Ancient Highland Dress
The Belted Plaid - The
Feileadh-mhor(pr: feela more)
The belted plaid or the breacan-an-feileadh
(pr: BRE-kan an Feelay) . . . the great kilt, appears to have
been the characteristic dress of the Highlander from the late
sixteenth century onwards and had probably been worn for quite some
time before that over the saffron tunic - the main article of
clothing worn by the Irish.
It was a loose garment made up of around six ells (18 feet/5
metres) of double tartan - Highland looms could only weave a
maximum width of 25 to 30 inches (65 - 75 cms) so two lengths had
to be sewn together down their long edge to make the plaid (from
'pladjer' - the Gaelic for blanket).
Historians have foisted onto us the idea that the Highlander laid
this great expanse of fabric onto the ground and carefully folded
it into pleats until its length was reduced to about 5 feet (1.5m).
He then lay down on his back on top of it so that the bottom edge
almost reached to his knees and gathered it around himself,
securing it round his waist by a leather belt. He would then stand
up and arrange the unpleated top portion around his shoulders,
tucking the corners into his belt to form ingenious pockets.
Whilst this is a very entertaining performance for modern
observers which produces a quite spectacular result, one wonders
just how many of us - in our modern homes - have an unencumbered 18
by 5 feet (5.4m x 1.5m) space in any of our rooms to lay out our
plaid? The procedure may well have been normal in the larger homes
of the 'upper classes' of the times, but hardly the norm for the
average Highlander living in a tiny blackhouse, often shared with
his cattle. Performing the procedure outdoors on lumpy heather,
muddy yard or wet grass with half a gale blowing, must hammer the
last coffin nail into the idea!
The practical truth, based on common sense and a reasonable amount
of documented evidence, tells us that on the inside of the plaid
there was a series of loops, through which was threaded a cord.
Dressing in it only required the Highlander to grab it off its
wooden peg, tie it tightly around his waist, buckle his broad
leather belt around the outside and arrange the surplus above the
waist as he wished. There is also evidence that as an alternative,
some wearers had external loops for the broad leather belt which
seems a much more sensible solution to a problem that possibly only
existed in the minds of modern commentators! It's interesting that
in the French illustration below, the broad belt is shown in
position on the outside of the plaid, not irrefutable proof, but
interesting!
It was reported that in very bad weather - high winds, frost or
snow -the Highlander would dip his plaid in water and then lie down
in it.We're told that wetting it like that made the wool swell so
that the plaid would give better protection against the wind and
cold air. In sub-zero temperatures, it's said that the dipping
would result in a thin glaze of ice on the outside surface which
would further insulate the occupant. Wrapped up like this with his
head under the blanket, the Highlander's breath would then create a
warm and moist atmosphere around him which would keep him cosy
during the night! As you can imagine, if the poorer Highlanders
worked and slept in their plaids they must have been pretty smelly
as reported in 1726 in a letter from Captain Burt, an English
engineer. " . . . the plaid serves the ordinary people for a
cloak by day and bedding at night . . . it imbibes so much
perspiration that no-one can free it from the filthy smell . .
."
Highlanders were out in all sorts of weather, bare legged and
frequently bare-footed and one of the names given to them was
Redshankes - shanksis an old word for legs and the red
legs were caused by exposure to the winds, rains and snows of the
Highlands. In 1543 a Highland priestcalled John Elder wrote a
fairly detailed letter on the subject to
Henry VIII.
In 1688 the Governor of the Isle of Man wrote a description of
Highlanders: "Their thighs are bare, with brawny muscles. . . a
thin brogue on the foot, a short buskin of various colours on the
legg, tied above the calf with a striped pair of garters. What
should be concealed is hid with a large shot-pouch, on each side of
which hangs a pistol and a dagger. A round target on their backs, a
blew bonnet on their heads, and in one hand a broad sword and a
musquet in the other."
As mentioned above, the spare fabric of the upper portion would be
arranged in ingenious folds for pockets to hold provisions and
other multifarious objects.
In times of battle, we read that Highlanders would discard the
cumbersome plaid leaving them stark naked from the waist down:
many's the enemy who must have fled in terror before a Highland
charge that displayed such awesome weaponry.
