SUENO’S STONE AND THE SMALL FIGURE ICON (PT 2)
Thinking about what the small figure icon might depict
In the first part of this blog, I collected the examples of small figure icons, such as the one on Sueno’s stone. I discovered at least 6 examples, with another 3 related stones, all with battle scenes, rows of warriors, men blowing battle trumpets, and in the case of one St Andrews stone and the Barochan stone, with accompanying Woden icons, again battle-related.
A general pattern was identified, of a small figure flanked on the left by a large figure with a weapon over their shoulder, an axe or a sword, and another large figure on the right holding a shield or some other object above the head of the small figure.
All these small figure icons are found on a cross, not on the reverse with the actual battle scenes. It puts the icon in a context of both battle and religion.
All examples are found in a band running from Pictish Fife through to the region of Alt Clut around Govan and Dumbarton rock, all except Sueno’s stone in Moray. This distribution is restricted in place, and in time, likely the 700s. But, this small figure icon is not found anywhere else on carvings or manuscripts of their day.
Here again is the collage of the small figure icons.
What are we to make of this small figure icon?
Naturally, there have been several attempts to interpret the small figure icon over the years.
The earliest suggestion was by Mann, as representing a passage from the Book of Exodus. Another suggestion was the baptism of Christ1, but it is clear that weapons are involved here, not rivers and water. Nor would the Picts have depicted Christ as a small, that is relatively unimportant, figure.
Another biblical suggestion has been Samuel anointing David2, but David is usually portrayed as a full grown adult kneeling, rather than a child standing, and again there are no apparent items used in an anointing.
The sacrifice of Isaac has also been suggested3, with the figure on the left perhaps the angel protecting Isaac and preventing his sacrifice, although this is not how the Picts depict their angels. The usual depiction elsewhere has a small table altar with Isaac bending over it, and the ram in the bush behind, none of which is evident in the small figure icons. But most of all, it is hard to see how this biblical event could have a key importance within the explicit military context of these stones.
Of course, none of these suggestions allow for the fact that neither Pictish crosses nor the Alt Clut crosses appear to otherwise feature biblical scenes, with the possible exception of a strange Pictish version of David killing the lion. This era of art may be responding to the iconoclasm rampant in the contemporary classical world.
Geddes has recently put forward the suggestion that the icon represents the arming of David4. This does have the immediate advantage of placing the icon in a military context. However, if King David is the central figure, then it is surprising that he should be so small. The Picts elsewhere portray David killing the lion as a large warrior dressed in imperial robes despite him being a young shepherd boy in the bible when he smote the lion, so it seems improbable that as a warrior receiving weapons he is perversely depicted as a small child.
Nor does the arming of David occur as a popular biblical scene on other crosses, the only instance in the world being on one of a series of silver Byzantine plates found in Cyprus and dated between 613 and 630 AD, well over a century before, each plate depicting a different scene from the life of King David. These silver plates also feature David killing the lion by kneeling on its back, unlike the unique Pictish version where he stands beside the lion, making it very unlikely that these unique plates, or any unattested related template, are the source of the small figure icon.
Icons of David, usually him killing the lion, were indeed a popular motif from early on, with many examples in manuscripts and carvings all over the world, yet despite this popularity not a single manuscript instance of the arming of David is known. The other thing that tells against this interpretation is that the small figure has a shield seemingly held above him to protect him, the shield is not being handed to him, or rejected by him as the bible relates.
Sueno’s stone is all about a king in his prime boldly proclaiming his victories to the world, his sword held high. If I am right to identify this king as Oengus I, (in)famous for his many bloody battles, he came to the throne at a relatively old age, and was even older when attacking Dal Riata in the 740s. To then expect an icon which portrays a small boy rejecting armour seems perversely out of character.
The explanation that this Pictish king is modelling himself after David as he rejects real armour preferring God as his armour is antagonistic to everything in art, history, texts, that we know of the Celtic worldview, in which warriors are very much part of their armour which itself often has agency. Celtic stories are replete with tales of how warriors receive their armour, all are about celebrating this coming of age event and how important it is. Pictish men too are next to never without their weapons prominently shown, including the king and all his warriors on the Sueno’s stone itself. The Celtic worldview would not find a warrior going into battle without his weapons as explicable or culturally appropriate, no matter what one story in the Old Testament says.
Finally, another idea is that the small figure icon represents an inauguration scene5. There are several things that tell against this idea. First, we would not expect the king to be represented as a figure significantly smaller than the other figures as his subjects. Nor is there anything to suggest that the Picts ever placed a small child on the throne.
The bjannak
Which leaves us to find another interpretation for a key icon found in a battle context with serried ranks of warriors and trumpeters. An icon occurring with a cross, but seemingly not an important biblical scene that can be found on crosses or manuscripts elsewhere. An icon where a small figure is flanked on the right by a large figure carrying a weapon and another on the left holding a shield above his head in what seems like a protective pose. And, an icon which occurs with other Odin depictions related to battle – Odin arriving in Valhalla, the place where warriors go to after death, and Odin’s wolves who eat the battle dead. An icon that occurs on at least 6 stones in both Pictland and the kingdom of Alt Clut, possibly dating to the mid 700s.
