Picts ‘n Mix: complex identities in the Viking age

Abstract

• The Picts are best known for pulling off one of Scottish history’s most famous disappearing acts. What, or who, accounts for them vanishing from the historical record after AD900? In the northern isles, the Pictish language seems to disappear completely. The blame often falls on the Vikings, who attacked Scotland relentlessly in the ninth and tenth centuries. Did some Picts see the way the wind was blowing and decide to ‘go Viking’?