[MR] BBC: Musings on Scottish Kilts

[Garth Groff and Sally Sanford]

Noble friends, especially fellow Scots,

Today the BBC has an interesting piece on the "reintroduction" of the
Scottish kilt. In 1822 the rather corpulent King George IV made a royal
visit to Scotland. The event was stage managed by Sir Walter Scott, and was
turned into a tartan blizzard. Even Georgie dressed himself in an absurd
parody of a kilt, above pink stockings. And so the kilt was "restored" to
Scottish culture:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-62464709 .

SCA living history practitioners often fall into a trap when wearing the
kilt, especially the modern "wee" kilt (often with modern accessories)
without any knowledge of the kilt's history and how it fits into our SCA
timeframe. So here comes the history lesson:

The earliest verifiable mention of the kilt is found in a biography of Hugh
Roe O'Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnell, written by his secretary Lughaidh Ó
Cléirigh. In 1594 O'Donnel was gearing up for another year of war in his
lifelong struggle to eject the English from Ireland. He hired a large
contingent of McDonalds from the Scottish Hebrides. From Ó Cléirigh's
description, their garments were undoubtedly the great kilt.

The great kilt certainly had to have been around for at least a while for
so many men to have been so clad. In fact the *plaide *(a simple large
piece of cloth) had been worn for a long time, usually as an unbelted upper
body wrap known to the Irish as a *brat*, and by the Scots as a
decorated *breacan
*or *féileadh mór. *A famous early 16th century engraving by Albrecht
Dürer shows
two Scottish *gallowglass* mercenaries followed by three Irish *kern*
warriors, one of whom is wearing this upper body wrap.

Even farther back in time, there is a surviving carved stone lintel in
Lethendy House in Scotland showing two Pictish bards wearing a similar
garment with belts.

As for the wee kilt, it is generally attributed to the early 18th century.
However, a 15th century stone capital in Abbey Kirk, Paisley,
unmistakably shows a man wearing a lower body-only kilt.

Both types of kilts were common among highland Scots into the mid-18th
century (Lowlanders did not wear kilts, considering them to be uncouth and
barbarian). This all stopped after Bonnie Prince Charlie's uprising. In
1746 the victorious English imposed the "Dress Act" which banned Highland
clothing for men and boys, including tartan and kilts. The act was repealed
in 1782, but at first most Scots showed little interest in the kilt. Robert
Burns' poetry and Sir Walter Scott's novels awakened a rather mushy
romantic pride in Scottish "heritage", given the stamp of approval by
George's 1822 visit.

An archived history of the kilt by your author, showing the Dürer illustration,
the Pictish bards and the Paisley wee kilt, is found at
https://mallardlodgehousehold.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2022-10-02T04:05:00-07:00&max-results=7
.

Yours Aye,

Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge  🦆
Continuing a crusade to keep the original Merry Rose relevant and in
business.