5 Jun 2019

THE PAGAN CLERGY OF EUROPE REMEMBERED: (1) BROICHAN THE DRUID

Mural in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery showing Saint Columba preaching to the Picts. (William Brassey Hole, c. 1899). The Druid Broichan is presumably the elderly gentleman leaning towards the seated king.

Sadly we only have the accounts of his enemies to tell us about Broichan, the Druid of King Bridei of the Picts, who lived in the time of Saint Columba (521-597).

The only mention of the Druid is in Adomnan’s Life of Saint Columba, a highly fanciful and chronologically scattered account of the Irish saint. The first mention of Broichan is in Chapter 34 of Book II of the Life, which mentions a visit by Columba to the Pictish capital of Inverness.

20 Jan 2019

THE SCOTSMAN: THE RETURN OF THE BALLACHULISH GODDESS


Read at the pop-up-ad-infested Scotsman or read below:

The 2,500-year-old Ballachulish Goddess has “returned” to the Highland lochside where she was found after the Iron Age figure was recreated by a team of archaeologists. The life-size carving, which dates to around 600BC, was discovered face down in Highland peat by workmen in 1880. The original carving which is held by National Museums of Scotland (NMS).