The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

148 THE HIGHLANDERS [parti
pretending he was gone beyond seas." Martin likewise says,
that it was worn by persons of distinction ; and other writers
contrast it with the dress of the common people.
The dress of the common people was the second
ortheVi^ei!*^ variety in the form of the Highland dress.
John Major points out the distinction most clearly.
After describing the dress of the gentry as given above, he adds,
" In panno lineo multipliciter intersuto et cocreato aut picato, cum
cervinae pellis coopertura vulgus sylvestrium Scotorum corpus
tectum habens in praelium prosilit."^ It appears, therefore, to
have consisted of the shirt, painted instead of being stained
with saffron, and sewed in the manner of the modern kilt, while
above it they wore a deerskin jacket ; they likewise wore the
plaid, which the gentry belted about the body, over the
shoulders, like the modern shoulder plaid. Taylor, the water
poet, describes this dress very minutely in 1618—"And in
former times were those people which were called Red-shanks.
Their habite is shooes with but one sole a-piece ; stockings
(which they call short hose) made of a warme stuff of divers
colours, which they call tartane. As for breeches, many of
them, nor their forefathers, never wore any, but a jerkin of
the same stuffe that their hose is of, their garters being bands
or wreaths of hay or straw, with a plaid about their shoulders,
which is a mantle of divers colours, much finer or lighter stuffe
than their hose, with blue flat caps on their heads, a hand-
kerchiefe knit with two knots about their necke, and thus are
they attyred." There is, however, as old an attestation for the
use of this dress as for the other ; for while the Sagas describe
the king of Norway and his courtiers wearing the dress of the
Highland gentry in the eleventh century, they describe some
of his meaner followers attired in that of the common people
of the Highlands.
"
Sigurd had on," say they, " a red skarlet
"
here the tunic and vest
tunic, and had a blue vest above it ;
answer exactly to the shirt and jacket of the common people.
been much derided
Sigurd is described by the Saga as having
by the Norwegians for his extraordinary dress. He is accused
' " The common people of the Higli- ment, manifoldly sewed, and painted
land Scots rush into battle liaving or daubed with pitch, with a covering
their body clothed with a linen gar- of deer-skin."