Picts

[davedove]

Oooooh! The Picts never existed? I like that one...maybe the Celts encountered the Romans and figured they'd pull a fast one and told them, "Oh, well...we're tough and you can try to beat us but you haven't run up against the Picts yet...they live further up North and they regularly kick our asses....yessir...we sure don't fancy your chances against those Picts."

Then they ran off (laughing) and waited until nighttime, got naked, smeared blue paint all over themselves and snuck up on the Romans...."Oy, ya Roman Bastards, we're the Picts...we're much tougher than those Celts and we're here to beat the snot outta ya!" (Sounds of Romans freaking out and wetting their togas)

Early psychological warfare...sneaky...I like it.

Best

AA

That is hilarious!!!

[Woodsheal]

This is a huge simplification, but I believe most current scholarship contends thet the Picts of what we now call "Scotland" were P-Celtic speaking Celts not much different than their Brittonish cousins to the south. Further, it is believed that the P-Celtic Britons and Picts easily associated with the Q-Celtic Gaels in Ireland, that there was much interaction back and forth, and that the different variations in language were not much of a barrier. (Our modern concept of these all being separate "countries" would not have been shared by these folks, who probably identified with "tribes", not nationalities.)

When Gaels from Ireland established an expanding presence in Scotland, their closeness to, and ability to easily interact with the native Picts, resulted in a "merging" of the two peoples... with Northmen, Strathclyde Britons, Anglo-Saxons, Normans, Flemish, etc., added to the mix to give us what were ultimately called "Scotsmen"...!