August 21, 2025 • 60 mins
folks, we haven't ever focused on Scotland. much like the Roman Empire, we've been scared to do it thus far but now we surpass the Romans in every way by going into Scotland and figuring out what the hell was going on in there before, say, 1500 or so. we start a short series on Medieval Scotland by talking about how they got the Highlands, why the Romans put up two walls to keep them out, try to separate the Picts from the Gaels from the Brittonic, and take you up to the founding of the Kingdom of Alba in 900 CE. annoying technical difficulties be damned.Gaza charities mentioned:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh, I have a football updates from the mighty Darby
County FC.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Okay, oh, the season is back, let's go.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
The season is upon us. We are two. We are
two games in. We've lost. We used the last season
to buy a bunch of players who are I can't
stress this enough injured, and we so we lost the
first round. Okay, look, you know everyone's getting everyone just
(00:31):
trying to like get it together. On Saturday, it was
our first home game. We've like laid a new pitch.
We lost. We lost five three.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Well, it was good five three if i'm if I'm
putting on my soccer hat, five to three is a
much better loss than five to two or five to
nothing because you still scored three.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
But there, well yeah, I mean you need to you
need to work on something. But one of the things,
one of the like two parts of your team is
apparently working pretty well. Which is which is you know
something you can go with? If you had said five, oh,
I'd be like, yeah, it's not that down down the rams. Yeah.
(01:21):
You guys ever go to games? Have you ever been
to a game?
Speaker 1 (01:23):
I personally have never been to a game. We would,
I suppose need to go. We would need to go
up to Derby, although it was really like once they
were playing the hated Millwall and like Justin's mam was
down visiting for reasons that had nothing to do with
the mighty Derby County FC and uh, and we were
on the train like from London Bridge to Mine, which
goes by which goes by Millwall, and there was all
(01:46):
these Derby fans on there, and so because like Justin
and his mam are on there, they're all like, oh,
are you guys going to the game, and we're like, no, unrelated.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
I was gonna say that it would have been a good.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Good up tune to get hate crimed, but we didn't.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
So yeah, yeah, I think, yeah, I think they you know,
I don't know. I've like watched those games and they
seem really cool, Like they seem like the equivalent of
like like college football games here. And I mean not
to insult or to integrate the players or to say
that they are amateurs, they're clearly not. Just in like
(02:22):
the way that it's treated. I find it very very
endearing that people in Europe and especially in England will
like pick up or be fans of a team that
is just like perpetually second rank, like oh yeah, yeah,
they may may ascend like once every like twenty five
(02:47):
years for like one season, but you know it's steadily
middle of the pack or whatever. And it's just like
I find that so endearing. I really do.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yeah, Like it's it's interesting because I was talking to
and my mate Antonia about this Antoni's Portsmouth and I
was like, yeah, well doesn't it like get to you
And they're like, look, being a fan of football, it's
not about enjoying yourself. It's actually it's like so English,
so like it's about suffering, right, Like that's what It's.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Amazing that you've just dressed up that Catholicism with a
stiff up here boys.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Like they're like, yeah, you go and you stand in
the rain and your team loses and you eat some
chips and that's what football is. And I was like,
sounds great, but look I'm doing I'm doing my due diligence,
I'm doing my my penance and I'm supporting the mighty
Diarby County. I see, and that's what's important there.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
You go, Yeah, I yeah, I just I find it
really endearing, like I really do. Oh there's QPR for always,
always love Queen's Park Rangers because I picked it. Oh
cute FIFA back when I used to play that. I
don't know why. I don't remember the reason why I
picked them or whatever. It's just love that. Yeah, you know,
(04:08):
I just picked them to play if I wanted to play,
you know, because while you know, I am a Barcelona fan,
and they are very good basically all the time, you know,
except when they're digging around and being terrible for a
short minute, but which is a very short minute, I know.
(04:28):
But uh, they're not as fun to play with on
those games sometimes because you could just win like straightaway,
so you want to give yourself a challenge. It's like, okay,
I'll you know, do QPR or whatever. I have no
idea why I just picked one at random. I should
have picked Derby. I should have picked the rams that
should have.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Picked the mighty Derby County, by far the greatest team
that the world has ever seen.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
I do think the logo is very cute, just like
a very like uh, sparsely or spartanly drawn ram, just
like yeah, I'm here, I'm cool. It's it's like a cave.
It's like a cave. Painting of a ram. I like that.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Yeah, it's cute. I think it's a I think it's
a sweet little ram.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
So all right, well you've got deadlines and I could
talk forever about soccer, FIFA games.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yeah that's right.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah, but I'm not going to. Oh yeah, so let's
let's get into let's go. Hello, welcome back to We're
(05:56):
Not So Different, a podcast about how you've always been
fans of the Darby County Rams up the rams the
county for life. Well I have to consult a map
to remember where Darby County is after this possibly. Uh yeah,
but seriously, you know, if you are a fan of
(06:17):
a perpetually bad or you know, a second rate side anywhere,
that's cool. I love it. Yeah, I'm Luke. That's doctor Eleanor.
And yeah we usually talk about the Middle Ages and
other stuff. Uh yeah, folks. Today we are going to
journey to the the far Depths. We're gonna cross the Highlands,
(06:41):
We're going to fucking Scotland. We're going north of Hadrian's Wall,
where those bitch ass Romans would never go.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Oh Europe, I'm so cool. No scary guys who may
or may not have painted themselves let me put up
a big wall. I'm so, I'm so, I'm brave.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Anyway, I mean no, but for for real the Romans. Yeah,
but before.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Anti Roman action. You heard it here, you heard it.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Caesar was right to look at it and be like, nah,
I'm good, I'm good man, No, no, no need, I'm good. Yeah.
But first we got a question from one of our patrons,
Uh from Pearl Riverflow, who says the show mentions candles
a lot, but what about torches? Where were their torches
everywhere like you see in movies and games? Who was
(07:33):
cleaning theisconsins? What were they made of? How did they last?
I've learned a lot about candles thanks to w NSD,
but now I need to know more about torches. The
smoke from the bunch of torches seems like it would
be a lot.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah, torches are really more of a mobile thing. Is
The answer is that because they are a lot smokier
than candles are, you sort of don't want like, I mean,
you wouldn't have them in your house right and they
all so are again like a larger flame source. So
if you're an ordinary person who's living in like a
wattle and daub house with a wooden frame. That shit
(08:09):
can that's gonna go up, right, So you really only
want to have a torch in places that are made
of stone. And like even then we need to understand that, right,
Like castles, they've got a lot of cloth on the walls.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
You can still burn them, and I mean stone, stone
will burn and the mortar will break apart. Like you know,
it's certain eat so it's not it's not impervious to.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
It, yeah, completely, Yeah, And like they have rushes on
the floors, so like the rushes could cut fire, so
you're you're kind of trying to keep fire more contained
so that you don't fuck yourself over, right, Like that
that just is it. That's that's the fact of the matter.
And you so for a torch, like you're gonna be
(08:51):
using a torch if you're like, oh, I'm trying to
get through somewhere dark, you know, like outside, that's what
you would use it for. Or you would use it
may be like in castle corridors where you're less likely
to have rushes, places like that where you just kind
of need a light source at night because it's just
too too dim. And in terms of like sconces and everything, well,
(09:12):
you know, it just depends who is asking. It's either
you know, part of the daily task in you're ordinary
household if you're an ordinary person, or you know you've
got staff for that, right, Like, it'll just be like
one of the things that like the sundry maids are
taken care of. So, yeah, the reason we don't talk
a lot about tortures is that torches are much more
It's a lot more like using a flashlight or a torch,
(09:34):
as we would say here, right like therefore these particularized jobs,
like it's more of a tool for moving around and
so there you can understand as well, because you'll want
a larger light source. You'll want a light source that's
a little more robust, that isn't just going to go
out if there's like a gust of wind or something.
So it's a lot more for being ambulatory than it
(09:56):
is otherwise.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I had.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
I hadn't really thought about it. It's like that I
was like, oh, yeah, huh, like.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
You know, so yeah, I mean I guess they I
mean they show up in movies and games because like
you're you're usually walking and moving there. You know, there
aren't that many of these things that are set in
you know, wable and doabhouses and you know they're usually
set in castles and stuff like that, and that is
(10:25):
not great, but you know, it is what it is,
which means you see a lot more torches and stuff
when to reality for the you know, the regular person,
the torch is something you only get out like if
you have to make the late horse ride or walk somewhere,
you know, or something like that. And you know, yeah,
so it uh you know, do we do you do?
(10:50):
We know it? Like how long they would last or
it's just like, well it's a burn for like a
bit and it's just like well fine.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
So with them, a lot of the time you're using
stuff that's more like pitch for example, so they they
they also burn a little longer, so that that's kind
of like the plus side, right.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
So like els awful ahead.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah, yeah, I mean a little bit. So you're using
things like pitch, So the upshot of that is that
you're going to have a longer burn time, right, you know,
stuff like rush lights or candles or whatever, they can
burn through pretty quickly depending on what you are making
out of them. And also like again I can't stress
how much they're going to fucking blow out if you're outside.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Right yep.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
But like it's much harder to put out a pitch fire,
which is what a torch is going to do for you.
So I mean, like it's it's probably not unusual to
get like half hour out of those bitches something like that,
you know, So like I mean.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Yeah, that's I mean, that's a long time in reality
for something to burn.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Mmm mmm. So it's like if you do if you
do that nicely, you can really get that going for
a while. And you know, again that kind of like
makes sense for what you'd be using it for. It's
kind of like night journeys things like that, you know,
like you don't want to be setting this up like
over and over and over again, right, And I mean
you could also make them of different sizes, of different densities,
things like that in order to extend that as well.
(12:08):
That's completely within the realm of possibility.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, yeah, it's Torches are cool.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Torches are cool, though, They're fucking cool.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
They are cool, and they're like they they like they
cast your face in like a cool light, like it
like it's it's it's more cinematic than for like a
for like a close endshot than a candle typically is now.
I mean, of course, like if you're showing like a
cathedral or something like that, you want all the candles
because you want it to look like mysterious and you
(12:40):
know kind of you know, dim more dimly lit stuff
like that. But yeah, you know, I think I think
we should have a parody here. I think we should
get more candles into movies and games. You know, some
games should have you know, more people walking around with
a candle on a metal plate and you know, in
their nightgown. We need that. We need games where you
(13:02):
have to balance the candle on the plate and not
burn your hand. You know, you know, fun stuff like
that that everybody would love, not just you know idiots
like me. Anyway, Yeah, pro overfloat. Thank you very much
for the question. Uh, torches they're fun. They are fun,
useful as far as I can tell, I wouldn't know
(13:25):
because I've only seen one at like a like uh
medieval type.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Yeah, I want to I want to be like link,
you know, d dunt dunt no no, no no no, Just.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Like you have the torch and like you you thrust
it at something and it's.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Like Oh yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
That's exactly how it would happen in real life. You
you know, obviously you wouldn't get arrested for assault or anything,
you know.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
I mean, I guess like especially if you're doing like
if you're siezing or under siege, probably you're gonna have
more torture, you know. Up update on the wall.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
The general that everyone hates who only brings candles to
the sieges that come out.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
God, God, damn it.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Oh I hate this guy.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Actually wasted money in the long run.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah, it doesn't matter that your brother, you know, owns
an apiary. Done of a bitch, Just use a torch anyway,
Thank you very much for the question. Same thing we
did last time. Folks, Please donate to people in need
in Gaza chuffed dot org. You can find many of
(14:39):
the individual pages, uh through links on blue Sky and
Twitter and elsewhere. Uh I, last week I said the
Semir Project and eleanor yours.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Was medical for Palestinians, medical a.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
For Palestinian yet and we'll have links to those in
the show notes. So yeah, check them out. We're only
doing them one question day because we got more questions
and I got to talk about geology, which I'm told
some of you like. Yeah, So anyway, if you don't
like it, I don't know, you can just black out
until I'm done talking and then you can come back
and we'll talk about the other thing. Well they're they're connected.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
But you and all my homies love geology.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
I do. I love being an amateur at this stuff.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
It was like one of my favorite courses that I
took in Uni. Well, I took geology and it whipped.