That is a difficult question in the end. There is only one solution that I have found that might fit this scenario – the bjannak, the blessing by Odin of warriors going into battle.
Odin was so successful that he never lost a battle. As a result, according to the sage, men came to believe that "it was granted to him" to win all battles. Before Odin sent his men to war or to perform tasks for him, he would place his hands upon their heads and give them a bjannak ‘blessing’ and the men would believe that they would also prevail.6
Would the Picts really have depicted the god Odin blessing his warriors before battle? I suspect the answer is yes, because influences and trends in this 8th century period are complex, fast changing, melding and morphing.
The word ‘blessing’ itself comes from earlier forms of the word first found as blētsian from around 725, later blessen in the Northumbrian dialect of 950 AD. The word derives ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *blōdisōn (“to sprinkle, mark or hallow with blood”). It is intriguing that once again we have a date in the mid 700s, and an Anglo-Saxon source.
The word used in later text for a blessing is bjannak, which comes through Celtic bennacht ‘blessing’, demonstrating the cross-linguistic melding of this powerful concept, Latin/Anglo-Saxon/Irish/Norse. Perhaps we are witnessing here an ancient pagan protective blessing of the warriors being transformed into a protective blessing of warriors by the Christian god and his saints.
Heimdall and Ragnarok
While the small figure icon only occurs in a limited region, the trumpeter or horn-blower does occur elsewhere.
At Gosforth on the west coast of Cumbria, a large, intricately decorated cross has a picture of a man with a horn, and in his other hand he holds a spear before the open menacing mouths of two reptilian creatures. It has been suggested that this is Heimdall7 with his magical horn Gjallarhorn, which he will blow to warn the gods that Ragnarok has begun. The idea of Ragnarok as the end of the world is similar to the Christian concept of the Last Judgement Day, and it’s thought that this is a melding of the two stories.
On the Isle of Man there is another trumpeter, similar to the Pictish ones, blowing a raised horn. Again this is considered to represent Heimdall, blowing his horn before Ragnarok.
These two stones show that the idea of Heimdall and his magical horn remain strong in Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian areas, but the problem here is that both these stones are thought to be a century or two later than the Pictish stones. Nonetheless, it does raise the question of whether the story of Heimdall and his horn is behind the sudden fashion of trumpets in the insular world. Especially when Heimdall’s role as the messenger of Ragnarok is so easily melded with the new Christian biblical story that trumpeters will also herald the end of days.
The locations of the stones with a small figure icon
But, even should we identify this small figure icon as a protective blessing of the warrior, melding a Norse/Germanic pagan tradition with a Celtic tradition, and being transformed into a new Christian tradition, that still doesn’t answer one other key question – why does this icon only occur in these limited locations?
The locations of all but one of these stones with the small figure icon, or related trumpet stones, lie in a broad band from the Alt Clut region through Fife. The Cambusnethan, Barochan, and possibly Govan, stones are definitely outside Pictland, in the kingdom of Alt Clut, later Strathclyde. In other words, this icon is felt to be important beyond Pictland, yet it still does not occur anywhere else outside these locations in Ireland or southern Britain, implying it is an icon considered to be of particular relevance in just this limited region.
This limited distribution also suggests that this isn’t some biblical story of key importance, else we’d find it on other crosses in southern Britain and Ireland, which we don’t.
Sueno’s stone isn’t the outlier that it first appears to be. We’ve already seen the connection through trumpeters and ranks of warriors, as well as the small figure icon. But it is also related to the Barochan cross through its rare form of cross. This type of cross is the late Pictish form without a defined circular centre but still with circular inlets in the cross arms, which is also the type found on most of the recumbent graveslabs at Govan. But stunningly, Sueno’s stone and Barochan also have an outer ring, a rare occurrence on the large monumental stones (although some small Pictish memorials do have it). There are only three other possible monumental stones with crosses like this, all of them in Fife, at Carpow, Largo and Crail (blue and purple circles). This again fits into the same distribution pattern – from Fife to the Govan region. There is a distinct connection running between St Andrews and Govan as shown by these crosses. But the question then is, just what did that connection entail?
Dating the small figure icon and the battle trumpeters
Let’s now sum up some of the dating we’ve seen that may be associated with the stones with the small figure icon and the related war trumpet. This dating is definitely focused in the mid 700s, and likely represents a new fashion in the depiction and descriptions of trumpets. Each stone with a small figure icon may come from this period, or perhaps from later years, although contextual evidence for the early Viking period after 800 is lacking.
The real Irish trumpet, 750 AD
David with trumpeters, Vespasian psalter c.730 – 770.
Acca of Northumbria, leaves Hexham probably for St Andrews 732 AD
Establishment of the monastery of St Andrews by Oengus I in the 730s
Kinneddar has the same type of Pictish memorial stones, so mid-700s
Govan recumbent graveslabs also strongly feature the same form of late ‘Pictish’ cross, although on recumbents rather than upright stones.