See a more detailed Belted Plaid article
by Matt Newsome and also Jamie Scarlett's article on the myth surrounding the Belted Plaid
The Little Kilt - The feileadh-beag (pr: feela beg)
The beginnings of the small kilt - the one which is worn in
modern times - has caused lots of arguments over the years. There
are many people who like to think that something so Scottish has to
be really ancient but it is generally agreed that the little kilt
(Feileadh-beag - pr: feela beg ) is really quite modern having
first become popular about 270 years ago.
One of the commonest tales is that it came about in the 1730s at
an ironworks at Glengarry in Argyll. The manager there was an
Englishman called Thomas Rawlinson who wore the kilt himself and
noticed the inconvenience of being unable to remove the top half
when it became soaking wet with rain, without having to take the
bottom part off as well. So he separated the top half and got a
tailor to sew the pleats permanently into the bottom half. The
Chief of Glengarry - Iain MacDonell - saw this, thought it a great
idea and copied it.
There are of course other explanations and the truth of the matter
probably is that the small kilt developed in various places over a
period of years but no-one thought to document its evolution -
apart from in the case of Thomas Rawlinson. The objections that
many Scottish historians have made - vehement at times - usually
seem to revolve around the fact that it was an Englishman (Shock .
. . Horror!!!) who seems to have been credited with it - a
regrettable example of rampant patriotism trying to overturn
history perhaps!
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Trews - triubhas (pr: troovash).
James V wore trews in 1538 so their longevity is not in doubt.
They were always made of tartan and great ingenuity was used in
their manufature. They were cut on the bias - on the cross - so
that they had a certain amount of elasticity and clung to the legs.
The sett of the tartan was usually smaller than seen on the kilt
and the hose was carefully crafted to match on the seams which ran
up the back of the leg on the outside - a little like the seams on
old-fashioned ladies' nylon stockings. Having no pockets, the
wearer would often wear a sporran - usually hanging from the belt
rather than on the front - and a plaid would also be worn.
In 1637 it was reported that "In the sharp winter weather the
Highlandmen wear close trowzes which cover the thighs, legs and
feet. To fence their feet they put on rullions or tan leather
shoes." The practicality of the trews became very evident when
it came to riding a pony - not something that a kiltwearer would
volunteer to do in a hurry - and since ponies and horses were
usually the privilege of rank, trews came to be regarded as the
domain of the rich. One historian (Frank Adam) commented that they
were worn principally by chiefs and gentlemen on horseback, and by
Highlanders when travelling in the Lowlands." (of Scotland)
Nowadays they've disappeared altogether except possibly within
re-enactment societies. Their successor in military circles are in
effect very tight 'drainpipe' trousers.
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Hose
Most Highlanders went around bare-legged and bare-footed but
when they did start wearing stockings, they were made of cloth and
not knitted like modern ones. The pattern was usually a red and
white check which was called cath dath (pr: kaa dah) - war
pattern.
A characteristic of traditional hose was that they stopped well
below the knee - usually on the thickest part of the calf. Even
with garters however, those old diced hose were pretty shapeless
and fell down frequently if the wearer didn't have a good sized
calf muscle and they were eventually replaced by knitted stockings
which clung to the legs much better.
There is some evidence that Highlanders also wore footless hose as
can be seen in the extract from a McIan painting of1845. The modern
equivalent is only worn by the military and even then only by pipe
bands who wear spats.
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Garters
There was no elastic in those days and to keep the socks up it's
said that poorer Highlanders would often tie some plaited hay or
straw around the top of them to 
hold them up. For
the better off however, garters were woven on a special hand loom
called a gartane leem which was also used for weaving
narrow strips of fabric. Nowadays it's called an Inkle loom and was
mentioned in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost but the loom
predated that period by several centuries.
The woven garters were about a metre long and ended in a special
knot called the Sniomh Gartain (pr: snaime garshtan) which
is said to be a bit like that on a modern necktie. The village of
Cladich on Loch Awe was said to be home to a colony of weavers -
almost all of them MacIntyres- who were renowned for their hose and
their 'greatly celebrated''Cladich garters' which were mostly made
in red and white and were greatly prized by pipers. Their fine hose
was possibly the forerunner of today's Argyle pattern. The last
MacIntyre weaver in Cladich is said to have died in 1870.
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Footwear
We know that Highlanders - men and women - frequently went
barefooted in summer and winter - see the 1848 R. R. McIan painting
of school children - but when they did wear shoes they were what
they called in Gaelic - brogan tionndaidh - and they were
made mostly from deerskin and pretty rough and ready. Martin Martin
in 1703 wrote "The shoes antiently wore, were a piece of the
hide of a deer, cow or horse,with the hair on, being tied behind
and before with a point of leather."
