What information do we know about the earliest Pictish kings found before the historical horizon? It's generally thought that the Pictish king lists only become reliable around the middle of the 6th century, with the advent of the powerful Brude mac Maelchon, who ruled from somewhere near the modern Inverness and was famously encountered by St Columba there.
Can anything then be recovered from the material we have about Pictish kings before this date? One line of enquiry we can stumble along begins not with the fragmentary Pictish material, but in the Welsh Triads. There is mention there of a character named Yrp of the Hosts. One Triad describes him as leader of a vast army that departed from Britain:
The suggestion that this Triad remembers the departure of Aud, widow of Olaf the White, to Iceland. This is on the basis that one of Aud's followers was named Erpr. But Welsh legend does not generally celebrate Viking events and this identification seems misplaced. The editor of the Welsh Triads, Rachel Bromwich, believed that the proper name was a play on the Welsh word for 'number' and that it was invented by a storyteller instead of being based on a real person. An argument against this would be that the great majority of names in the Triads are demonstrably real people, not invented characters, even if we know next to nothing about many of them.
Looking north, we have similar forms to Yrp in some versions of the Pictish kings lists. We can particularly note Drust, Erp's son and also Nechtan Morbet, son of Erip or Wirp. These kings (if they existed at all) may have reigned in the 5th century AD. However, we are definitely in the realm of fantasy when we hear from the sources that Drust son of Erp reigned for a hundred years and fought a hundred battles. Is these merely shorthand based on the remembered boasts of a bard who was himself glorifying an exceptionally powerful and long-lived ruler? These rulers seem to have been associated with the lands around the Tay in southern Pictland. Nechtan may be the king who is remembered at the fort and later parish of Dunnichen in Angus, site of the later battle in the 7th century when the Northumbrians were defeated. he may also be associated with a monastic community at Abernethy. He is alleged to have invited an acolyte of the Irish St Bridget to settle there.
The hidden history of this pair of kings, Nechtan and Drust, is not easy to fathom, wreathed as it is in layer upon layer of rewriting and fantasy. There is a possibility that Nechtan was extremely active in reaching out to the nascent Irish church. He may be the same Nechtan who is associated with St Buitte, an Irishman who is credited with bringing him back to life. In thanks for this admittedly impressive miracle, he transferred ownership of the fort in which the event took place to the saint. This is alleged to be Kirkbuddo in central Angus. It seems possibly that Nechtan's brother was against the association with missionaries, though whether this was on the basis of his own paganism or because he was distrustful of foreigners entering Pictland is unknown. Drust expelled Nechtan to Ireland at some stage and it was there that Nechtan made close ties with the Christian community. The writer John Morris (author of The Age of Arthur (1973)) confidently dates Drust's reign to the period 414 to 458, but we are a long way from certainty on this matter.
Could Erp be a legendary and shadowy king who led raids perhaps on the crumbling Roman state of Britannia? There is no way of knowing for sure, but it's an intriguing possibility.
Can anything then be recovered from the material we have about Pictish kings before this date? One line of enquiry we can stumble along begins not with the fragmentary Pictish material, but in the Welsh Triads. There is mention there of a character named Yrp of the Hosts. One Triad describes him as leader of a vast army that departed from Britain:
More information is contained in the following:
Three Levies that departed from the Island, and not one of them came back.
'The second went with Yrp of the Hosts...And all her asked of each chief fortress was twice as many (men) as would come with him to it; and to the first Fortress there came only himself and his servant...Nevertheless that was the most complete levy that ever went from this Island, and no (man) of them ever came back. The place where those men remained was on two island close to the Greek sea...'
An army (of assistance) went with Yrp of the Hosts to Llychlyn...And with these men he conquered the way he went...
The suggestion that this Triad remembers the departure of Aud, widow of Olaf the White, to Iceland. This is on the basis that one of Aud's followers was named Erpr. But Welsh legend does not generally celebrate Viking events and this identification seems misplaced. The editor of the Welsh Triads, Rachel Bromwich, believed that the proper name was a play on the Welsh word for 'number' and that it was invented by a storyteller instead of being based on a real person. An argument against this would be that the great majority of names in the Triads are demonstrably real people, not invented characters, even if we know next to nothing about many of them.
Looking north, we have similar forms to Yrp in some versions of the Pictish kings lists. We can particularly note Drust, Erp's son and also Nechtan Morbet, son of Erip or Wirp. These kings (if they existed at all) may have reigned in the 5th century AD. However, we are definitely in the realm of fantasy when we hear from the sources that Drust son of Erp reigned for a hundred years and fought a hundred battles. Is these merely shorthand based on the remembered boasts of a bard who was himself glorifying an exceptionally powerful and long-lived ruler? These rulers seem to have been associated with the lands around the Tay in southern Pictland. Nechtan may be the king who is remembered at the fort and later parish of Dunnichen in Angus, site of the later battle in the 7th century when the Northumbrians were defeated. he may also be associated with a monastic community at Abernethy. He is alleged to have invited an acolyte of the Irish St Bridget to settle there.
The hidden history of this pair of kings, Nechtan and Drust, is not easy to fathom, wreathed as it is in layer upon layer of rewriting and fantasy. There is a possibility that Nechtan was extremely active in reaching out to the nascent Irish church. He may be the same Nechtan who is associated with St Buitte, an Irishman who is credited with bringing him back to life. In thanks for this admittedly impressive miracle, he transferred ownership of the fort in which the event took place to the saint. This is alleged to be Kirkbuddo in central Angus. It seems possibly that Nechtan's brother was against the association with missionaries, though whether this was on the basis of his own paganism or because he was distrustful of foreigners entering Pictland is unknown. Drust expelled Nechtan to Ireland at some stage and it was there that Nechtan made close ties with the Christian community. The writer John Morris (author of The Age of Arthur (1973)) confidently dates Drust's reign to the period 414 to 458, but we are a long way from certainty on this matter.
Could Erp be a legendary and shadowy king who led raids perhaps on the crumbling Roman state of Britannia? There is no way of knowing for sure, but it's an intriguing possibility.
