The Resonance at Scone

Scone remains renowned as the crowning place of the the Scottish kings, and probable some Pictish kings before them, but there is scant evidence that there was even a unified Pictish seat of power at Scone before the union with the Scots, and Forteviot in Strathearn seems to have been the primary seat of power in the region associated with royalty.

   Nevertheless Scone was an important central site in southern Pictland with ritual associations which likely went back beyond history. As A. A. Duncan memorably described it (in Scotland, The Making of the Kingdom, p. 115), Scone was

where the salt water of the sea (and the powers of death who dwell in it) are finally turned back by the living waters of the river...

   This was a very likely ritual site, build on a barrow or ancient tomb, later called the Moot Hill (or, more ludicrously, Boot Hill), the scene of an inter-Pictish battle in 728.  The latter encounter was spoecificallt located at Caislen Credi, which possibly means Hill of Belief.  But there is a possible refernce to the Irish goddess Créde, as discussed below.  Nothing is clear about any of these references or hints, and even the brief desciption of the battle is tantalising rather than illuminating:

A pitiful battle between Picts at Caislen Credi; and the rout was upon the same Alpin, and his territories and his men were all taken from him. And Nechtan, Derile’s son, took the kingship of the Picts.

   Duncan notes reference to the description of Scone in the Prophecy of Berchan as 'of the high shields' and 'of melodious shields', which he conjectures is a reference to the beating of shields in acclamation at the enthronement of a new ruler.  The putative burial chamber, on top of which rightful rulers were ritually elevated to kingship, he stated was likely an ancestral goddess.  The true king marries the goddess of the land, and there is a trace of this pagan resonance when the 12th century king David I (noted for his rigid Christian piety as a 'sair saint') 'abhorred the obsequia', some kind of ritaual offering, at his inauguration on this spot.

The seal of King David I

   There may have been an earlier event on this hjoly spot which, in part, aimed at Christianising the place, while retaining its sanctity.  The annals record this event, probably in the year 906:

And in his sixth year king Constantine and bishop Cellach upon the Hill of Credulity near the royal city of Scone, pledged themselves that the laws and disciplines of the faith, and the rights in churches and gospels, should be kept in conformity with [the customs of] the Scots. From that day the hill has deserved this name - that is, the Hill of Credulity...

Cuckoo in flight:  bird of the Scone goddess?

   It is possible that the goddess Créde is a superimposition of a character, imposed by Scottish kings upon an equivalent or similar Pictish deity they found resident in this holy place.  The Irish goddess was possibly a personification of the regenerative powers of spring, and one source mentions here as one 'for whom the cuckooo calls'.  A figure very much like her is features in a poem named The Song of Créde, where she is portrayed as daughter of King Guaire of Aidne.  She falls in love with the tragic hero Dinertach.  She also seems to appear in the tale of Cano mac Gartnainn, which certainly contains echoes of cultural contact between the Picts of northern Britain and the Gaels of Britain and Ireland.  Her role as an ancestral figure is testified by the recording of Clann Créidhe and Síol Creidhe, Men of Connacht,  where she was regarded as ancestors of the O’Connors.  But the exact connection with Scone is as allusive as the appearance of the cuckoo itself.