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The Painted Men

A History of the Picts

Andrew Melrose, 1954

The Painted Men is Lethbridge’s story of the Picts and a tale told in his own inimitable style. He ‘sets his stall out’ early, by denouncing the use of references in his work and side-steps the cry of “lazy swine!” with a shrug of his broad shoulders. After all, this is a story for general consumption, not a handbook or a report.

Lethbridge dispels Victorian propaganda by insisting that we must not fall into the Roman error of thinking that everyone, who was not educated up to their own particular standard, was a hopeless barbarian, lacking in knowledge or intelligence. This work reveals the Picts as a highly ordered and enterprising race.

The story unveiled, is very much a human one, the Roman occupation of Britain is portrayed in terms of generations and the needs and relationships between the British and their occupiers is related in a very realistic and believable manner. The social implications of inter-breeding and the importance of preserving the empire, are analysed and presented in a typical Lethbridgian fashion. When he describes the push for Scotland, he reveals that there would not be any survivors from the original, British invasion, in the Roman army. One can only imagine the mindset of a group of young men, many of whom had been born and bred in Britain, and what was required to motivate them on this pointless, northern operation.

Much of The Painted Men was written from first-hand observations of the coastal geography of northern Scotland. Writing one particular passage in swirling fog whilst at anchor in the harbour of Eriskay, it is quite understandable how Lethbridge was able to evoke the spirit of those that had inhabited the same lands nearly two thousand years before.

He was not content to rely solely on archaeological evidence, even if this was to later put him at odds with his profession. To comprehend the bigger picture he knew that all evidence had to be absorbed. Even fairy stories like ‘The Children of Lir’, when analysed, revealed elements of long-forgotten truths, just like the story of the Minotaur of Knossos.

In chapter four, Lethbridge describes the finds of the abandoned Kilpheder wheelhouse. He reveals the swept floor, the ashes in the hearth and the possessions of the occupants abandoned in lockers in the walls. The owners had probably gone off to their southern camp, but had never returned. One’s mind begins to race as to what had happened at this ‘northern Pompeii’. Suddenly, this is not just archaeology, but evidence of a human tragedy.

The chapter continues with the description of a winter’s night in a Hebridean broch. Again, the site is brought to life with Lethbridge’s informed narrative and reveals him to be the arch storyteller that we know him to be. Akin to those broch builders of yore, who also sat around their hearths telling tales of the lives of those who went before. It is easy to see why academics would later frown on this unconventional approach to history. But in his writing, Lethbridge reveals a wealth of possibilities and brings to life the long dead race we now know as the Picts.

The publication of The Painted Men was a watershed in Lethbridge’s career, for it was the last ‘conventional’ book that he would write. From here, the going became rough and a world of possibilities was about to open for the Keeper of Anglo-Saxon Antiquities at the Archaeological Museum in Cambridge.

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