It went so hard as cool as hell.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Yeah, yeah, oh, all right. We think of Pangaea, we
likely think of it as one gigantic, contiguous land mass,
you know, fairly generic Cive six map, with maybe a
few outlyings here, outlying islands here and there to spice
things up. But of course the continents were not always
united in this way. They drift together and apart again
(15:49):
and again as part of Earth's super continent cycle. Before Pangaea,
there was a Gondwana, which was made up of the
continents of the southern hemisphere and possibly a super continent
it's own right, and then scattered fragments that would form
into Laurasia, which was made up of the northern hemisphere.
Continents as we know them today. These two land masses
rammed into one another near the equator about three hundred
(16:12):
and forty million years ago, forming one of the largest
mountain chains in the history of this planet, the Central
Pangaea Mountains. When two plates collide, there will always be friction,
but the format takes differs greatly depending on a number
of factors like plate thickness and weight, relative speed, density,
(16:34):
and so forth. Transform boundaries of car when two plates
grind against one another in a sort of geological sparring match.
But sometimes the heavier plate will be subducted under the
lighter one, and if the subduction angle is shallow enough,
the smaller plate will push into the larger plate, bunching
up its rocks like a rug on a hardwood floor
bunches at the door. I would use a more eloquent metaphor,
(16:57):
but that's literally the one. Everything I've read uses. Find
it on Wikipedia, you find it in books. They all
say the same fucking thing, because I get because I
guess that's something that we're all just kind of like, oh, yeah,
that makes sense. Most you know, and most cultures have rugs.
I dare say basically all of them do you know,
so it's kind of one of those things range, Like, yeah,
it's kind of universal, you know, very rarely this process
(17:20):
yields mountains of gargantum proportion thanks to compression, angle, rock shearing,
and other factors, and subduction of this kind played out
where Larasia and Gondwana met, giving way too soaring mountains
that rose as high as the Himalayas. By two hundred
and ninety five million years ago, the central Panchaea Mountain
range was impressibly vast, stretching across much of the neck
(17:41):
of the super continent, where what is now the entire
eastern seaboard of North America from Mexico to northern Canada
and in northern Europe met at met present day God
damn it, Let me start where the entire eastern seaboard
of North America from Mexico to northern Canada and then
Europe met present met the present day northern coast of
(18:05):
South America and Africa. The range was so tall and wide,
in fact, it would have created a massive rain shadow
on the southern escarpment to share with the Pangaea meant
it was difficult for clouds to form so far inland
from the worldwide super ocean Pantalasa, and when this was
combined with the central Pangaea Mountains rain shadow, they created
(18:26):
a huge desert system in the center of the land mass,
likely the largest ever form on the planet. However, geology
is cruel and often doesn't let things let things this
cool hang around forever, and so the passage of time,
general weathering and plate tectonics steadily eroded the mountains over
millions of years, until they reached about half of their
original high by two hundred and fifty million years ago. Then,
(18:49):
around two hundred million years ago, Pangaea began rifting apart,
right along that fragile neck where our beautiful mountains sat. Yet,
even today, so long long after this impressive range was
torn us under, it still remains with us in the
form of these smaller mountain groups it spawned. Laraisia's ongoing
northward migration caused the first major rift, pulling what is
(19:12):
now the southeastern and Gulf coast of North America away
from northwest Gondwana, which is South America and Africa. Soon,
geologically speaking, full separation would occur as the northeasterly drift
of modern day Eurasia caused it to separate from Africa,
marking the end of Pangaea around one hundred and thirty
million years ago. It was truly a black day, but
(19:33):
the Central Pangaa Mountains held on for around two hundred
ten million years, serving as a natural wall spanning much
of the super continent and stealing our hearts. This long
rifting process ripped the southern edge of the Central Pangaea
Range apart, reducing its size further and forming the present
day Atlas Mountains of North Africa. The northern edge of
(19:54):
the range went with Larasia was similarly reduced in size
from a long chain that would become the Appalachian Mountains
of North America and the various ranges of West and
Central Europe, which were still connected where Canada, Greenland and
Northern Europe met. This held together tenuously until about eighty
(20:14):
five million years ago, when North America took the Appalachians
west and Eurasia took the assembled chains east as they
too began rifting apart. The last hinge that held the
final united remnants of the Central Pangaea Mountains together was
far to the north, where eastern Canada met the British Isles. There,
the Appalachians were finally ripped away, traveling toward their new home.
(20:37):
The Atlantic Ocean was born, and the remote northern end
of this tiny peninsula was left with a short but
dense mountain range known as the Highlands. In time, many
many years later, these Highlands would have a profound effect
on the formation of a little place we like to
call Scotland. Folks, whoa there you go all that history
(21:01):
in I don't know, four or five minutes. I don't
remember how long I blacked out in anyway.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
His eyes went totally black.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Folks, God, I wish I have, literally my entire life
wanted to be able to go into a trance state
and have my eyes. Just do that now, but freak
everyone out. I mean I assume you know, like you know,
kind of get used to it after a lot. Be like,
are you meditating? Like I'm just thinking about something. Just
one second, I'm fine, Just hold on. Anyway, folks were
(21:32):
here and we're ready to do a short series on
medieval Scotland. We're going to trace how this amalgamation of Hiljacks,
Hillbilly's and Yahoo's affectionates with most delightful red hair and
accents you've ever heard, went from a waldolf Roman no
go zone to one of the greatest thorns in Europe
side and then sadly, two of the handmaids of the
(21:54):
British Empire. This is part of our ongoing series to
visit and focus on new places in the medieval world.
We've talked a lot about England and France, but we
never really focused on Scotland. Our few trips beyond Hadrian's
Wall have been rather brief, which isn't really fair. So
we're here to rectify that in some small way. I'm
going to do three episodes on the beginning, middle, and
end of medieval Scotland. Today we're going to cover Scotland
(22:17):
from the time of the Roman occupation of Britain up
to the founding of the Kingdom of Alba, the predecessor
of what we know is Scotland in the early ninth century.
So yeah, During the series, we're going to try to
answer these questions we've gotten from patrons over time. First,
from Lee, I'm still working my way through the back catalog,
(22:39):
so apologies. If this has been done before, it hasn't.
When we talk about Midi history, there's a lot of
focus on England, France and the Holy Roman Empire, naturally,
but what happened in Scotland? Who were the kings was
macbeth reel? Did Scotland's government have earls or dukes and
counts like their English and French counterparts? What were the
(23:00):
Vikings doing there? How did the Scots feed their English neighbors?
Would love to hear more on English on medieval Scotland
than from Finnitt, who says it got me thinking how
medieval Scotland in particular was organized that Scottish clans fill
in the role of nobility slash landlord. How did the
church fit into this? And did the Reformation strengthen or
weaken the kirk's position in the power structure? And h Yeah,
(23:22):
the position the question or this topic could gob was
also suggested by Phillips, So yeah, we're going to try
and cover that those in this series. But Eleanor first,
what is Scotland known for in the Middle Ages? What
was their reputation outside of Scotland or the ones we
now know is Scotland?
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Yeah, okay, so one of the reasons why just to
kind of explain why we haven't really done Scotland yet
is you know, one of the reasons why I like England,
for example, like punches above its weight. And the reason
why you hear more about England than like it's gotten
outside of importance is like yeah, yeah, the colonialism and everything,
(24:07):
but also because they were a bunch of bureaucratic nerds
even in the Middle Ages. So we've got really good
records for England, which kind of allows us to know
more than we otherwise would, right, we have piss poor
records for Scotland, and that prevents us from like doing
(24:30):
as much there fundamentally that that's just kind of how
it is. So we know less about Scotland than I
or anyone would like to. We're learning more all the time,
but we just don't have the oodles and noodles of
records that would help us to flesh this out in
the same way. And a lot of times when you
(24:51):
learn about Scotland and how people perceive it in the
Middle Ages, of a lot of it comes from the
French because of the old Alliance. Uh So, the old
Alliance being Scotland and France ganging up because me and
all my homies hate England, you know, like and they're like,
so we're basically the southern and northern borders. Let's fuck
(25:14):
these guys over, let's let's gang up on them. And
it's really funny. And what we get though, are these
like letters from French guys who get set up there
and they're like, oh boy, wow, it's uh, it's wet,
you know, and and they're and they're basically like, damn bitch,
you live like this, like uh, which is kind of
(25:37):
you know, obviously it's unfair, you know, obviously, but you know,
the French are very busy being you know, like the
wealthiest people, and you know, they're used to kind of
fopping around the shop, whereas these Scottish are just kind
of like much more rough and ready, you know, like
(25:57):
are they farming sheep? Obviously they are, obviously they are,
but it's just it's a little bit more wild up there.
And so yeah, which is also part of the reason
why we don't have the greatest records, not to say
that we have none, but yeah, that it limits us
to an extent.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
They weren't they weren't fans of the biggest fans of
record keeping, which is fine. I don't you know, you
don't have to be. But you know, also it's so wet,
like you know, you live in Orkney. Are you more
worried about fishing and Viking raids? Are you worried about
(26:36):
riding down you know what the ethnic and cultural makeup
of your lands? The answer is clearly both. You're doing
them at the same No, I'm just kidding. It's the
first one. Uh all right, Yeah, we had a bit
of an audio hiccup there. Yeah, so we will, you know,
(26:57):
we'll get that edited in post to sound quasi normal
and then you'll hear that.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Wow, they'll be like they're such pros.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Everyone will say that's that's what everyone says about my
audio editing.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
But yeah, let's just say that. Uh, when we're going
to pick up the story, when we do start kind
of having records about uh, Scotland, they first come from
our good friends, uh, you know, the the Greeks and
the Romans. Greeks supposedly wrote something you know about Uh.
(27:37):
There was a guy Pythius who supposedly circumvented, you know,
the circumnavigated the islands of you know what are now
Britain and Ireland in the fourth century BCE, and uh, Yeah.
The then by the time of the Romans, they kind
(27:59):
of had some vague knowledge of it. They seem to
know things about like the island, but it's more like,
you know, they had heard stories, like they talked to
one guy on the coast and they got all the
lore about it. Were like that sounds good, we'll write that.
But yeah, eleanor you know, briefly, the Roman invasion of
(28:20):
Britain and then why they stopped? Why why why didn't
they keep going north all the way to Orkney? Why
didn't they want the beautiful, the beautiful northern aisles.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Uh? Yeah, I guess that, Like the Picks were just
like such class warriors that they're like, don' don't come
up here. I mean, I get. The thing that's interesting
about Roman Britain is that they really are here for
a fucking long time.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
It's actually crazy how long the Romans are on the
island of Britadia. Yeah, And I mean they're basically here
to strip it of natural resources, like there's a lot
of you know, tin mining and things of this nature.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yea.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
And it's kind of easy to do, you know. It's
it's sort of like, oh, just get over there, you know,
the Brits are kind of like, yeah, I guess whatever,
you know. Don't get me wrong. Obviously you get your
uprisings like Boudica at all and things of this nature.
