Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

1^0 ST. KILI>.\.
bracca, comes from the Gothic broek and brog- ; brook,
with the plural broekur in the Icelandic; and such is the
true etymology of this utensil. There is a parallel case
in the Ducking stool, where the application would justify
the most obvious etymology. Yet that is not the true one ;
it being a corruption of Cucking stool, itself a corrup-
tion of Coquine, whence also flows our own term Quean.
As to the Tartan, and as I hope for the last time, Hailes
imagines that it was introduced by Queen Margaret,
because she taught the savages of her new kingdom to
dress like gentlemen. It is probable that she introduced
the Saxon dresses of her own court ; but, on this point, I
have formerly adduced enough to prove that our learned
antiquary must be wrong. There is a remarkable fact in
Montfaucon which seems to aid in establishing the an-
tiquity of the Tartan. It is the figure of a bas relief
from the temple of Montmorillon in Poictou, which is
thought, and with great probability, to represent an as-
semblage of Druids, symbolic, or allusive to some ob-
scure usage. In this, one figure of a woman has a
checked, or Tartan, dress, and the garment of one of the
male figures has also a checked edging or phylactery. Its
antiquity is, at any rate, remote; and its probable allu-
sion and origin are confirmed by a sculptured head dug
up in Paris, figured in the same work, which somewhat
resembles the heads of Ammon, inasmuch as it is horned.
The Druidical connexion is here apparent ; and this
check or tartan is doubtless the very " itafAitolynXoi" of Dion,
the " xpu[/.aa-t iravroiaTtoTi; h-^6ia-iA.€voi;" of Diodorus, and the
" avemi" of Strabo ; described as in use among the Gauls.
The absence of the Minister was a serious impedi-
ment to my political enquiries ; but when St. Kilda shall
hereafter read English and its critics write Reviews,
these oversights will be kindly, or otherwise, amended.