Absurd kilt myths

[David Dalglish]

Arlen you have made me afraid to go out now, I hope you feel guilty?

[Jock Scot]

Matt well done, I have never heard that story before!I don't think that I have laughed so much in years!

[Nervous Jock]

So there was a Scotland football match on today and, as such, more than a few people out and about in kilts.
Not being much of a follower of football, I didn't even know there was a game on until after it had finished.

Now, early this evening I took my dog for a walk and was met by a group of kilted, inebriated, middle-aged men coming back from the pub.

'Haw! Whit's that tartan, mate?' Yelled one of them.

'It's not a tartan. It's a tweed kilt.' I replied.

'Whit? It canna' be a kilt if it's no tartan.' He pointed out.

'Actually, it can. Some of the earliest kilts were solid coloured. The Ghillies at Balmoral used to wear only tweed kilts as part of their uniform'

'Nawww. Ye'r mistaken there. You have to wear ye'r ain tartan. If ye don't have one, ye have to wear Black Watch.'

'I see.' Said I. 'And what happens if I wear a kilt that is not one of my clan tartans, exactly?'

'Well, if ye get caught by someone official like a polisman or somebody frae Lord Lyon's court then ye get fined 100 quid! Ye need tae be careful, pal. Ye must only have moved to Scotland when you were wee or ye'd know that.'


Now, here I was blithely unaware that I was breaking some law. That the police and the Lord Lyon who have absolutely no jurisdiction over tartans or kilts were just waiting to thump a big find on me!
I will have to immediately clear all of the kilts out of my wardrobe save for my Macdonald Modern!



Anyone else heard some overly absurd tartan or kilt myths recently?

What a load of bobbins

[pipesndrumsnun]

YIKES!! The kilt police! You better be good and don't let your flashes be crooked or anything awful like that...the kilt police will GET YOU!
Sounds like a tail parents tell their children!
AND...I think these kilt police need their own theme song, and maybe a logo patch, too!

[Nick the DSM]

i think the part about red meaning having bastards in your family could be true, atleast for morrison.

[Riverkilt]

I understand the drunks. Lord knows I solved all the problems of the World and knew everything even though I barely had enough money for another round...

But a sober lady pontificating such bull to school children....

Everyone knows the red in my clan tartans is because we're adulterous.

Ron

[Frank McGrath]

So..... there really are kilt police??

Brian

Yeah......I'm a kilt cop. BUT, I have never fined anyone because there is usually liquid libation close at hand, and the subject is dropped like a hot potato. I would rather discuss the liquid libation rather than condemn another man's kilt.

[Larry124]

I always thought that red was there if there were Communists in the clan….
No reds in the Campbell tartan.


But then I read that before straps and buckles kilts were attached with PINS!
Red makes sense now.

[Nick the DSM]

hahaha, commies in kilts!

maybe the red is from the blood when you stab yourself with the pins? lol wierd thought.

[keepoffgrass]

Arlen,

There is a book on tartans that was published just a few years ago (I'm sorry I can't recall the title). A friend of mine brought it into the museum for me to look at. The author actually made the statement that if you were caught wearing a tartan not your own in America it was considered "bad taste" but in Scotland you could face a "25 pound fine" and cited Lord Lyon as her source. Ridiculous! (But I notice you get off a bit cheaper according to her imaginary law than the one in your story!)

Working in the Scottish Tartans Museum as I do I hear so many tartan myths that I couldn't possibly relate them all. But one I just heard for the first time last week was from a young Scottish woman who was visiting our museum with a group of Scottish students. The woman, who looked to be in her mid-twenties, soberly instructed all the children that if your tartan had red in it, that meant you had bastards in your family.

When our museum staff attempted to dispell her myth, she would have none of it. She was from Scotland, and therefor the expert. We are just dumb Americans playing dress-up, it seems.

This is kind of a relief actually. Up until Matt's story here, I thought that teachers teaching stuff they obviously know absolutely nothing about , is something that has to be dealt with primarily in American classrooms. Its good to see we aren't the only ones

No offense to any teachers in here, I'm just a product of American public education system, that acknowledge the fact that I didn't have one teacher that had enough sense to pour piss out of a boot

But to be fair here, I'm sure they're are some really good teachers out there too.