But for the most part it's it's sort of like fine,
(29:23):
but you get up to Scotland and they're a little
more ornery, you know. Not to say that the Angles
and the people who were who were living down south
weren't like why don't you fuck on out of here
when the Romans initially showed up. But it's just like
easier because it's a little bit closer, right, it's just
further south, it's closer to frauds that there's already like
(29:45):
pretty big and important Roman settlements off the coast, so
they can kind of supply new men getting to Scotland.
You either got to go across the island walking or
you got to get in boats. And I mean they do,
they do get in boats. That that's a thing that
the Romans will do, and they just can't really see
(30:06):
that it's worth It is sort of the major thing
that they're kind of like, I don't really understand what
it is that I'm attempting to kind of like strip
you of right, Like it's it's an extractive colonial system
that the that the Romans are running and they can't
figure out what it is they're going to extract from
the Scots. You know, they don't know about oil yet,
(30:28):
they don't know about these sorts of things. And uh,
it just basically it's more trouble than it seems worth.
That's what it comes to down to.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
So yeah, yeah, I mean all of uh, all of
northern England and western all of northern and western Britain
is the Isle is hilly and mountainous. But when they
get when you get up to the highlands, you get
towards the skinnier part of the island up north, they
(31:01):
get worse. And it's the juice isn't worth the squeeze,
like you can, yeah, exactly, you can already. Uh you know,
shears shear more sheep than you ever thought possible below
that point, Like you know, you don't you don't need
(31:23):
pete bog, you don't need more rain than you get.
You know, no offense to the Picks, who I'm sure
were lovely people and would throttle me within an inch
of my life or without an inch of my life
for that matter, But Yeah, around eighty seven CE, the
Romans were like, uh rb dragons and built Hadrian's Wall
(31:46):
and uh, you probably know, but some people don't. Hadrian's
Wall is not the modern border between Scotland and Ireland.
I mean Scotland and England. Uh, it is just part
of northern England, but it should be the border. It
was very that they didn't put it there, but nobody
asked me. Yeah, and uh they a little bit later
(32:09):
they took another bite at the apple and they were like, hey,
let's go and went up to uh near the Firth
of Clyde and built what is known as the Antonin Wall.
But yeah, that it was shorter. It was only about
thirty seven miles and it took them a while to build.
And then within a decade of being built, it had
(32:32):
been overrun by the Picks again. And they were like
fuck it. You know. They were like they were like
the Conservatives who were scared of the city. They're like,
crime there, it's so awful. I got knockout game to
buy a pick please. Minister Caesar helped me and yeah,
(32:53):
so they confined themselves to the rest of it, except
when you know Septimia Septimius Severus is like, hey, I'll
go and then that didn't work out so much. So yeah,
eleanor what do we know like when when uh, the
Romans started to abandon the island proper, do we know
(33:16):
anything about like how that directly affected the people up
here who for for the present moment, we're calling picts.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Yeah, I mean basically it just kind of like chills
things down for them, you know, because they're like, okay, great,
but you know, to an extent they're like, ah, no,
no more raids sadays. But I guess the thing that
we have to be kind of careful with when we
talked about picts is picked. It's like this is a
Roman word, yep, right, So it's like the Romans are
(33:48):
attempting it like it's a pejorative, you know, they kind
of bean these barbarians, these barbarians. So like we have
a little bit of trouble kind of saying exactly who
the picts were, because this can be a pretty nebulous category.
And we think, especially like by the time that like
(34:10):
the Romans retreat, like they don't. They wouldn't they wouldn't say, oh, hey,
what's up, I'm a pickt. They'd be like, pardon, you know,
did you just call me a slur or something, and like,
we don't, we don't really think that. People up in
Scotland started kind of calling themselves picks to like maybe
around like the seventh century or so, but you know,
(34:31):
essentially they I think that for them, they're like, oh
this is you know, there's good things and there's bad things.
There was trade back and forth with the between people
who were living in Scotland and the Romans. There was rating,
which is nice and so you know, you lose a
little bit of that kind of trade that you get
(34:52):
or that those rating possibilities, but what you lose in
trading possibilities you gain in there's no Romans in your backyard.
It's a nice thing, right you know.
Speaker 5 (35:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
So leave me alone, you know, yeah they yeah, you know,
I mean really the most lasting part about Roman uh
Scotland is Roman Northern Britain or whatever you want to
(35:28):
call it.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Is I mean the two Walls and the fact that
the Romans were like nope, yeah, what happening, Like like,
you know, we talked about them and that's good because
loll but uh, you know, they were fearsome warriors, you know,
and I mean like especially like especially like the the
(35:51):
you know early ce Roman Empire. These you know, there's
like Caesar and Augustus's legacy, you know, direct legacy, and
it's uh yeah, they were like no thanks, So I
mean that has to tell you something about it. The
Romans had taken over places that didn't really have a
ton of resources before, so you know, yeah, but at
(36:13):
some point they're like like, no, there are too many
islands up here. I don't care. Please stop hitting me
with rocks and stuff heavy implements. So like I mean,
we're talking about Scotland, but at this point, like there's
like the Pictish lands to the north, and there's I
(36:34):
guess what is the farthest would be like York? Would
that you know, the Kingdom of York? Would that be about?
Where it is? Like where where is the like where
did the so called like English or you know, Brythonic
or whatever lands you want to call it end?
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Uh yeah, I mean it's a good question. So like
around there, it's kind of like it's a little more
porous obviously, like around kind of like the Hadrian's Wall
and things. I mean, I guess the when the Romans retreat,
I kind of think of like what is now sort
(37:09):
of like the North or whatever like that, that's more
like North, that's more like Northumbria, right like, so the North,
the exactly, et cetera. So I mean, yeah, you know,
I think the thing is things of this nature, right, So,
I mean it is they they are further south than
(37:31):
you would expect them to be now, like you know,
in terms of where the border to Scotland is, but
it also really depends on what side of the island
you're on, because in the East it's further north, in
the South it's it's sort in the west it's further south.
You have a lot more kind of direct back and
forth between Western Scotland and Ireland, for example, Like there's
(37:52):
really direct commerce back and forth between like Western Scotland
and and the the Irish. You know, there's forever a
monk coming over you guys want to.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Learn about Jesus. No.
Speaker 5 (38:08):
But and then at some point they were like yeah, yeah, yeah,
I mean like it's like in the sixth century or so,
I think, and you know that they are kind of
part of the as a result.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Like when they Christianize, they're a bit more of like
the the Celtic or Irish form of Christianity, which is
like really dominant Norse. But yeah, sorry, I digress.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
I'm so hYP good. Yeah, girl, that's that's the that's
that's the kind of of of not experienced God damn,
that's kind of enthusiasm we need as we go into
Scotland in the early Middle Ages, because folks, it's going
to get a little confusing. So we're talking about porous,
(38:53):
unfixed borders, and these are even unfixed by the medieval
and early medieval standard, which means they went as far
as like you hated the person north of you, and
like there's the line. It's like, yeah, okay, they there
be barbarians over there, and on the other side of
the land four hundred meters north, they're like there be
(39:17):
barbarians over there. Yeah. Yeah. So around you know, around
the beginning of the fifth century and everything, uh, the
Romans leave the island, they abandon it, and up north
things become confusing because you have the picks who are
(39:40):
the what we'll call I guess native uh not don't.
They're not indigenous. I don't.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
It's hard to say. But because we don't we don't.
We don't really know. This is the trouble is that
Picks is such like a collective, like we think that
we think that they're probably we think they're probably Gaelic speakers,
but it sort of just depends who's asking, because like
you know, a lot of the information that we end
up getting from this period comes to us from people
like Bead who are kind of like riding you know,
(40:13):
two hundred years later and it's like yeah, thinks and yeah,
and like then they kind of try to use the
Picks for like allegorical reasons, you know, and that sort
of thing. Yeah, I guess that like what I could
say about the Picks is in this period kind of
like in the post Roman period, we kind of are
(40:36):
using like they're they're just kind of like one of
the big one of the big groups that have influence, right,
and they're the ones who are kind of in the east.
We have a basically they're kind of like around from
Shetland to about the fourth that is the river that is,
and we don't know that much about them until like
(40:59):
into the Sick century when we get like a big
king come forward, who's Bridy mcmelchon.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
And I'm sorry. I don't mean to laugh, but that
really does sound like a fake guess I know.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
I'm like, yo, that's right, it was. And like basically
he is kind of like up near Inverness now and like,
so we don't necessarily know that much. We think maybe
the court was near Lockness, which is fun. We know
(41:33):
that he died like sometime in the five eighties. You know,
he gets and we know about him because the Irish
right about him.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Yeah, right, so.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
He gets written about in the Annals of Ulster and
so like for a lot of this information you end
up having to go to the Irish because the Irish
are like, yeah, hell yeah, brother, like Hoomst is ready
to celt down and the Irish writing ship down all
the time. So we're we're leaning on them, uh, and
(42:05):
we're leaning more particularly on the Annals of Ulster because
there's these direct links between the northern parts of Ireland
and Scotland. And they're like, oh, yeah, there's there's there's brity,
which is cool. We don't know that much about him, yeah,
(42:26):
we know that, like that he shows up in the
Life of Saint Colomba. It's like one of the guys
who like starts the you know, he starts the monastery
on Iona right St.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Columbo, That's right, exactly.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Just one more thing.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Do you accept Jesus Christ as you learn for the
last time? No? I mean.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Yeah, and so like it. And he's one of these
ones where we're just like, okay, well we've got a
name and so like, and that's exciting because our lack
of sources is such that it is exciting that we
get a guy and he seems to be powerful enough
and be ruling enough land that the Irish will like shit,
real real stuff. Okay, So we we know about that,
(43:14):
and we think then that like the power base of
how these kind of like his power base kind of
goes ends up kind of like being more centered around
strathing in places like that, and and like kind of
and basically what they are doing at the time is
they're just reading the English, you know, like or the
(43:38):
angles they suppose they are, they're not really you know,
particularly the angles.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
The Jutes and the Saxons are down there doing whatever
they're doing. The Jutes no doubt.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Yeah, yeah, And so that's what the pigs are doing.
They're just like hey if hey fuck you, hey fuck you,
which is quite funny and a good thing to do,
I think, so, like, but they're but they're converting, they're converting.
So we know that they start converting from about six
hundred and like that St. Columbus thing.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
So yeah, yeah, so yeah. So the Picks eventually formed
a kingdom of some kind called Fortrio. I'm doing my
best here on pronunciations, people. Yeah, and it lasted in
some form for I mean a long ass time, you know,
(44:30):
from like the fifth century until like the tenth or so.
But yeah, and they eventually ended up duking it out
with a few other groups who made their way to Scotland.
One of them, where the dot was known as Dalriata.
(44:54):
And these were people mostly who had come across the
Western Islands from Ireland. They were Gaelic speakers, they had
Gaelic culture as we understand it now, and you know,
there was some you know, Irish Gaelic colony there and
(45:16):
of some kind, and they were over there, and they
don't appear to have formed like a huge kingdom or anything.
