards other peoples. The very terms savage and primitive are themselves an exemplar of this process and it is hard to deny that such attitudes are to varying degrees, racist. This gives rise to a perception that ideas emanating from such 'civilized' societies are inherently more accurate than anything that can come from more primitive peoples, even as in this case to the extent of ignoring evidence. As pointed out by Rivet and Smith (1979 p438) the earliest known term that can be associated with the Picts is 'Pexa " , It is possible that Ravenna's PEXA…. is for Pecti, or even more interestingly, Pectia, Pictland. The Cosmographer lists the name as that of an Antonine Wall fort, but we already know that this section contains several names that are nothing oi the sort, including two that are probably tribal names misread from a map as though they were forts (Volitario= Votadini, Credigone=Creones). Pexa could well come into this category. The authors suggest that the origin of the name occurring in the 7 th century Ravenna Cosmography (Ravenna) could have originated from a military map from the Severan campaigns of 208-211 CE, which itself was based on an earlier one (Rivet &Smith p193ff).
The interpretation of prehistoric and later societies through a combination of oral tradition, pl... more The interpretation of prehistoric and later societies through a combination of oral tradition, place-names, landscape analysis and archaeology. The process is a means of finding new perspectives and interpretations to further the understanding of early societies.
![Research paper thumbnail of The Story of Story and a Canon of Story from Or Words to That Effect. Orality and the writing of literary history, by Chamberlain, Daniel F. and J. Edward Chamberlin (eds.) [CHLEL XXVIII] .](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/42541837/thumbnails/1.jpg)
The first words often said to a child when he or she begins to try to speak are " Tell us story t... more The first words often said to a child when he or she begins to try to speak are " Tell us story then, " or something similar. From our earliest years we are exposed to story and most children lucky enough to be brought up in loving families, no matter where on our planet, are told stories to help them go to sleep. Thus, the start of the socialization process, the acquisition of language itself, is intricately bound up with the idea of story. This central role of story repeats itself in all forms of creative art, music, song, dance and the visual arts, whether as inspiration or some aspect of illustration or reference. In those cultures where traditional storytelling survives, and that includes Scotland, Ireland and certainly parts of England and Wales, the role of story is absolutely key to how culture has developed over millennia. As J. Isaacs has shown (1980) some of the stories in Australia, referring to giant marsupials, initially dismissed by the western-educated mind as nonsense, fabrication or drink-induced fantasy, were shown to be true in the 1950s when the bones of such animals were found close by human hearth fires and showed signs of both having been butchered and cooked. These bones were found while digging for bauxite, the raw element from which aluminium is made, and the clear stratigraphy allowed the remains to be dated at 40,000 BCE. This means that the dreamtime stories of giant animals, newly classified last century as Diprodotons, had been passed orally for 40 millennia. While it is true that native art in Australia does contain symbolic visual referents that are linked to the telling of, and probably remembering of, stories, the aboriginal peoples had no alphabet and thus no written literature. Nothing surviving in literature has anything like this dateable antiquity. Stories survive. Why do they survive? One example of a widely known story is that of King Arthur, his Queen Guinevere and Modred, his nephew, or in some versions, his illegitimate son. This story was told in many locations throughout the British Isles and beyond but attained its best-known form as a result of the writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth in the first half of the twelfth century, and Thomas Malory whose Morte d'Arthur was published n 1485. In the best-known tale, Arthur leaves a kingdom or nation at peace while he goes off to Rome on a pilgrimage, a well-attested habit of Christian kings. He leaves his queen in charge but she immediately takes up with Modred, and they usurp the throne. Arthur hears of this on his journey to Rome and returns to raise an army against the usurpers. In the Battle of Camlaan he kills Modred but receives an apparently fatal blow himself. He is visited on the battlefield by Morgan and her eight sisters who come from the Isle of Avalon. They then return to the Isle of 1 Story here is taken to mean all material used in the process of storytelling no matter its origin.
"Within the oral tradition of Scotland there are many references to Picts and we might strive to ... more "Within the oral tradition of Scotland there are many references to Picts and we might strive to learn more about them from their folklore"
The worm, the germ and the thorn: Pictish and related …, Jan 1, 1997
Drafts by Stuart A McHardy
This paper outlines a new approach to understandgthe past using a multi-dispilinary approach tha... more This paper outlines a new approach to understandgthe past using a multi-dispilinary approach that focusses on specific locales over long periods of time. The proces includes archaeology, ritual and belief, oral traditions, place-names, history and landscape analysis.
Uploads
Papers by Stuart A McHardy
Drafts by Stuart A McHardy