First Kilt

[AN COIGREACH ALBANNACH]

Hi melenn from down in australia.Re your search for a tartan that you can relate to and have some feeling of a legitimate connection to;

Firstly many tartans that folk look up in books that are connected with their name were made up entirely by textile manufacturers in the lowlands of scotland. That was nearly seventy years after the highlanders that really did make the genuine tartans had been banned under pain of death or exile from continuing to do so.Many really origional tartans were lost forever,and to this day there is, as far as i know, no historical proof that whole clans dressed in the same tartan or used rigidly conforming 'setts' of tartan to recognize each other by.In relation to the extent of the history of the scottish kilt,'clan' tartans are a relatively new idea.Truth is if the old highlanders that really made the kilt famous could raise from their graves and see us now they would not recognize the majority of these 'ancient' clan tartans.

Also there is a very interesting painting which was made using jacobite highlanders captured after the battle of culloden.It shows that they each were wearing quite a different selection of tartans.Was this their clothes or were they dressed in things taken from other prisoners to make a more interesting picture? To me that seems unlikely,so what you have is a fascinating window into what was worn by highlanders who dressed in whatever they felt suited the gaelic highland sence of fashion or practicality at the time.

Definately a tendency to mix and match different tartans in a colourfull manner seemed to be the order of the day,not some edwardian idea of 'this is my tartan and that's yours'

That said,many families and clans have had a long time to convince themselves that something fabricated in the 18 hundreds is their 'ancient' family tartan ,and it would be the thick skinned that enjoyed delibrately stepping on toes by wearing 'their' tartan.

My advice;Don't stress it if you can't find a tartan officially connected with your name as this idea is historically unsound anyway.As others have said there are plenty of tartans connected to areas.Maybe for you you may find a tartan connected with Orkney or the Shetland islands.To this day the natives of these places feel as much if not more connection to Scandanavia than they do to Scotland.Having been there i can assure you it's bursting with reminders of its viking past. Would that option be something you, with your norwegian background, could pursue?All the best!

Sorry, too unskilled to put up that picture i spoke of.It's quite a famous one.Could another member possibly help out if melenn needs?

[Cowher]

I noticed you like in Utah. What do you think of the state tartan?
http://pioneer.utah.gov/research/uta...ls/tartan.html
http://woozle.org/~neale/tartans/ut.png