It doesn't appear to have lasted is a as like
a as a connective. It doesn't appear to have lasted
as a territorial thing. For a long time, but they did.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
That's where we get the term scott.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
It's where we get the term Scott from Scotti or
Scotty Eyes or whatever. It is the Latin term for
the people who inhabited Ireland or Iona. And yeah, they
they donated that and a lot of culture. People they think,
you know, the culture is donated because the Irish Gaelic
(46:00):
culture does exist for you know, obviously for a long
time there and uh, I guess, I guess people assume
that it came to Scotland from there. Yeah. Uh, there
was Dariata and you know, they assimilated into the Picts
(46:21):
at some point, the group that we're calling the Picts.
But there was also alt Clute, which was near Dumbarton
Castle and the Kingdom of Strathclyde, which they're yeah, yeah,
they and they're from, like I guess, the southwestern part
(46:44):
up to part of the Firth of Clyde, I believe.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
Yeah, I really.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
Apologize if I'm if I'm missing the geography here. I'm
bad on English geography in Scotland is much harder. But yeah,
they were there and apparently at some point briefly ruled
the Pictish Kingdom of Fortrio and they had their own thing.
But uh, you know, after the middle eighth century they
(47:13):
apparently were dominated by the Picks again, and there were
you know, they're these pic these Pictish groups up there.
But there was one Bernicia, which was in what we
now consider northern England and southern Scotland, and these were
(47:36):
the extreme Brithonic green like the like Strathclyde was Brithonic,
but these were like.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
Uh, yeah, these are like angles, yeah, like and they're
they're quite they're quite former Roman basically. So they've got
these guys kind of have a you know, where's the
Picts and you know, the Scots they're much like, hey,
what's up, We're Celtic. Were being Celtic. Oh I'm carving
this rocky like that. Shit. Uh the angles are like no,
(48:06):
I do not do that. I'm kind of like a Roman.
And it's like, yeah, sure you are, buddy, you know.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
And yeah, they had a Yeah, they had the first
known record of an Anglo Saxon king is Ida from
the Kingdom of Bernicia back in uh five point forty seven,
and yeah, it would remain a going concern until the
(48:32):
seventh century, when it was taken over by the Northumbrians
in the south, and the.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
The Northumbrians fucking love it, dude, they'd love to take.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
It during that shit. Yeah, they took it over, but
they didn't take all of it, because at this time
the island of lindis Farn was still considered part of Scotland,
or at least was they considered it. They seemed to
have considered it, you know whatever. I don't know what
the actual boundary lines were, but it was considered some
part of Scotland or England or both or whatever. But regardless, yeah,
(49:08):
they you know, the Northumbrians took it over and the
rest of them kind of got they would get amalgamated
into uh, you know, the Picts kind of but uh,
whatever this amalgamation look like, and we really don't know.
You can look it up. It's like you if you
(49:29):
look up a map of early medieval Scotland, you'll get
something that's just like, yeah, here's where it was. Yeah,
here's where Portrio kind of was. It could have been
here all the way up to the fucking Shetlands, you know,
the goddamn Arctic Circle. But yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
Yeah, it's like they're like, I don't know dudes were vibing.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
Oh, people were around, and we're doing a lot of
it based on archaeology and what Irish people said. We
just don't know that much. We just don't. Yeah, we don't.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
But around seven ninety three, wouldn't you know it, some guys,
some rough and ready fellas who are a bit more
rough and ready than some of the locals, rolled out
and our good friends, the Vikings from the Scandinavian and
Northern European mainland came over and we're like, hey, uh,
(50:25):
do you guys want to hang out? We like this
island of Linda's farm And the bishop was like okay,
and they were like, uh yeah cool. Anyway, here's an
act to them.
Speaker 1 (50:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
They attacked Linda's farn in seven ninety three, and that
was the beginning of the Viking invasions of Britain and
eventually Ireland as well. Eleanor the Picks who had scared
the fucking Romans off. They seem to have trouble with
(51:00):
the berserkers. Did it happen again?
Speaker 1 (51:06):
It's a charm, that's what they say.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
Let's fucking go all right, folks, We've had more audio
issues here, hopefully gonna sound good in post. I really
don't know where we got to. But basically, the Vikings
Viking invasion of seven ninety three, they went to Linda's farn,
and over the next few decades they essentially they essentially
(51:34):
a they essentially encircled the Picks or you know, the
Scotts as they were coming to be called, or whatever
you want to call them, the people who lived up there,
who had amalgamated all basically all of the other groups
into themselves, and they were encircled. So eleanor general response
to the Viking incursions, yeah or nay.
Speaker 1 (51:56):
The fans' yeah, oh they loved it. Yeah, they were
really ashamed.
Speaker 2 (52:00):
And this is great. There's so much better than the Romans.
Speaker 1 (52:03):
This is so good. Yeah. Well, it's what we tend
to think actually happens is it's sort of a coalescing
of a more Scottish culture. Basically, it's like they've got
they've got a real it's them and versus us kind
of thing that happens as a result of it. So
they're like, oh shit, okay, well I guess we're like
(52:25):
Scottish now, right, Like suddenly, if you're Pictish, you're a
lot more willing to hang out with the Scots because
you're like, oh, well, they at least they're supposed to
be here, Like the Vikings aren't even supposed to fucking
be here, right, And by this time, I mean, these
groups are heavily Christianized, you know, they're they are like
kind of the Irish or Gaelic form of Christianity, whatever
(52:46):
you want to call it. And so they do see
themselves in opposition to the Vikings, who are largely still
you know, doing They're their ways are the old ways,
et cetera. And so they're like, okay, well we're not that, right.
I think we can all agree that we're not that.
(53:07):
And so it begins to mean that there is more
of a homogeneous culture as a result, because you know,
there's like nothing like an enemy, you know, to to
really focus you up. So we lose, for example, just
a lot of kings in battles with the Vikings. You know.
(53:29):
The Vikings obviously, uh, take over the Orkanese. They took
over the Shetlands.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
Uh. They like anything anything with the coast was was
fair game.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
Yeah, like that, they killed the King of Fortrier, they
killed the King of dulrighta, the they you know, so
everyone is like Jesus, huh, well, we really don't like that,
you know that they the fucking Vikings take the hebrides,
you know, and so uh like that this really forces
them to kind of do a what does it all mean?
(54:04):
You know, it kind of in in opposition to them.
So do you know, like, yeah, he's the Viking story
a part of the Scottish story. It absolutely is. But
you got to understand the guys who are there first
are like, I don't like these guys. Yeah, like it's
not fun for me, right.
Speaker 2 (54:24):
Yeah, they yeah, they were like, uh, we hate dal Riata,
and then as soon as the Viking show up, they're
like Gaelic. I fucking love Gaelic culture.
Speaker 1 (54:34):
It's the I love our beautiful culture. Here is Scotland
a place that I definitely believe exists, you know.
Speaker 2 (54:42):
That, I definitely agree we should all be one homogeneous entity.
I definitely believe that before seven ninety three totally like yeah,
like it's the classic situation. You're invaded from without, so
you know, you the the definition of other comes to
mean the people who are from without, who are the
(55:04):
mean invaders, and you know, the definition of us becomes
the invaded broadly in a lot of cases, and especially
back then because they didn't have, you know, the strict
nationalist vibes. It was a lot more tribes based at
the time, and so they just sort of coalesced back
(55:26):
around baby, and they're gonna make a little place called
Alba after the Vikings. Uh, well, they took Northumbria. They
formed the Kingdom of York in eight sixty seven, and uh,
they went up they took they took Dumbarton and that
(55:47):
fully encircled the Picts and the Gales and Fortriu and
whatever else was going on up there. And they were
like fuck it. Yeah, and I'm really trying, uh with
these names here. Alba is like what about trying the
(56:14):
first The first king of Alba is Donald the second.
Speaker 1 (56:18):
In like not Donald.
Speaker 2 (56:22):
Donald two? Fuck whose name is oh right? His his
Scottish name is Domnall mac consantin Consonton. I assume that's Constantine, Yeah,
Donald the second Constantine, Mick Constantine. Yeah, he's considered the
(56:42):
first one. But there was like a bunch of like
in fighting of some kind, uh, from from the time
that the Kingdom of York was founded until nine hundred
there was a rotating section of kings of whatever you
want to consider Scottland or Pictland or whatever. And this
(57:04):
is when it really, you know, became It was Alba
in Gaelic, and of course it became known as Scotia
or Scotia in in Latin, and you know we call it,
of course Scotland, and this is when that came into being. Yeah, folks,
we've had a couple of audio hiccups on this episode.
Speaker 1 (57:30):
Your patients.
Speaker 2 (57:31):
Yeah we do. We're gonna get more into the tribe,
you know, the tribal affinities, the tribal aspects of Scottish
culture in the next episode. We're going to talk about
that as we get more into the Kingdom of Alba
and probably take it all the way up to the
First War of Scottish Independence. But yeah, we'll which is
(57:52):
in twelve ninety six, but yeah we will. We will
get there next time. Again. Apologies if this is sounding
a little disjoined and were doing our best here with
the audio fuck ups we've had, but thank you for
sticking with us. The conclusion about early medieval Scotland is
there are a lot of people up there. We don't
have many records, so it's really hard to figure out
(58:15):
what you would consider indigenous at this point, but what
we broadly call the Picts, which were tribal groups in
uh north of I guess Hadrian's Wall. Uh. And then
there were Brittonic groups and the Irish Gales came over
to so yeah, and then the Vikings came over and
it was a whole hooton Nanny. Not a hooton Nanny
(58:39):
Linda's farn. Uh. I don't know why Linda's farm was
an inside job, you know one of the bishop. Yeah,
the bishop bishop lied, peasants died. Okay, I could do
I could do.
Speaker 1 (58:55):
No.
Speaker 2 (58:56):
I can't do this all day because Eleanor has to go. Folks,
thank you very much for listening. Please, if you have money,
if you have time, or I mean, if you have money,
please donate to the people in Gaza. We you know,
check out the show notes for links to that stuff
that we've talked about. Folks. We really yeah, that's you know,
(59:19):
it's gonna do it for us today. Eleanor. What's going
on with you? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (59:23):
I do have stuff this week. So you can check
a girl out over on the Women Like Sex podcast,
where you know.
Speaker 2 (59:31):
They do this is nice too.
Speaker 1 (59:33):
Yeah, I know it's crazy. So we did a podcast
about that that's out, as I say, got this video
out with Ralph Magazine, so you can I don't know
if you google, but if you YouTube eleanor Yaniga Ralph Magazine,
it'll be you can see me and Ben Smoke getting
drunk in an abandoned monastery. So we got I got that.
(59:56):
I got that going for me.
Speaker 2 (59:57):
I thought you were about to say abandoned mine. I
was like, I don't know, that's safe.
Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
Dog like a dog like I mean, I know you're
a lush but like still seriously, like that's that's not love.
Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
I love inhaling coal dust anything.
Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
Oh yeah, absolutely delicious. So yeah, I think I think
those are the two majors. I swear there was like
one more thing, but like I can never remember who's
to say, you know, like you know where I'm it. Basically,
if you want more than that, come check out the
socials anyway, because I will tell you when it is
(01:00:30):
up there. Uh so yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
Uh huh, yep. You can find me. Luke is amazing
on the different places, and you can find my old
show People's History of the Old Republic if you want
to hear me yap about Star Wars anyway. Uh, thank
you very much for listening and we'll see you next time.
