Pictish Stones at Fowlis Wester

All pictures copyright © 1998, 1999 Martin McCarthy

The "cross" face of the class II cross-slab. Large Image (58kb 252x684) The top of the "back" face. Large Image (91kb 488x1154) The base of the "back" face. Large Image (123kb 488x1116) A pair of horseman riding abreast. (If you think there is only one horseman, try counting the horse's legs.) One of them carries a hawk, but that is pretty much imposible to see in this poor picture. Large Image (68kb 377x500) In the top half, a man in a long robe leads a cow with a bell around its neck. Behind follow six other men, two with shields. Below is (left) a crescent-and-V-rod and (right) a bird - possibly a goose or eagle. Below these, and almost impossible to make out, is a man being eaten by a beast. Large Image (94kb 494x620) Another view of the cow and followers. Large Image (68kb 436x508) A clearer view of the cow procession. Apologies for the scratch on the negative! Large Image (85kb 462x558) At the top of the stone is a double-disc-and-Z-rod; the left-hand disc can be seen. Below is a horseman. Large Image (50kb 370x444) From the top: double-disc, horseman and beast. Large Image (107kb 480x701) Another view of the crescent, bird and (slightly clearer) man-eating monster. Large Image (66kb 638x363) Close-up of the crescent-and-V-rod. Large Image (67kb 582x436) At the top is a horseman; below is a beast - possibly a dog; at the bottom, a pair of horsemen. Large Image (111kb 430x821) Detail of the cow-procession. Large Image (175kb 756x612) A smaller class III cross-slab hidden away in Fowlis Wester church. Large Image (117kb 468x1148) Different lighting to bring out the shadows. Large Image (76kb 342x778) Detail of the top of the cross. You may notice that the top-right quarter seems to depict someone having their head bitten off by a monster. Large Image (176kb 736x1042) Detail of the base of the cross. The blokes in anoraks are believed to be Pictish computer geeks. Large Image (138kb 910x756) The class III cross slab. Large Image (157kb 514x790) The hermit Paul and his date trees. Large Image (153kb 544x926) The man-eating sea monster - possibly Jonah and the Whale. Large Image (183kb 1020x610) A pair of tonsured monks and a key-pattern panel. Large Image (131kb 808x532) Detail of the tonsured monks. Large Image (123kb 544x762)

Fowlis Wester is a tiny village that is in an area heaving with ancient sites: cup-and-ring marked rocky outcrops, hill forts, stone circles, standing stones, Pictish sculpted stones, Roman forts, and more. In the centre of the village used to stand a tall Pictish cross-slab. To save it from the weather, it has been taken into the local church (along with another cross and several fragments of another stone) and replaced with a fairly horrible replica. Inside the church, the lighting is terrible (that's my excuse for the poor quality of several of these photographs!) and it is very difficult to make out the carvings. On one side is a cross, and on the other are several horsemen, a crescent-and-V-rod and a double-circle-and-Z-rod. A second, smaller cross-slab lives in the same church. The top-left and top-right quadrants of the slab seem to contain monsters that look like a cross between a dog and an eel. The one in the top-right has hold of a person by the head. According to Elizabeth Sutherland in In Search of the Picts this is illustrative of the Jonah and the Whale story; in the top-left corner the whale has swallowed Jonah leaving his sword and shield--in the top-right corner the whale is disgorging him. Below the arms of the cross are two seated figures. These are Paul (on the left) and Antony (on the right) -- two early Christian hermits and saints. They supposedly lived alone in the desert in the early years of Christianity, meeting just before Paul's death at the age of 113 years. The story is that Paul fed on and was clothed by date palms, seen before and behind the figure on the left; a spirit (seen behind the figure on the right) revealed to Antony the presence of Paul in the desert.