The smiting of Dal Riata (the likely candidate for the Sueno’s stone battle) 741 AD
Northumbria defeats Britons of Alt Clut 750 AD
Northumbria and Picts under Oegnus I force terms on Alt Clut 756 AD
The key church centres of St Andrews in Fife, Kinneddar in Moray, and Govan in Alt Clut are all partaking in the new fashion of multiple small graveslabs over burials in a major churchyard. And their carvers, while expressing some regional differences, are also sharing icons and the form of their cross.
The locations of the small figure icons are part of this same limited group, and all are from the very late CII > early CIII era, probably the mid to late 700s. Which does present a problem as the Alt Clut stones are usually considered in art-historical terms to be much later than this.
Sueno’s stone recently had pits around it dated to the 800s8, showing that the stone was present at least by this date. If these pits are the remains of a gantry to raise the stone this may provide a date for the stone, however, that is an assumption that cannot be verified. The grouping of other related stones more likely places it in the mid to late 700s.
The next question is, what could have been happening in the mid 700s that might be relevant to such a military-associated icon? And what connects the Fife and Alt Clut regions through these battle icons?
Ango-Saxons and Picts at Alt Clut
The history of the Britons of Alt Clut is fragmentary to say the least, but if the Barochan stone in particular memorialises a battle, the dating of this group of stones and actual trumpets points to a battle in the mid to late 700s.
The Vikings attacked and destroyed Alt Clut in 860 AD. But in the years before this, the Northumbrian king Eadbert defeated these Britons in 750 AD, then, in 756 AD he followed this up by forcing terms on the defenders of Alt Clut, this time in an alliance with the King of the Picts, Oengus I. His luck turned however when his army was defeated as they were returning from this expedition – in an unidentified location.
It’s not known however what the outcome was for the Alt Clut relationship with the Picts, or what terms the Picts imposed on the Britons. Did those terms include asserting some sort of influence over the Govan church?
The connection to Oengus I is suggestive that these stones with the small figure icon are part of the story of his reign. Not only did he found St Andrews, but Sueno’s stone, if dated to his reign, is possibly memorialising the great battles in which Oengus all but destroyed Dal Riata in 741 AD.
Despite this, it may be that these battles between the Picts and Britons were the exception, that they usually lived as negotiated neighbours. During the 600s a number of Pictish kings had family connections to the Alt Clut dynasty, and this close relationship may have continued into the 700s. The Picts in particular would need access to the busy networks of the west coast through the Clyde Firth, so it would seem likely that the two groups largely cooperated to their mutual benefit. In which case we could be looking at a pattern of close and cooperative religious houses and their artists moving and sharing their art. And, the Barochan battle stone might still be standing testimony to some other battle fought here with an unidentified foe.
History is an iceberg at these moments, we see so little of what is happening on the ground, just a few titbits of battles and deaths in the annals. What we can take away from these titbits is that the 8th century was the height of movement and interaction between regions, sometimes a battle making it to the annals, but mostly unseen and unknown interactions at many different levels of society.
The rather unexpected and quite amazing aspect of this story is just how close the regions of Fife and Govan actually were. There is a deep untold story here of the history between these two neighbours in the 700s.
Conclusion
There are at least 6 examples of the small figure icon, and another couple of stones with related battle trumpets.
All but Sueno’s stone are in a band running between Fife and Alt Clut, linking these two regions in some unspecified way.
This icon is restricted in space and time, and does not appear anywhere else.
Dating of these particular stones points to the mid to late 700s, and historically they might be associated with Oengus I, the famous battle king.
The iconography of this group of stones is focused on warriors, possibly commemorating a battle, or memorialising a battle or warrior. The small figure icon is one of these ‘battle’ icons, and on two crosses occurs with Odin-related battle iconography.
The small figure icon has no completely satisfactory explanation, the most likely being a form of the bjannak ‘blessing’ of the warrior, putting the warrior under the protection of the deity and making them invincible in victory, a concept melding both Celtic and Anglo-Saxon pagan tradition with the incoming faith.
Edensor, Tim (2022). Landscape, materiality and heritage: an object biography. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 33.
Loggie R, A Revisit to Sueno’s Stone (Aberdeen University MSc dissertation, 2020, 29-32
Fisher, I. 1994. ‘The Govan cross-shafts and early cross-slabs.’ In A. Ritchie (ed) Govan and its early medieval sculpture, 47–54. Stroud: Alan Sutton Publishing Limited
Geddes, J., 2024, November. Reconsidering the Forres cross-slab (Sueno’s Stone), part 2: iconography. In Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (Vol. 153, pp. 245-269).
Loggie R, A Revisit to Sueno’s Stone (Aberdeen University MSc dissertation, 2020, 29-32)
Georges Dumézil. Gods of the ancient Northmen. Vol. 3. Univ of California Press, 1973. p9
Bailey, Richard N. England's earliest sculptors. Vol. 5. PIMS, 1996
Loggie, R., Campbell-Howes, F. and Noble, G., 2024, November. Reconsidering the Forres cross-slab (Sueno’s Stone), part 1: dating and historical context. In Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (Vol. 153, pp. 225-243).