Speaker 3 (01:00:51):
Bye.
Speaker 2 (01:00:53):
All right friend, that's what it was.
Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
It was canceled me daddy. Oh well, there is
Oh, I have a football updates from the mighty Darby
County FC.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Okay, oh, the season is back, let's go.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
The season is upon us. We are two. We are
two games in. We've lost. We used the last season
to buy a bunch of players who are I can't
stress this enough injured, and we so we lost the
first round. Okay, look, you know everyone's getting everyone just
(00:31):
trying to like get it together. On Saturday, it was
our first home game. We've like laid a new pitch.
We lost. We lost five three.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Well, it was good five three if i'm if I'm
putting on my soccer hat, five to three is a
much better loss than five to two or five to
nothing because you still scored three.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
But there, well yeah, I mean you need to you
need to work on something. But one of the things,
one of the like two parts of your team is
apparently working pretty well. Which is which is you know
something you can go with? If you had said five, oh,
I'd be like, yeah, it's not that down down the rams. Yeah.
(01:21):
You guys ever go to games? Have you ever been
to a game?
Speaker 1 (01:23):
I personally have never been to a game. We would,
I suppose need to go. We would need to go
up to Derby, although it was really like once they
were playing the hated Millwall and like Justin's mam was
down visiting for reasons that had nothing to do with
the mighty Derby County FC and uh, and we were
on the train like from London Bridge to Mine, which
goes by which goes by Millwall, and there was all
(01:46):
these Derby fans on there, and so because like Justin
and his mam are on there, they're all like, oh,
are you guys going to the game, and we're like, no, unrelated.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
I was gonna say that it would have been a good.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Good up tune to get hate crimed, but we didn't.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
So yeah, yeah, I think, yeah, I think they you know,
I don't know. I've like watched those games and they
seem really cool, Like they seem like the equivalent of
like like college football games here. And I mean not
to insult or to integrate the players or to say
that they are amateurs, they're clearly not. Just in like
(02:22):
the way that it's treated. I find it very very
endearing that people in Europe and especially in England will
like pick up or be fans of a team that
is just like perpetually second rank, like oh yeah, yeah,
they may may ascend like once every like twenty five
(02:47):
years for like one season, but you know it's steadily
middle of the pack or whatever. And it's just like
I find that so endearing. I really do.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yeah, Like it's it's interesting because I was talking to
and my mate Antonia about this Antoni's Portsmouth and I
was like, yeah, well doesn't it like get to you
And they're like, look, being a fan of football, it's
not about enjoying yourself. It's actually it's like so English,
so like it's about suffering, right, Like that's what It's.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Amazing that you've just dressed up that Catholicism with a
stiff up here boys.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Like they're like, yeah, you go and you stand in
the rain and your team loses and you eat some
chips and that's what football is. And I was like,
sounds great, but look I'm doing I'm doing my due diligence,
I'm doing my my penance and I'm supporting the mighty
Diarby County. I see, and that's what's important there.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
You go, Yeah, I yeah, I just I find it
really endearing, like I really do. Oh there's QPR for always,
always love Queen's Park Rangers because I picked it. Oh
cute FIFA back when I used to play that. I
don't know why. I don't remember the reason why I
picked them or whatever. It's just love that. Yeah, you know,
(04:08):
I just picked them to play if I wanted to play,
you know, because while you know, I am a Barcelona fan,
and they are very good basically all the time, you know,
except when they're digging around and being terrible for a
short minute, but which is a very short minute, I know.
(04:28):
But uh, they're not as fun to play with on
those games sometimes because you could just win like straightaway,
so you want to give yourself a challenge. It's like, okay,
I'll you know, do QPR or whatever. I have no
idea why I just picked one at random. I should
have picked Derby. I should have picked the rams that
should have.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Picked the mighty Derby County, by far the greatest team
that the world has ever seen.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
I do think the logo is very cute, just like
a very like uh, sparsely or spartanly drawn ram, just
like yeah, I'm here, I'm cool. It's it's like a cave.
It's like a cave. Painting of a ram. I like that.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Yeah, it's cute. I think it's a I think it's
a sweet little ram.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
So all right, well you've got deadlines and I could
talk forever about soccer, FIFA games.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yeah that's right.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah, but I'm not going to. Oh yeah, so let's
let's get into let's go. Hello, welcome back to We're
(05:56):
Not So Different, a podcast about how you've always been
fans of the Darby County Rams up the rams the
county for life. Well I have to consult a map
to remember where Darby County is after this possibly. Uh yeah,
but seriously, you know, if you are a fan of
(06:17):
a perpetually bad or you know, a second rate side anywhere,
that's cool. I love it. Yeah, I'm Luke. That's doctor Eleanor.
And yeah we usually talk about the Middle Ages and
other stuff. Uh yeah, folks. Today we are going to
journey to the the far Depths. We're gonna cross the Highlands,
(06:41):
We're going to fucking Scotland. We're going north of Hadrian's Wall,
where those bitch ass Romans would never go.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Oh Europe, I'm so cool. No scary guys who may
or may not have painted themselves let me put up
a big wall. I'm so, I'm so, I'm brave.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Anyway, I mean no, but for for real the Romans. Yeah,
but before.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Anti Roman action. You heard it here, you heard it.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Caesar was right to look at it and be like, nah,
I'm good, I'm good man, No, no, no need, I'm good. Yeah.
But first we got a question from one of our patrons,
Uh from Pearl Riverflow, who says the show mentions candles
a lot, but what about torches? Where were their torches
everywhere like you see in movies and games? Who was
(07:33):
cleaning theisconsins? What were they made of? How did they last?
I've learned a lot about candles thanks to w NSD,
but now I need to know more about torches. The
smoke from the bunch of torches seems like it would
be a lot.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah, torches are really more of a mobile thing. Is
The answer is that because they are a lot smokier
than candles are, you sort of don't want like, I mean,
you wouldn't have them in your house right and they
all so are again like a larger flame source. So
if you're an ordinary person who's living in like a
wattle and daub house with a wooden frame. That shit
(08:09):
can that's gonna go up, right, So you really only
want to have a torch in places that are made
of stone. And like even then we need to understand that, right,
Like castles, they've got a lot of cloth on the walls.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
You can still burn them, and I mean stone, stone
will burn and the mortar will break apart. Like you know,
it's certain eat so it's not it's not impervious to.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
It, yeah, completely, Yeah, And like they have rushes on
the floors, so like the rushes could cut fire, so
you're you're kind of trying to keep fire more contained
so that you don't fuck yourself over, right, Like that
that just is it. That's that's the fact of the matter.
And you so for a torch, like you're gonna be
(08:51):
using a torch if you're like, oh, I'm trying to
get through somewhere dark, you know, like outside, that's what
you would use it for. Or you would use it
may be like in castle corridors where you're less likely
to have rushes, places like that where you just kind
of need a light source at night because it's just
too too dim. And in terms of like sconces and everything, well,
(09:12):
you know, it just depends who is asking. It's either
you know, part of the daily task in you're ordinary
household if you're an ordinary person, or you know you've
got staff for that, right, Like, it'll just be like
one of the things that like the sundry maids are
taken care of. So, yeah, the reason we don't talk
a lot about tortures is that torches are much more
It's a lot more like using a flashlight or a torch,
(09:34):
as we would say here, right like therefore these particularized jobs,
like it's more of a tool for moving around and
so there you can understand as well, because you'll want
a larger light source. You'll want a light source that's
a little more robust, that isn't just going to go
out if there's like a gust of wind or something.
So it's a lot more for being ambulatory than it
(09:56):
is otherwise.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I had.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
I hadn't really thought about it. It's like that I
was like, oh, yeah, huh, like.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
You know, so yeah, I mean I guess they I
mean they show up in movies and games because like
you're you're usually walking and moving there. You know, there
aren't that many of these things that are set in
you know, wable and doabhouses and you know they're usually
set in castles and stuff like that, and that is
(10:25):
not great, but you know, it is what it is,
which means you see a lot more torches and stuff
when to reality for the you know, the regular person,
the torch is something you only get out like if
you have to make the late horse ride or walk somewhere,
you know, or something like that. And you know, yeah,
so it uh you know, do we do you do?
(10:50):
We know it? Like how long they would last or
it's just like, well it's a burn for like a
bit and it's just like well fine.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
So with them, a lot of the time you're using
stuff that's more like pitch for example, so they they
they also burn a little longer, so that that's kind
of like the plus side, right.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
So like els awful ahead.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah, yeah, I mean a little bit. So you're using
things like pitch, So the upshot of that is that
you're going to have a longer burn time, right, you know,
stuff like rush lights or candles or whatever, they can
burn through pretty quickly depending on what you are making
out of them. And also like again I can't stress
how much they're going to fucking blow out if you're outside.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Right yep.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
But like it's much harder to put out a pitch fire,
which is what a torch is going to do for you.
So I mean, like it's it's probably not unusual to
get like half hour out of those bitches something like that,
you know, So like I mean.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Yeah, that's I mean, that's a long time in reality
for something to burn.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Mmm mmm. So it's like if you do if you
do that nicely, you can really get that going for
a while. And you know, again that kind of like
makes sense for what you'd be using it for. It's
kind of like night journeys things like that, you know,
like you don't want to be setting this up like
over and over and over again, right, And I mean
you could also make them of different sizes, of different densities,
things like that in order to extend that as well.
(12:08):
That's completely within the realm of possibility.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, yeah, it's Torches are cool.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Torches are cool, though, They're fucking cool.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
They are cool, and they're like they they like they
cast your face in like a cool light, like it
like it's it's it's more cinematic than for like a
for like a close endshot than a candle typically is now.
I mean, of course, like if you're showing like a
cathedral or something like that, you want all the candles
because you want it to look like mysterious and you
(12:40):
know kind of you know, dim more dimly lit stuff
like that. But yeah, you know, I think I think
we should have a parody here. I think we should
get more candles into movies and games. You know, some
games should have you know, more people walking around with
a candle on a metal plate and you know, in
their nightgown. We need that. We need games where you
(13:02):
have to balance the candle on the plate and not
burn your hand. You know, you know, fun stuff like
that that everybody would love, not just you know idiots
like me. Anyway, Yeah, pro overfloat. Thank you very much
for the question. Uh, torches they're fun. They are fun,
useful as far as I can tell, I wouldn't know
(13:25):
because I've only seen one at like a like uh
medieval type.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Yeah, I want to I want to be like link,
you know, d dunt dunt no no, no no no, Just.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Like you have the torch and like you you thrust
it at something and it's.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Like Oh yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
That's exactly how it would happen in real life. You
you know, obviously you wouldn't get arrested for assault or anything,
you know.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
I mean, I guess like especially if you're doing like
if you're siezing or under siege, probably you're gonna have
more torture, you know. Up update on the wall.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
The general that everyone hates who only brings candles to
the sieges that come out.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
God, God, damn it.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Oh I hate this guy.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Actually wasted money in the long run.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah, it doesn't matter that your brother, you know, owns
an apiary. Done of a bitch, Just use a torch anyway,
Thank you very much for the question. Same thing we
did last time. Folks, Please donate to people in need
in Gaza chuffed dot org. You can find many of
(14:39):
the individual pages, uh through links on blue Sky and
Twitter and elsewhere. Uh I, last week I said the
Semir Project and eleanor yours.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Was medical for Palestinians, medical a.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
For Palestinian yet and we'll have links to those in
the show notes. So yeah, check them out. We're only
doing them one question day because we got more questions
and I got to talk about geology, which I'm told
some of you like. Yeah, So anyway, if you don't
like it, I don't know, you can just black out
until I'm done talking and then you can come back
and we'll talk about the other thing. Well they're they're connected.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
But you and all my homies love geology.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
I do. I love being an amateur at this stuff.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
It was like one of my favorite courses that I
took in Uni. Well, I took geology and it whipped.
