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Gareth Hughes 21:06, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Personal sandbox

Hi there, just thought I'd let you know that your talk page should probably be reserved for comments. You might want to move your (rather fine) work on History of Scotland to a subpage, like a Sandbox. Click here to make one. Thanks, Alphax  10:38, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)

Fortriu

Your recent edit regarding Fortriu was a bad edit. Not only has it "recently been argued" it has been effectively proven. You'll have to take my word for it, because you don't know what you are talking about just now; I'd suggest emailing around, or what not. I've reproduced enough of the arguments to make a southern identification absurd. Reinserting Strathearn and Menteith is silly in any case, because even if it did correspond to S. Pictland, it's unlikely to follow the piffle in de Situ Albanie. - Calgacus 16:07, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Clearly I'm being incredibly stupid today. I'd like to blame it on overindulgence but that would be a lie. Biorhythms maybe ? Humble apologies. Angus McLellan 17:25, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Dalriada and Pictavia

Angus, a whole bunch of Pictish rulers are, in their titles, "of Dalriada". This is pretty spurious. They should all be moved to "of the Picts". Do you wish to help me move these to their proper locations? - Calgacus 18:18, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Sure. I can do them all if you like. That's maybe easier. I have plenty time on my hands at the moment. Angus McLellan 18:23, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Cool stuff. You agree that it's spurious, right? One problem you may encounter is that the "of the Picts" titles may be redirects, so you may have to change the names or something. I dunno; keep me posted if you have any problems.

Agree 100%. Just tried moving Constantine and indeed it doesn't like it as the page already exists as a redirect. That'll be Caustantín of the Picts then. Angus McLellan 18:35, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, why that form (i.e. Caustantín)? Oh yeah, something else is that, despite being destroyed by the Picts, Dalriada is coming first in all these succession boxes. Dunno if that bothers you as me. - Calgacus 19:29, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

It was a toss up between one-t and two-ts. Two-ts appears first in Broun's entry on him in Lynch's companion. Well, the Dalriada stuff is all over the place. It would be a big job fixing it. What I am thinking (I dunno if you're thinking the same, I'm not Michael Howard) is that it might be as well to have a "kings of the Picts and Fortriu" article (and a "kings of Dalriada" one) and stick everything in there. Well, it's an idea anyway. If you think one-t is more correct, then I will change it. Drust of Dalriada has the same issue with a redirect page of the same name. I think that needs a request to move it (either that or I'll copy & paste it, which is not the done thing, but who cares ? I know which is more likely). Most of those "lists of this" and "lists of that" are a complete waste of time.

LOL. OK. The forms vary anyways, so it doesn't really matter. Fraser has Custantín. You are correct that the Dalriada stuff is all over the place. This is a difficult area, as I'm sure you appreciate, so most editors don't really know how to handle the information; the emerging scholarly consensus that Dalriada was destroyed in the 8th century has not even begun to creep into popular knowledge. Numbering the Pictish kings is in itself problematic. Drust I think is the Pictish form (and indeed a Pictish name), although I wouldn't want to number him (but this is being done in any case). One of the problems with naming is which kings do you give Gaelic names, and when Pictish names, since it is silly to take Cináed mac Ailpín's reign as a breaking point. I agree, btw, that most of these lists of are more misleading than helpful; but sadly, inevitable on a popular editing platform like wiki. The best we can do is insert long commentaries, which is very time consuming, and they probably wouldn't be read in any case. - Calgacus 20:03, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I changed Drust of the Picts to Drust IX of the Picts; I know you're probably systematizing this in your head, so I hope I didn't screw anything up. If I did, it's easy enough to revert back. It just seemed a little odd to have this Drust in particular as merely Drust of the Picts. - Calgacus 20:48, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Shit, I just noticed that the List of Pictish Kings goes from Drest VII to Drust IX (same names, Scottish and Pictish). Is this explainable, or is it a mistake. - Calgacus 20:51, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Always did. After checking, the prob is that there are two Drest VI's, Drest f. Donnel in the 660s and Drest f. Talorgan in the 720s. I'll fix that later. Now I'm off to watch Life on Mars on BBC1. It reminds me of just how crap the 1970s were. Angus McLellan 21:07, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

You can work on all the pages with the information you have. My sources are probably the most shotty of them all. I've been using bits of information from The Annals of the Four Masters mixed with stuff from The Pictish Chronicle and the links located therein (pretty good site). I generally work on making pages look decent and cleaning up the succession boxes at the bottom (since I created the current succession box format). When I run across good (and historic, if not reliable) information at a website, I often will integrate it in. I also clean up the name field so that the alternate spellings are available in parenthesis. Finally, I try to standardize the dates of reigns so that they do not look like

Yeah, that is not a nice looking form. I generally standardize it to something like

See the difference?

So in regard to your requests, I often forget to source my information. It is from historic sources, that much I can tell you, but expand on it or remove it all you want. Some people have been going through and thrashing my Dalriada pages anyway since apparently there is controvery over if the kingdom ever existed, so I am rather tired of working on stuff that people just erase or remove. Regardless, have fun and I hope you find good infomation. I can try to help if you need it. Cheer!
–Whaleyland 20:05, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks ! That was a quick reply (feel free to trash this conversation when done). I believe that the Annals of Ulster and of Tigernach are *usually* the most useful on Scotland, and they seem to have fewer dating problems than the Four Masters (which goes to pot in places, certainly c730, but is fine in others). The Annals of Innisfallen haven't been a goldmine, but the Annals of Clonmacnoise have been handy sometimes, although the fact that they're in the ancient format Cornell and whoever adopted for the Making of America project aeons ago does make them harder to use than text. It must be wonderful to just look up an edited book, like Skene or Anderson, rather than trawling through the online versions.

There's no controversy over the existence of Dál Riada. There are over its origins, its fate, its connections to Ireland, the value and meaning of the Senchus, the extent to which the Annals present a Cenél nGabráin bias, and more besides. There are good grounds to think that kings have been added and subtracted in the 8th and 9th centuries, but Aedan mac Gabráin and Domnall Brecc were as real as can be. Compared to many other such lists, the list of kings of Dál Riada is a paragon of accuracy of which you should be proud ! Angus McLellan 20:38, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Great Work

Keep up the good work. - Calgacus 19:56, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Duan Albanach

Thanks for opening Duan Albanach. I'm not sure that tag should be there; it's not finished, but it ain't bad quality. BTW, I recommend you read Thomas Clancy's “Scotland, the ‘Nennian’ recension of the Historia Brittonum, and the Lebor Bretnach”, in Simon Taylor (ed.) Kings, Clerics and Chronicles in Scotland, 500-1297, (Dublin/Portland, 2000), pp. 87-107. The article essentially proves that the Lebor Bretnach was written in Scotland, probably at Abernethy. If it's of interest to you, it contains a relatively "un-Gaelicized" Pictish king-list that goes all the way up to the reign of Máel Coluim III. These king lists contain a kind of charter granted by the Pictish king Nechtan to the monastery - it's just an interesting point; it's maybe why the monastery at Abernethy preserved the list. Have a good one. - Calgacus 00:49, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll read it tomorrow ! Angus McLellan 01:02, 6 February 2006 (UTC)