To make them, the Highlander would lay his bit of deerskin on
theground - furry side down - place his foot on top and draw the
materialup around his foot, cut off the excess and then punch holes
along the top of the instep through which he would thread deerskin
thonging. He would then cut holes in each shoe to let the water out
. If he didn't do that, water would lie in the shoes and cause what
is known as footrot or 'trench foot' - a serious condition, which
if unattended, could result in gangrene and amputation.
Captain Burt, an English engineering officer, was sent to
Inverness in 1730 as a contractor and we owe much to his blunt and
often ascerbic descriptions of life at that time. Here he has
something to say of the Highlander's shoes:"They are often
barefoot, but some I have seen shod with a kind of pumps made out
of a raw cow hide with the hair turned outward. They are not only
offensive to the sight, but intolerable to the smell of thosewho
are near them. By the way, they cut holes in their brogues though
new made, to let out the water when they have far to go, and rivers
topass; this they do to prevent their feet from galling."
(becoming sore). Highlandersalso wore a higher footcovering - a
leather boot of untanned skin, which was laced up to just below the
knee. These were called cuaran.
One type of modern men's shoe pays homage, not just to the
Gaelic name for shoes - brogan - but also to their
design.. We're talking of course of the brogue which has
been fashionable for very many decades and which has, for
decoration, a layer of punched holes on the uppers. Those early
shoes were also the forerunners of modern Highland dress shoes -the
ghillie brogues which utilise the same thonging method for
lacing them up. as do the lightweight shoes used by Scottish
Highland dancers.
It has been suggested that the word moccasin possibly had its
roots in Scotland. The word comes from the American Indian
mockasin and it was once recorded that Indians may have
got it from early Scottish settlers speaking in Gaelic and refering
to their shoes as mo chasan(my footwear). To suggest that
the north American Indians had to hang about for a few thousand
years waiting for the Scots to give them a name for their shoes, is
indeed fanciful and the similarity has to be attributed to pure
coincidence or the use of the word in a very limited community
where Scots and Indians co-existed. There was a surprising mutual
liking between the Scotsand the North American Indians which you
can read about in the USA section of the
website.
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Sporran
Historically, very little seems to have been written about the
sporran. The need for such a 'purse' however is self evident. In
the belted plaid, although the wearer could fashion various pockets
from the upper portion of the fabric, none of them were very secure
and small, valuable items such as money and lead balls for the
musket & pistols, could easily be dislodged and lost.
Originally the sporran was carried on the belt - just like a modern
holidaymaker's money belt. The'working sporran' was usually very
basic - a large circle of leather with holes punched around the
periphery and then drawn together with a thin leather thong and
attached to the belt.
For dressier occasions- usually the prerogative of the financially
better-off - the sporran was much more ornate and hung at the
front, either on the waist belt or on its own sporran belt.
A huge range of indulgent designs appearedwith silver cantles
and tassels. Most were made of animal skins such as otter, badger,
goat and seal and by the late 1800s there appeared the sporan
molach or hair sporran usually made from goat skins and so
large that it almost covered the front of the kilt.
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Belts
A Highlander's leather belt was usually made of cowhide and was
80 to 100 mms wide with a brass or silver buckle. If a Highlander
was on a long trip and was short of food, he would tighten his belt
which made his stomach feel less empty. Some belts were reported as
being highly decorated with silver ornaments intermixed with the
leather like a chain. The better-off had even more ornate belts and
sometimes the end that went through the buckle would be metal or
silver that was highly engraved and decorated with fine stones or
pieces of red corral.
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Hats
Many writings mention the Highlanders' bonnet - Boineid
(pr: bonaje) which came to be called the Tam o' Shanter. This was
knitted or made of cloth and was worn tight around the brow and
very loose on top with a toorie for decoration - a bobble or
pompom. Bonnets were mostly blue but were also made in brown and
grey. In time it became smaller and was known as the Balmoral -
boinead biorach (pr: bonaje beerach) which sometimes had a
diced band (checked like a chess or draughts board) and the toorie
on top. The ribbons at the back were for adjusting the headband so
that it fitted all head sizes. Tradition has it that in the army,
Lowlanders (those Scots who live south of the Highlands) let the
ribbons hang free whilst Highlanders would tie them in a bow.