It went so hard as cool as hell.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Yeah, yeah, oh, all right. We think of Pangaea, we
likely think of it as one gigantic, contiguous land mass,
you know, fairly generic Cive six map, with maybe a
few outlyings here, outlying islands here and there to spice
things up. But of course the continents were not always
united in this way. They drift together and apart again
(15:49):
and again as part of Earth's super continent cycle. Before Pangaea,
there was a Gondwana, which was made up of the
continents of the southern hemisphere and possibly a super continent
it's own right, and then scattered fragments that would form
into Laurasia, which was made up of the northern hemisphere.
Continents as we know them today. These two land masses
rammed into one another near the equator about three hundred
(16:12):
and forty million years ago, forming one of the largest
mountain chains in the history of this planet, the Central
Pangaea Mountains. When two plates collide, there will always be friction,
but the format takes differs greatly depending on a number
of factors like plate thickness and weight, relative speed, density,
(16:34):
and so forth. Transform boundaries of car when two plates
grind against one another in a sort of geological sparring match.
But sometimes the heavier plate will be subducted under the
lighter one, and if the subduction angle is shallow enough,
the smaller plate will push into the larger plate, bunching
up its rocks like a rug on a hardwood floor
bunches at the door. I would use a more eloquent metaphor,
(16:57):
but that's literally the one. Everything I've read uses. Find
it on Wikipedia, you find it in books. They all
say the same fucking thing, because I get because I
guess that's something that we're all just kind of like, oh, yeah,
that makes sense. Most you know, and most cultures have rugs.
I dare say basically all of them do you know,
so it's kind of one of those things range, Like, yeah,
it's kind of universal, you know, very rarely this process
(17:20):
yields mountains of gargantum proportion thanks to compression, angle, rock shearing,
and other factors, and subduction of this kind played out
where Larasia and Gondwana met, giving way too soaring mountains
that rose as high as the Himalayas. By two hundred
and ninety five million years ago, the central Panchaea Mountain
range was impressibly vast, stretching across much of the neck
(17:41):
of the super continent, where what is now the entire
eastern seaboard of North America from Mexico to northern Canada
and in northern Europe met at met present day God
damn it, Let me start where the entire eastern seaboard
of North America from Mexico to northern Canada and then
Europe met present met the present day northern coast of
(18:05):
South America and Africa. The range was so tall and wide,
in fact, it would have created a massive rain shadow
on the southern escarpment to share with the Pangaea meant
it was difficult for clouds to form so far inland
from the worldwide super ocean Pantalasa, and when this was
combined with the central Pangaea Mountains rain shadow, they created
(18:26):
a huge desert system in the center of the land mass,
likely the largest ever form on the planet. However, geology
is cruel and often doesn't let things let things this
cool hang around forever, and so the passage of time,
general weathering and plate tectonics steadily eroded the mountains over
millions of years, until they reached about half of their
original high by two hundred and fifty million years ago. Then,
(18:49):
around two hundred million years ago, Pangaea began rifting apart,
right along that fragile neck where our beautiful mountains sat. Yet,
even today, so long long after this impressive range was
torn us under, it still remains with us in the
form of these smaller mountain groups it spawned. Laraisia's ongoing
northward migration caused the first major rift, pulling what is
(19:12):
now the southeastern and Gulf coast of North America away
from northwest Gondwana, which is South America and Africa. Soon,
geologically speaking, full separation would occur as the northeasterly drift
of modern day Eurasia caused it to separate from Africa,
marking the end of Pangaea around one hundred and thirty
million years ago. It was truly a black day, but
(19:33):
the Central Pangaa Mountains held on for around two hundred
ten million years, serving as a natural wall spanning much
of the super continent and stealing our hearts. This long
rifting process ripped the southern edge of the Central Pangaea
Range apart, reducing its size further and forming the present
day Atlas Mountains of North Africa. The northern edge of
(19:54):
the range went with Larasia was similarly reduced in size
from a long chain that would become the Appalachian Mountains
of North America and the various ranges of West and
Central Europe, which were still connected where Canada, Greenland and
Northern Europe met. This held together tenuously until about eighty
(20:14):
five million years ago, when North America took the Appalachians
west and Eurasia took the assembled chains east as they
too began rifting apart. The last hinge that held the
final united remnants of the Central Pangaea Mountains together was
far to the north, where eastern Canada met the British Isles. There,
the Appalachians were finally ripped away, traveling toward their new home.
(20:37):
The Atlantic Ocean was born, and the remote northern end
of this tiny peninsula was left with a short but
dense mountain range known as the Highlands. In time, many
many years later, these Highlands would have a profound effect
on the formation of a little place we like to
call Scotland. Folks, whoa there you go all that history
(21:01):
in I don't know, four or five minutes. I don't
remember how long I blacked out in anyway.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
His eyes went totally black.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Folks, God, I wish I have, literally my entire life
wanted to be able to go into a trance state
and have my eyes. Just do that now, but freak
everyone out. I mean I assume you know, like you know,
kind of get used to it after a lot. Be like,
are you meditating? Like I'm just thinking about something. Just
one second, I'm fine, Just hold on. Anyway, folks were
(21:32):
here and we're ready to do a short series on
medieval Scotland. We're going to trace how this amalgamation of Hiljacks,
Hillbilly's and Yahoo's affectionates with most delightful red hair and
accents you've ever heard, went from a waldolf Roman no
go zone to one of the greatest thorns in Europe
side and then sadly, two of the handmaids of the
(21:54):
British Empire. This is part of our ongoing series to
visit and focus on new places in the medieval world.
We've talked a lot about England and France, but we
never really focused on Scotland. Our few trips beyond Hadrian's
Wall have been rather brief, which isn't really fair. So
we're here to rectify that in some small way. I'm
going to do three episodes on the beginning, middle, and
end of medieval Scotland. Today we're going to cover Scotland
(22:17):
from the time of the Roman occupation of Britain up
to the founding of the Kingdom of Alba, the predecessor
of what we know is Scotland in the early ninth century.
So yeah, During the series, we're going to try to
answer these questions we've gotten from patrons over time. First,
from Lee, I'm still working my way through the back catalog,
(22:39):
so apologies. If this has been done before, it hasn't.
When we talk about Midi history, there's a lot of
focus on England, France and the Holy Roman Empire, naturally,
but what happened in Scotland? Who were the kings was
macbeth reel? Did Scotland's government have earls or dukes and
counts like their English and French counterparts? What were the
(23:00):
Vikings doing there? How did the Scots feed their English neighbors?
Would love to hear more on English on medieval Scotland
than from Finnitt, who says it got me thinking how
medieval Scotland in particular was organized that Scottish clans fill
in the role of nobility slash landlord. How did the
church fit into this? And did the Reformation strengthen or
weaken the kirk's position in the power structure? And h Yeah,
(23:22):
the position the question or this topic could gob was
also suggested by Phillips, So yeah, we're going to try
and cover that those in this series. But Eleanor first,
what is Scotland known for in the Middle Ages? What
was their reputation outside of Scotland or the ones we
now know is Scotland?
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Yeah, okay, so one of the reasons why just to
kind of explain why we haven't really done Scotland yet
is you know, one of the reasons why I like England,
for example, like punches above its weight. And the reason
why you hear more about England than like it's gotten
outside of importance is like yeah, yeah, the colonialism and everything,
(24:07):
but also because they were a bunch of bureaucratic nerds
even in the Middle Ages. So we've got really good
records for England, which kind of allows us to know
more than we otherwise would, right, we have piss poor
records for Scotland, and that prevents us from like doing
(24:30):
as much there fundamentally that that's just kind of how
it is. So we know less about Scotland than I
or anyone would like to. We're learning more all the time,
but we just don't have the oodles and noodles of
records that would help us to flesh this out in
the same way. And a lot of times when you
(24:51):
learn about Scotland and how people perceive it in the
Middle Ages, of a lot of it comes from the
French because of the old Alliance. Uh So, the old
Alliance being Scotland and France ganging up because me and
all my homies hate England, you know, like and they're like,
so we're basically the southern and northern borders. Let's fuck
(25:14):
these guys over, let's let's gang up on them. And
it's really funny. And what we get though, are these
like letters from French guys who get set up there
and they're like, oh boy, wow, it's uh, it's wet,
you know, and and they're and they're basically like, damn bitch,
you live like this, like uh, which is kind of
(25:37):
you know, obviously it's unfair, you know, obviously, but you know,
the French are very busy being you know, like the
wealthiest people, and you know, they're used to kind of
fopping around the shop, whereas these Scottish are just kind
of like much more rough and ready, you know, like
(25:57):
are they farming sheep? Obviously they are, obviously they are,
but it's just it's a little bit more wild up there.
And so yeah, which is also part of the reason
why we don't have the greatest records, not to say
that we have none, but yeah, that it limits us
to an extent.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
They weren't they weren't fans of the biggest fans of
record keeping, which is fine. I don't you know, you
don't have to be. But you know, also it's so wet,
like you know, you live in Orkney. Are you more
worried about fishing and Viking raids? Are you worried about
(26:36):
riding down you know what the ethnic and cultural makeup
of your lands? The answer is clearly both. You're doing
them at the same No, I'm just kidding. It's the
first one. Uh all right, Yeah, we had a bit
of an audio hiccup there. Yeah, so we will, you know,
(26:57):
we'll get that edited in post to sound quasi normal
and then you'll hear that.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Wow, they'll be like they're such pros.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Everyone will say that's that's what everyone says about my
audio editing.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
But yeah, let's just say that. Uh, when we're going
to pick up the story, when we do start kind
of having records about uh, Scotland, they first come from
our good friends, uh, you know, the the Greeks and
the Romans. Greeks supposedly wrote something you know about Uh.
(27:37):
There was a guy Pythius who supposedly circumvented, you know,
the circumnavigated the islands of you know what are now
Britain and Ireland in the fourth century BCE, and uh, Yeah.
The then by the time of the Romans, they kind
(27:59):
of had some vague knowledge of it. They seem to
know things about like the island, but it's more like,
you know, they had heard stories, like they talked to
one guy on the coast and they got all the
lore about it. Were like that sounds good, we'll write that.
But yeah, eleanor you know, briefly, the Roman invasion of
(28:20):
Britain and then why they stopped? Why why why didn't
they keep going north all the way to Orkney? Why
didn't they want the beautiful, the beautiful northern aisles.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Uh? Yeah, I guess that, Like the Picks were just
like such class warriors that they're like, don' don't come
up here. I mean, I get. The thing that's interesting
about Roman Britain is that they really are here for
a fucking long time.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
It's actually crazy how long the Romans are on the
island of Britadia. Yeah, And I mean they're basically here
to strip it of natural resources, like there's a lot
of you know, tin mining and things of this nature.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yea.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
And it's kind of easy to do, you know. It's
it's sort of like, oh, just get over there, you know,
the Brits are kind of like, yeah, I guess whatever,
you know. Don't get me wrong. Obviously you get your
uprisings like Boudica at all and things of this nature.
