On 20th May 685 The Battle of Dun Nechtain, in present-day Angus, was fought.
Also called The Battle of Nechtansmere, this is an event I always like exploring and posting about, not just for the ancient battle itself, fought long before Scotland as a country existed, but for something that hapenned centuries later.
Dun Nechtain is little known nowadays, but it helped secure Scotland’s future as a nation. Fought between The Picts and the Northumbrian Angles if we had lost Scotland could well have become part of the southern neighbours we spent so many times fighting.
Latterly known as the Battle of Dunnichen, it was fought in the shadow of Dunnichen Hill, to the east of the borough of Forfar, on the 20th of May, in the year 685
The Picts, led by their king Brude Mac Beli defeated the invading army through their clever manoeuvres. Ecgfrith was drawn off his original route by a feigned Pictish retreat. The Northumbrian army burst through the cleft their enemies had gone through only to stumble upon the Picts fortress. Most of the army were slaughtered by the waiting Picts and King Ecgfrith was slain. After the battle, the Picts buried their dead through the following night. They carried on until 2.30am, requiring torches to finish the rest of the work.
Now to my favourite part of the post, roll on over 12 hundred years to the 2nd January 1950, and a woman called Miss E.F. Smith, described as a spinster, was driving home from a party in Brechin at about 2am. Her car had skidded into a ditch 2 miles outside the area due to the treacherous road conditions. She still had another 8 miles to go so she continued her journey on foot. She felt oddly nervous as she walked along the minor road west of the A932, then she saw a number of strange lights in the distance near Dunnichen Hill. Turning south towards the village, she noticed figure in the field to her right, part of Drummietermont Farm. Each figure carried a flaming red torch in its left hand and they seemed to be searching the ground for something.
Miss Smith then saw shapes on the ground exactly like dead bodies. The figure nearest to her stooped down and examined several of these ‘corpses’, turning them over and back again, as if looking for recognisable faces. This scene lasted for around ten minutes, with Miss Smith’s dog barking throughout. Eventually she simply walked away. She only realised that the whole event was peculiar when she woke up next day and thought about it. Later she gave details of the experience to the Society for Psychical Research. She reported that the searchers wore garb like body stockings, along with tunics and flattened oval helmets. They appeared to be moving around the edge of the vanished mere, the shape of which was later traced by archaeological investigation.
Although this post battle manifestation has not been repeated. some motorists passing through Dunnichen on misty nights have caught sight of fleeting human forms which vanish before their cars hit them.
There is some skepticism as to how real Miss Smith’s sighting was. She was travelling very late at night and had already walked a number of miles, not to mention suffering a trauma from skidding her car into a ditch. The vision could have been brought about as a result of exhaustion and the effects of the cold. However, the fact that it occurred at the exact site of the Battle of Nechtansmere seems to be too much of a coincidence and it is unlikely that the woman’s dog would react to something that occurred only in his owner’s mind.
The pic is of a Pictish symbol stone depicting what was once generally accepted to be the battle
There is much more on Miss Smith’s experience here https://mikedashhistory.com/2010/06/28/a-scottish-spinster-at-the-battle-of-nechtanesmere-685ad/