Over the years, some wearers of the Balmoral wore it puffed up
on the head and then creased it down the middle. This produced a
new style of hat called the Glengarry. By late Victorian times
almost all the British Army wore this type of hat when they were in
their working uniforms.
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Feathers
It's not known exactly where the custom of Chiefs and Chietains
wearing eagle feathers in their hat came from. The black and white
illustration shows an Irish soldier in 1588 but it's not known if
the feathers were for embellishment or to denote rank. There is a
strong suspicion however, that whilst the Scots did wear
feathers in their hats at one time, the use and Chiefly
significance of the eagle feathers may have been a Victorian
invention based upon the American Indian tradition.
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The black knife - Sgian Dubh (pr: skian doo)
The derivation of the name of this little 'weapon' is open to
discussion. Traditionally the handle was made of black 'bog wood' -
wood that had long lain submerged in a bog, and that's certainly an
obvious origin. Others point to the fact that originally it was a
hidden knife and therefore rather sinister and used for 'black
deeds.'
In rougher ages it was secreted in the oxter - the armpit - and
could be withdrawn for use in a flash. As violence and lawlessness
disappeared, the need for such a hidden weapon diminished and it
was then openly displayed, tucked into the hosetop. Out of
R.R.MacIan's 72 illustrations of Highlanders published in 1842,
only two of them were shown wearing the sgian dubh in their
hose.
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Dirk - Biodag (pr: beedak )
The Highland dirk grew directly from the early Ballock
Knife - an old spelling of the more familiar and vulgar name
for the male testes - which was prevalent throughout Western Europe
in the Middle Ages. In 1617 a Richard James describes Highlanders
as wearing "a long kinde of dagger, broad in ye back and sharpe
at ye pointe, which they call a darcke."
Ideal for close-quarter fighting, the dirk was a long stabbing
weapon up to 50cms in length (20 inches). Like the sgian dubh, when
the need for its fighting role diminished, it often remained as
part of formal Highland dress. Affluent Highlanders would keep the
dirk in a sheath often with one or more smaller knives or a knife
and fork held by smaller sheathes.These were either mounted in
tandem or side by side as shown. After the 1745 uprising, many
broadswords were cut down and made into dirks.
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The Dirk Belt
The dirk sheath would often be hung round the Highlander's waist
or attached to a special dirk belt - the criosan biodag
(pr: creeshan beedak). That dirk belt became the standard kilt belt
that we wear today. The dirk belt is often a difficult item to
identify in period paintings - R.R. McIan's 1842 paintings of
Highlanders invariably shows the dirk hanging on the same belt as
the sporran.
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The Sword Belt
The broad leather belt that lies across the chest was the sword
belt - either of fairly plain design as shown on the left, or for
more formal wear, in black patent leather with ornately ornamented
buckles and keeps.
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Jewellery
Highlanders were said to be suspicious of money and preferred to
carry what wealth they had in the form of jewellery and
embellishments to their weapons. Solid silver buttons were one of
their favourites and these would often be passed down from father
to son. If the Highlander died away from home, it was important to
him that he had enough valuables with him that would pay for a good
funeral and a headstone. It's interesting to note that Roman
soldiers used to contribute periodic payments into a fund which
provided the same for them.
Plaid brooches
or Cairngorm brooches as they are often called -
originally because of the Cairngorm stone at their centre. A
cairngorm stone is, unsurprisingly, found in the Cairngorm
mountains in Scotland and is the brown variety of rock crystal
often erroneously called "smoky topaz." Cairngorm has a sentimental
and historic interest involved in its use as an ornament for the
weapons and picturesque clan dress of the Scottish
High-landers.
Pennanular
brooches. Pennanular brooches or cloak pins have an
ancient history, going to Celtic and Viking times. The pin was
stabbed through the folds of a cloak and then one end of the ring
was pushed under the sharp end of the pin where it came out of the
cloth. The ring was then turned until the pin tip lay securely
locked in place beyond the raised bump of the decorated
terminal.
Clan
Badges
It's said that clan chiefs would often give their
clansmen a metal plate of their crest which could be worn as a sign
of their allegiance. The usual method of fastening 
it to their clothing
was with a leather belt and buckle and when it wasn't being worn,
the belt was coiled around it. That gave rise to the modern
convention that we all know, which is the belt and buckle clan
badge worn by clan members the world over - the belt and buckle
element displaying their allegiance.
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