But for the most part it's it's sort of like fine,
(29:23):
but you get up to Scotland and they're a little
more ornery, you know. Not to say that the Angles
and the people who were who were living down south
weren't like why don't you fuck on out of here
when the Romans initially showed up. But it's just like
easier because it's a little bit closer, right, it's just
further south, it's closer to frauds that there's already like
(29:45):
pretty big and important Roman settlements off the coast, so
they can kind of supply new men getting to Scotland.
You either got to go across the island walking or
you got to get in boats. And I mean they do,
they do get in boats. That that's a thing that
the Romans will do, and they just can't really see
(30:06):
that it's worth It is sort of the major thing
that they're kind of like, I don't really understand what
it is that I'm attempting to kind of like strip
you of right, Like it's it's an extractive colonial system
that the that the Romans are running and they can't
figure out what it is they're going to extract from
the Scots. You know, they don't know about oil yet,
(30:28):
they don't know about these sorts of things. And uh,
it just basically it's more trouble than it seems worth.
That's what it comes to down to.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
So yeah, yeah, I mean all of uh, all of
northern England and western all of northern and western Britain
is the Isle is hilly and mountainous. But when they
get when you get up to the highlands, you get
towards the skinnier part of the island up north, they
(31:01):
get worse. And it's the juice isn't worth the squeeze,
like you can, yeah, exactly, you can already. Uh you know,
shears shear more sheep than you ever thought possible below
that point, Like you know, you don't you don't need
(31:23):
pete bog, you don't need more rain than you get.
You know, no offense to the Picks, who I'm sure
were lovely people and would throttle me within an inch
of my life or without an inch of my life
for that matter, But Yeah, around eighty seven CE, the
Romans were like, uh rb dragons and built Hadrian's Wall
(31:46):
and uh, you probably know, but some people don't. Hadrian's
Wall is not the modern border between Scotland and Ireland.
I mean Scotland and England. Uh, it is just part
of northern England, but it should be the border. It
was very that they didn't put it there, but nobody
asked me. Yeah, and uh they a little bit later
(32:09):
they took another bite at the apple and they were like, hey,
let's go and went up to uh near the Firth
of Clyde and built what is known as the Antonin Wall.
But yeah, that it was shorter. It was only about
thirty seven miles and it took them a while to build.
And then within a decade of being built, it had
(32:32):
been overrun by the Picks again. And they were like
fuck it. You know. They were like they were like
the Conservatives who were scared of the city. They're like,
crime there, it's so awful. I got knockout game to
buy a pick please. Minister Caesar helped me and yeah,
(32:53):
so they confined themselves to the rest of it, except
when you know Septimia Septimius Severus is like, hey, I'll
go and then that didn't work out so much. So yeah,
eleanor what do we know like when when uh, the
Romans started to abandon the island proper, do we know
(33:16):
anything about like how that directly affected the people up
here who for for the present moment, we're calling picts.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Yeah, I mean basically it just kind of like chills
things down for them, you know, because they're like, okay, great,
but you know, to an extent they're like, ah, no,
no more raids sadays. But I guess the thing that
we have to be kind of careful with when we
talked about picts is picked. It's like this is a
Roman word, yep, right, So it's like the Romans are
(33:48):
attempting it like it's a pejorative, you know, they kind
of bean these barbarians, these barbarians. So like we have
a little bit of trouble kind of saying exactly who
the picts were, because this can be a pretty nebulous category.
And we think, especially like by the time that like
(34:10):
the Romans retreat, like they don't. They wouldn't they wouldn't say, oh, hey,
what's up, I'm a pickt. They'd be like, pardon, you know,
did you just call me a slur or something, and like,
we don't, we don't really think that. People up in
Scotland started kind of calling themselves picks to like maybe
around like the seventh century or so, but you know,
(34:31):
essentially they I think that for them, they're like, oh
this is you know, there's good things and there's bad things.
There was trade back and forth with the between people
who were living in Scotland and the Romans. There was rating,
which is nice and so you know, you lose a
little bit of that kind of trade that you get
(34:52):
or that those rating possibilities, but what you lose in
trading possibilities you gain in there's no Romans in your backyard.
It's a nice thing, right you know.
Speaker 5 (35:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
So leave me alone, you know, yeah they yeah, you know,
I mean really the most lasting part about Roman uh
Scotland is Roman Northern Britain or whatever you want to
(35:28):
call it.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Is I mean the two Walls and the fact that
the Romans were like nope, yeah, what happening, Like like,
you know, we talked about them and that's good because
loll but uh, you know, they were fearsome warriors, you know,
and I mean like especially like especially like the the
(35:51):
you know early ce Roman Empire. These you know, there's
like Caesar and Augustus's legacy, you know, direct legacy, and
it's uh yeah, they were like no thanks, So I
mean that has to tell you something about it. The
Romans had taken over places that didn't really have a
ton of resources before, so you know, yeah, but at
(36:13):
some point they're like like, no, there are too many
islands up here. I don't care. Please stop hitting me
with rocks and stuff heavy implements. So like I mean,
we're talking about Scotland, but at this point, like there's
like the Pictish lands to the north, and there's I
(36:34):
guess what is the farthest would be like York? Would
that you know, the Kingdom of York? Would that be about?
Where it is? Like where where is the like where
did the so called like English or you know, Brythonic
or whatever lands you want to call it end?
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Uh yeah, I mean it's a good question. So like
around there, it's kind of like it's a little more
porous obviously, like around kind of like the Hadrian's Wall
and things. I mean, I guess the when the Romans retreat,
I kind of think of like what is now sort
(37:09):
of like the North or whatever like that, that's more
like North, that's more like Northumbria, right like, so the North,
the exactly, et cetera. So I mean, yeah, you know,
I think the thing is things of this nature, right, So,
I mean it is they they are further south than
(37:31):
you would expect them to be now, like you know,
in terms of where the border to Scotland is, but
it also really depends on what side of the island
you're on, because in the East it's further north, in
the South it's it's sort in the west it's further south.
You have a lot more kind of direct back and
forth between Western Scotland and Ireland, for example, Like there's
(37:52):
really direct commerce back and forth between like Western Scotland
and and the the Irish. You know, there's forever a
monk coming over you guys want to.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Learn about Jesus. No.
Speaker 5 (38:08):
But and then at some point they were like yeah, yeah, yeah,
I mean like it's like in the sixth century or so,
I think, and you know that they are kind of
part of the as a result.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Like when they Christianize, they're a bit more of like
the the Celtic or Irish form of Christianity, which is
like really dominant Norse. But yeah, sorry, I digress.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
I'm so hYP good. Yeah, girl, that's that's the that's
that's the kind of of of not experienced God damn,
that's kind of enthusiasm we need as we go into
Scotland in the early Middle Ages, because folks, it's going
to get a little confusing. So we're talking about porous,
(38:53):
unfixed borders, and these are even unfixed by the medieval
and early medieval standard, which means they went as far
as like you hated the person north of you, and
like there's the line. It's like, yeah, okay, they there
be barbarians over there, and on the other side of
the land four hundred meters north, they're like there be
(39:17):
barbarians over there. Yeah. Yeah. So around you know, around
the beginning of the fifth century and everything, uh, the
Romans leave the island, they abandon it, and up north
things become confusing because you have the picks who are
(39:40):
the what we'll call I guess native uh not don't.
They're not indigenous. I don't.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
It's hard to say. But because we don't we don't.
We don't really know. This is the trouble is that
Picks is such like a collective, like we think that
we think that they're probably we think they're probably Gaelic speakers,
but it sort of just depends who's asking, because like
you know, a lot of the information that we end
up getting from this period comes to us from people
like Bead who are kind of like riding you know,
(40:13):
two hundred years later and it's like yeah, thinks and yeah,
and like then they kind of try to use the
Picks for like allegorical reasons, you know, and that sort
of thing. Yeah, I guess that like what I could
say about the Picks is in this period kind of
like in the post Roman period, we kind of are
(40:36):
using like they're they're just kind of like one of
the big one of the big groups that have influence, right,
and they're the ones who are kind of in the east.
We have a basically they're kind of like around from
Shetland to about the fourth that is the river that is,
and we don't know that much about them until like
(40:59):
into the Sick century when we get like a big
king come forward, who's Bridy mcmelchon.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
And I'm sorry. I don't mean to laugh, but that
really does sound like a fake guess I know.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
I'm like, yo, that's right, it was. And like basically
he is kind of like up near Inverness now and like,
so we don't necessarily know that much. We think maybe
the court was near Lockness, which is fun. We know
(41:33):
that he died like sometime in the five eighties. You know,
he gets and we know about him because the Irish
right about him.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Yeah, right, so.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
He gets written about in the Annals of Ulster and
so like for a lot of this information you end
up having to go to the Irish because the Irish
are like, yeah, hell yeah, brother, like Hoomst is ready
to celt down and the Irish writing ship down all
the time. So we're we're leaning on them, uh, and
(42:05):
we're leaning more particularly on the Annals of Ulster because
there's these direct links between the northern parts of Ireland
and Scotland. And they're like, oh, yeah, there's there's there's brity,
which is cool. We don't know that much about him, yeah,
(42:26):
we know that, like that he shows up in the
Life of Saint Colomba. It's like one of the guys
who like starts the you know, he starts the monastery
on Iona right St.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Columbo, That's right, exactly.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Just one more thing.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Do you accept Jesus Christ as you learn for the
last time? No? I mean.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Yeah, and so like it. And he's one of these
ones where we're just like, okay, well we've got a
name and so like, and that's exciting because our lack
of sources is such that it is exciting that we
get a guy and he seems to be powerful enough
and be ruling enough land that the Irish will like shit,
real real stuff. Okay, So we we know about that,
(43:14):
and we think then that like the power base of
how these kind of like his power base kind of
goes ends up kind of like being more centered around
strathing in places like that, and and like kind of
and basically what they are doing at the time is
they're just reading the English, you know, like or the
(43:38):
angles they suppose they are, they're not really you know,
particularly the angles.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
The Jutes and the Saxons are down there doing whatever
they're doing. The Jutes no doubt.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Yeah, yeah, And so that's what the pigs are doing.
They're just like hey if hey fuck you, hey fuck you,
which is quite funny and a good thing to do,
I think, so, like, but they're but they're converting, they're converting.
So we know that they start converting from about six
hundred and like that St. Columbus thing.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
So yeah, yeah, so yeah. So the Picks eventually formed
a kingdom of some kind called Fortrio. I'm doing my
best here on pronunciations, people. Yeah, and it lasted in
some form for I mean a long ass time, you know,
(44:30):
from like the fifth century until like the tenth or so.
But yeah, and they eventually ended up duking it out
with a few other groups who made their way to Scotland.
One of them, where the dot was known as Dalriata.
(44:54):
And these were people mostly who had come across the
Western Islands from Ireland. They were Gaelic speakers, they had
Gaelic culture as we understand it now, and you know,
there was some you know, Irish Gaelic colony there and
(45:16):
of some kind, and they were over there, and they
don't appear to have formed like a huge kingdom or anything.
