In which I examine Alex Woolf’s idea that Sueno’s Stone makes a cameo appearance in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s twelfth-century History of the Kings of Britain.
Very interesting ideas - thanks all. Dr John Barrett in Forres did his PhD on the early mediaeval routes into and through Moray. His research might detail here. I was looking at a more hare brained (!) idea likely the product of an over lurid imagination, following the Northern Pict projects recent excavations of Burghead Palace sites and their thinking re Fortriu. I wondered whether the pair of suenos stones depicted in the early map image were a gateway within a protective 'necklace' of boundary markers delineating a vaguely circular boundary line with its centre at Burghead, perhaps defining a route from Fortriu Palace south west towards the route from the laich of Moray to the upper highlands, perhaps on the approximate established line from Forres to Aviemore.
I was playing with the fanciful notion of might that have been Bridei's triumphant AD 685 return route from his success at Nechtansmere (over which a small group of us are exploring further fanciful notions about a possible battle site in the 'narrow pass though inaccessible mountains' of the Gaick pass), and wondering if these grandest of stones, carved a few generations later, might have marked that event that gave the Pictish nation its 'modern' political foundation. We were exploring whether the battle sequencing and the beheading depictions on the rear (or perhaps front?) might fit the Bede and later Annals' descriptions of the ambush and executions of Ecgfrith's warband, the elimination of Northumbrian hegemony after the two rivers battle humiliation, and the re-establishing of the independence of their nation?
Like I say, lurid imaginings! Thanks for all your fascinating work here and for everyone's well considered contributions. We have such an intriguing history.
Hi Fiona, great spot of Westshire of Moray and particularly the explicit link to Tarras, but….
Whilst these locations are very much the west side of 17th C Moray, with the Findhorn as the boundary, early medieval Moray seems to have stretched much further west, at least as far as Inverness and the boundaries of Ross.
That said, this unusual reference may be a fossil of an earlier land division of West Moray that perhaps did once stretch from, say, Forres to Inverness - which would then put the stone, once again, on a boundary.
Very interesting ideas - thanks all. Dr John Barrett in Forres did his PhD on the early mediaeval routes into and through Moray. His research might detail here. I was looking at a more hare brained (!) idea likely the product of an over lurid imagination, following the Northern Pict projects recent excavations of Burghead Palace sites and their thinking re Fortriu. I wondered whether the pair of suenos stones depicted in the early map image were a gateway within a protective 'necklace' of boundary markers delineating a vaguely circular boundary line with its centre at Burghead, perhaps defining a route from Fortriu Palace south west towards the route from the laich of Moray to the upper highlands, perhaps on the approximate established line from Forres to Aviemore.
I was playing with the fanciful notion of might that have been Bridei's triumphant AD 685 return route from his success at Nechtansmere (over which a small group of us are exploring further fanciful notions about a possible battle site in the 'narrow pass though inaccessible mountains' of the Gaick pass), and wondering if these grandest of stones, carved a few generations later, might have marked that event that gave the Pictish nation its 'modern' political foundation. We were exploring whether the battle sequencing and the beheading depictions on the rear (or perhaps front?) might fit the Bede and later Annals' descriptions of the ambush and executions of Ecgfrith's warband, the elimination of Northumbrian hegemony after the two rivers battle humiliation, and the re-establishing of the independence of their nation?
Like I say, lurid imaginings! Thanks for all your fascinating work here and for everyone's well considered contributions. We have such an intriguing history.
Hi Fiona, great spot of Westshire of Moray and particularly the explicit link to Tarras, but….
Whilst these locations are very much the west side of 17th C Moray, with the Findhorn as the boundary, early medieval Moray seems to have stretched much further west, at least as far as Inverness and the boundaries of Ross.
That said, this unusual reference may be a fossil of an earlier land division of West Moray that perhaps did once stretch from, say, Forres to Inverness - which would then put the stone, once again, on a boundary.
Certainly more food for thought