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ThePictish Beast (sometimesPictish Dragon orPictish Elephant) is a conventional representation of an animal, distinct to theearly medieval culture of thePicts of Scotland. The great majority of surviving examples are onPictish stones.
The Pictish Beast accounts for about 40% of allPictish animal depictions, and so was likely of great importance.[citation needed]
A comprehensive collection of depictions of the Pictish Beast was given byJohn Stuart as Plate 22 in Sculptured Stones of Scotland Volume 2, 1867.[1] Depictions are shown at a consistent scale and oriented as they were on the stones. The sequence in which they appear is described[1] as
indicating their development from the outline form in which they first appear on the rude pillars, to that in which the outline is filled up with the ornamental devices of the cross-slabs
The orientation of the beast's back on Stuart's Plate 22 is predominantly horizontal, or slightly inclined; only on the Maiden Stone and at Dunfallandy is it at 45° and onMeigle 5 vertical. The last may be explained by its position on the stone: it is on the narrow left side, where it occupies 90% of the available width. One omission from Stuart's plate is the symbol in the Doo Cave at East Wemyss, recorded by Anderson in 1881. Anderson described it as "the symbolic animal, with the long jaws and the crest and the scroll-like feet". Absent from the Doo Cave figure is the crest from the top of the beast's head and the tail; the rear scroll-like feet are clearly divided into two limbs.
In theHistoric Scotland guidebookThe Picts, Jill Harden writes[2]:
... most common of all [the animal symbols] is thePictish beast. This intriguing figure is clearly swimming. Is it a porpoise, a dolphin or a creature of myth?
Cetaceans are present along the east coast of Scotland.Chanonry Point and the Sutors ofCromarty lie close to the Pictish monasteries atPortmahomack andRosemarkie and are recognised as some of the best sites in Britain for viewingbottlenose dolphins from the land.
One characteristic of cetaceans is theirblowhole (one for dolphins, porpoises and beaked whales; two for baleen whales). When cetaceans reach the water surface to breathe, they expel air through the blowhole. Water vapour in the exhalation condenses, producing a visible spout which trails behind the cetacean as it moves forward. This has a similar appearance to the crest from the head of the Pictish beast.
Other suggested identifications of the Pictish beast have included anelephant, akelpie (oreach uisge), aseahorse, and ananteater.
Whatever its origin, its presence on many Christian stones and its position on them implies that, as with thecrescent and V-rod, it had by then acquired a Christian meaning[3] which appealed to those erecting the stones, e.g.salvation.
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