It doesn't appear to have lasted is a as like
a as a connective. It doesn't appear to have lasted
as a territorial thing. For a long time, but they did.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
That's where we get the term scott.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
It's where we get the term Scott from Scotti or
Scotty Eyes or whatever. It is the Latin term for
the people who inhabited Ireland or Iona. And yeah, they
they donated that and a lot of culture. People they think,
you know, the culture is donated because the Irish Gaelic
(46:00):
culture does exist for you know, obviously for a long
time there and uh, I guess, I guess people assume
that it came to Scotland from there. Yeah. Uh, there
was Dariata and you know, they assimilated into the Picts
(46:21):
at some point, the group that we're calling the Picts.
But there was also alt Clute, which was near Dumbarton
Castle and the Kingdom of Strathclyde, which they're yeah, yeah,
they and they're from, like I guess, the southwestern part
(46:44):
up to part of the Firth of Clyde, I believe.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
Yeah, I really.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
Apologize if I'm if I'm missing the geography here. I'm
bad on English geography in Scotland is much harder. But yeah,
they were there and apparently at some point briefly ruled
the Pictish Kingdom of Fortrio and they had their own thing.
But uh, you know, after the middle eighth century they
(47:13):
apparently were dominated by the Picks again, and there were
you know, they're these pic these Pictish groups up there.
But there was one Bernicia, which was in what we
now consider northern England and southern Scotland, and these were
(47:36):
the extreme Brithonic green like the like Strathclyde was Brithonic,
but these were like.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
Uh, yeah, these are like angles, yeah, like and they're
they're quite they're quite former Roman basically. So they've got
these guys kind of have a you know, where's the
Picts and you know, the Scots they're much like, hey,
what's up, We're Celtic. Were being Celtic. Oh I'm carving
this rocky like that. Shit. Uh the angles are like no,
(48:06):
I do not do that. I'm kind of like a Roman.
And it's like, yeah, sure you are, buddy, you know.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
And yeah, they had a Yeah, they had the first
known record of an Anglo Saxon king is Ida from
the Kingdom of Bernicia back in uh five point forty seven,
and yeah, it would remain a going concern until the
(48:32):
seventh century, when it was taken over by the Northumbrians
in the south, and the.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
The Northumbrians fucking love it, dude, they'd love to take.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
It during that shit. Yeah, they took it over, but
they didn't take all of it, because at this time
the island of lindis Farn was still considered part of Scotland,
or at least was they considered it. They seemed to
have considered it, you know whatever. I don't know what
the actual boundary lines were, but it was considered some
part of Scotland or England or both or whatever. But regardless, yeah,
(49:08):
they you know, the Northumbrians took it over and the
rest of them kind of got they would get amalgamated
into uh, you know, the Picts kind of but uh,
whatever this amalgamation look like, and we really don't know.
You can look it up. It's like you if you
(49:29):
look up a map of early medieval Scotland, you'll get
something that's just like, yeah, here's where it was. Yeah,
here's where Portrio kind of was. It could have been
here all the way up to the fucking Shetlands, you know,
the goddamn Arctic Circle. But yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
Yeah, it's like they're like, I don't know dudes were vibing.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
Oh, people were around, and we're doing a lot of
it based on archaeology and what Irish people said. We
just don't know that much. We just don't. Yeah, we don't.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
But around seven ninety three, wouldn't you know it, some guys,
some rough and ready fellas who are a bit more
rough and ready than some of the locals, rolled out
and our good friends, the Vikings from the Scandinavian and
Northern European mainland came over and we're like, hey, uh,
(50:25):
do you guys want to hang out? We like this
island of Linda's farm And the bishop was like okay,
and they were like, uh yeah cool. Anyway, here's an
act to them.
Speaker 1 (50:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
They attacked Linda's farn in seven ninety three, and that
was the beginning of the Viking invasions of Britain and
eventually Ireland as well. Eleanor the Picks who had scared
the fucking Romans off. They seem to have trouble with
(51:00):
the berserkers. Did it happen again?
Speaker 1 (51:06):
It's a charm, that's what they say.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
Let's fucking go all right, folks, We've had more audio
issues here, hopefully gonna sound good in post. I really
don't know where we got to. But basically, the Vikings
Viking invasion of seven ninety three, they went to Linda's farn,
and over the next few decades they essentially they essentially
(51:34):
a they essentially encircled the Picks or you know, the
Scotts as they were coming to be called, or whatever
you want to call them, the people who lived up there,
who had amalgamated all basically all of the other groups
into themselves, and they were encircled. So eleanor general response
to the Viking incursions, yeah or nay.
Speaker 1 (51:56):
The fans' yeah, oh they loved it. Yeah, they were
really ashamed.
Speaker 2 (52:00):
And this is great. There's so much better than the Romans.
Speaker 1 (52:03):
This is so good. Yeah. Well, it's what we tend
to think actually happens is it's sort of a coalescing
of a more Scottish culture. Basically, it's like they've got
they've got a real it's them and versus us kind
of thing that happens as a result of it. So
they're like, oh shit, okay, well I guess we're like
(52:25):
Scottish now, right, Like suddenly, if you're Pictish, you're a
lot more willing to hang out with the Scots because
you're like, oh, well, they at least they're supposed to
be here, Like the Vikings aren't even supposed to fucking
be here, right, And by this time, I mean, these
groups are heavily Christianized, you know, they're they are like
kind of the Irish or Gaelic form of Christianity, whatever
(52:46):
you want to call it. And so they do see
themselves in opposition to the Vikings, who are largely still
you know, doing They're their ways are the old ways,
et cetera. And so they're like, okay, well we're not that, right.
I think we can all agree that we're not that.
(53:07):
And so it begins to mean that there is more
of a homogeneous culture as a result, because you know,
there's like nothing like an enemy, you know, to to
really focus you up. So we lose, for example, just
a lot of kings in battles with the Vikings. You know.
(53:29):
The Vikings obviously, uh, take over the Orkanese. They took
over the Shetlands.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
Uh. They like anything anything with the coast was was
fair game.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
Yeah, like that, they killed the King of Fortrier, they
killed the King of dulrighta, the they you know, so
everyone is like Jesus, huh, well, we really don't like that,
you know that they the fucking Vikings take the hebrides,
you know, and so uh like that this really forces
them to kind of do a what does it all mean?
(54:04):
You know, it kind of in in opposition to them.
So do you know, like, yeah, he's the Viking story
a part of the Scottish story. It absolutely is. But
you got to understand the guys who are there first
are like, I don't like these guys. Yeah, like it's
not fun for me, right.
Speaker 2 (54:24):
Yeah, they yeah, they were like, uh, we hate dal Riata,
and then as soon as the Viking show up, they're
like Gaelic. I fucking love Gaelic culture.
Speaker 1 (54:34):
It's the I love our beautiful culture. Here is Scotland
a place that I definitely believe exists, you know.
Speaker 2 (54:42):
That, I definitely agree we should all be one homogeneous entity.
I definitely believe that before seven ninety three totally like yeah,
like it's the classic situation. You're invaded from without, so
you know, you the the definition of other comes to
mean the people who are from without, who are the
(55:04):
mean invaders, and you know, the definition of us becomes
the invaded broadly in a lot of cases, and especially
back then because they didn't have, you know, the strict
nationalist vibes. It was a lot more tribes based at
the time, and so they just sort of coalesced back
(55:26):
around baby, and they're gonna make a little place called
Alba after the Vikings. Uh, well, they took Northumbria. They
formed the Kingdom of York in eight sixty seven, and uh,
they went up they took they took Dumbarton and that
(55:47):
fully encircled the Picts and the Gales and Fortriu and
whatever else was going on up there. And they were
like fuck it. Yeah, and I'm really trying, uh with
these names here. Alba is like what about trying the
(56:14):
first The first king of Alba is Donald the second.
Speaker 1 (56:18):
In like not Donald.
Speaker 2 (56:22):
Donald two? Fuck whose name is oh right? His his
Scottish name is Domnall mac consantin Consonton. I assume that's Constantine, Yeah,
Donald the second Constantine, Mick Constantine. Yeah, he's considered the
(56:42):
first one. But there was like a bunch of like
in fighting of some kind, uh, from from the time
that the Kingdom of York was founded until nine hundred
there was a rotating section of kings of whatever you
want to consider Scottland or Pictland or whatever. And this
(57:04):
is when it really, you know, became It was Alba
in Gaelic, and of course it became known as Scotia
or Scotia in in Latin, and you know we call it,
of course Scotland, and this is when that came into being. Yeah, folks,
we've had a couple of audio hiccups on this episode.
Speaker 1 (57:30):
Your patients.
Speaker 2 (57:31):
Yeah we do. We're gonna get more into the tribe,
you know, the tribal affinities, the tribal aspects of Scottish
culture in the next episode. We're going to talk about
that as we get more into the Kingdom of Alba
and probably take it all the way up to the
First War of Scottish Independence. But yeah, we'll which is
(57:52):
in twelve ninety six, but yeah we will. We will
get there next time. Again. Apologies if this is sounding
a little disjoined and were doing our best here with
the audio fuck ups we've had, but thank you for
sticking with us. The conclusion about early medieval Scotland is
there are a lot of people up there. We don't
have many records, so it's really hard to figure out
(58:15):
what you would consider indigenous at this point, but what
we broadly call the Picts, which were tribal groups in
uh north of I guess Hadrian's Wall. Uh. And then
there were Brittonic groups and the Irish Gales came over
to so yeah, and then the Vikings came over and
it was a whole hooton Nanny. Not a hooton Nanny
(58:39):
Linda's farn. Uh. I don't know why Linda's farm was
an inside job, you know one of the bishop. Yeah,
the bishop bishop lied, peasants died. Okay, I could do
I could do.
Speaker 1 (58:55):
No.
Speaker 2 (58:56):
I can't do this all day because Eleanor has to go. Folks,
thank you very much for listening. Please, if you have money,
if you have time, or I mean, if you have money,
please donate to the people in Gaza. We you know,
check out the show notes for links to that stuff
that we've talked about. Folks. We really yeah, that's you know,
(59:19):
it's gonna do it for us today. Eleanor. What's going
on with you? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (59:23):
I do have stuff this week. So you can check
a girl out over on the Women Like Sex podcast,
where you know.
Speaker 2 (59:31):
They do this is nice too.
Speaker 1 (59:33):
Yeah, I know it's crazy. So we did a podcast
about that that's out, as I say, got this video
out with Ralph Magazine, so you can I don't know
if you google, but if you YouTube eleanor Yaniga Ralph Magazine,
it'll be you can see me and Ben Smoke getting
drunk in an abandoned monastery. So we got I got that.
(59:56):
I got that going for me.
Speaker 2 (59:57):
I thought you were about to say abandoned mine. I
was like, I don't know, that's safe.
Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
Dog like a dog like I mean, I know you're
a lush but like still seriously, like that's that's not love.
Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
I love inhaling coal dust anything.
Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
Oh yeah, absolutely delicious. So yeah, I think I think
those are the two majors. I swear there was like
one more thing, but like I can never remember who's
to say, you know, like you know where I'm it. Basically,
if you want more than that, come check out the
socials anyway, because I will tell you when it is
(01:00:30):
up there. Uh so yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
Uh huh, yep. You can find me. Luke is amazing
on the different places, and you can find my old
show People's History of the Old Republic if you want
to hear me yap about Star Wars anyway. Uh, thank
you very much for listening and we'll see you next time.
Speaker 3 (01:00:51):
Bye.
Speaker 2 (01:00:53):
All right friend, that's what it was.
Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
It was canceled me daddy. Oh well, there is
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