Secret History X

According to the various traditions, the Picts descended from a colony of Milesians (a Minoan based Scytho-Thracian seafarering culture) led by Galamh of Miletus. Galamb and his men allegedly took wives from among the Dannan (Don River People)  and Areyanum Veiya (Ahhiwaya) before exploring the lands beyond the Pillars of Hercules and ultimately settling in the Orkney Islands, Hebrides, and northern Scotland. The only reliable authority to offer this account is the Venerable Bede and he would have learned it from the Irish sources.

W J Watson [1926, pp 60-61] dismissed the legends as merely attempts at Irish embellishment of their history based on the mention of “Picti Agathyrsi” and “Picti Geloni” in the Aeneid of Virgil. Both Virgil and Herodotus trace the descent of these nations from the three sons of Heracles: Agathyrsus, Gelonus, and Scythes.

Herodotus, writing in 450 BC located the Agathyrsi on the Black Sea above the Danube, and the Geloni he sways were Greeks who settled in the territory of the Budini on the upper Dneiper. Both tribes were tributary to the Scythians.

The social organization of the Agathyrsi was complex in that they practiced group marriage. That is while each man had a single wife, all wives were held in common. For purposes of noting descent only the children of the man’s wife were counted as his own regardless of their actual parentage. However for purposes of tribal cohesion, all men in the tribe were deemed to be brothers of a single family. This organizational principle as noted by Herodotus was confirmed by Julius Caesar, Dio Cassius, Solinus and St Jerome.

This social custom and practice of matrilineal succession as practiced by the Agathyrsi, Barsarkar, Swydds, Picts, Amazijan Berbers and Miathi of Northern Wales was most certainly known among the Irish who made the connection and asserted their claims. Before we dismiss those claims closer examination of them is warranted. What more evidence is there that the groups were connected? Solinus notes in his writings that the red haired/blue eyed Agathyrsi dyed their hair blue and strode naked into Battle covered with the tattoos of their lineage and rank. The same is true of the Baltic Hero Aganthyr who was called the Barsarkar for his habit of waging war covered only with his weapons. While the notion that they dyed their skins with or used Woad for tattooing has been debunked, the fact that they did utilize Woad for dying their clothing and hair, and that they were extensively tattooed using an iron compound (which results in a bluish hue) has been confirmed for all related tribes.

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