The Story of The Pictish Beast: The story behind the mythical creature featured on many Scottish standing stones

The Picts were a race that inhabited large tracts of present day Scotland from around AD300 and remained dominant for a period of 500 to 600 years. They were made up of many tribes, but despite their numbers little is known about them; in fact, the only surviving Pictish document is a list of the names of their kings. Some say they were warrior people, some call them the 'Painted People' after the tattoos with which they adorned their bodies.
To the south their neighbours varied with time from the Romans to the Britons and Angles. To the west they shared or disputed territory with the Scots invaders from DalRiada in Ireland. In their later years, the Picts had to contend with Viking invaders from Scandinavia in the north. It was a precarious life, in an often inhospitable but beautiful land.
Knowledge of their language and culture has been lost through time, however, there remains one significant lasting reminder of the Picts; these are the Pictish Stones. There exists, mainly in the north and east of Scotland, around 350 of these standing stones, all of which have some sort of inscription upon them. Some of the inscriptions are religious in nature, some are of artefacts, and some of them are unidentifiable. Many of the stones have outlines of animals, among which are the serpent, the bull, the wolf and the deer. Yet of all the stone inscriptions, there is one image that is both most frequent in number, comprising of almost forty per cent of all animal images, and the most mystifying. It is known simply as the Pictish Beast.
No-one has been able to tell what this creature was, or why it held such importance for the Picts. That is until now; this is the Story of the Pictish Beast!
The Story of the Pictish Beast is the tale of the mythical, mystical creature of the stones, and the story of how a boy's life becomes entwined with that of the Beast. It tells of the friendship that they formed and how that friendship leads both to revelations about the heritage of the boy and, more importantly, affects nothing less than the destiny of the Pictish race!