How many kilts would a Scot have had.

[Sherry]

As a side note on smell, diet affects the way we smell.

I had a friend who had been a short-term missionary in an African country, & the locals told her & the other missionaries that they all smelled like sour milk to them. This seemed due to the fact that the locals consumed very few milk products (no refrigeration), & the Americans had before they arrived.

[GlassMan]

The other thing to remember about the time period of the Englishman's comment about the Scottish odor is that, during that time, very few were literate. So if someone's musings on Scottish BO were recorded it was most likely done by a learned gentleman, a member of the upper-crust. Now, someone of that class would likely not clean himself anymore than a laborer but he would have doused himself with awful amounts of perfume. And all of the others in his social realm would also have been covered in perfume. So most likely the smell of the lower classes would have been something extremely novel for his nostrils, as they would not have been able to afford the perfume. Also, we tend to find the familiar pleasant and the unfamiliar unpleasant. So even if the stench of a Scottish farm laborer was just as bad as that of an English laborer, if the writer was familiar with the English stench but the Scottish stench was slightly different, than the writer would find the Scottish more unbearable. It would be highly subjective, and easily swayed by any underlying prejudice, but it would be that writer's opinion.

[James]

I'm sure many of the military types on this board can recall spending weeks unwashed - apart from shaving, in the one serge uniform-out in all weathers etc: after a bit it all seemed normal.

Then on another occasion in the Middle East, I'd been out on operations for six weeks without a bath and change-then all of a sudden was flown back to the UK, with only time to change my uniform-my first all over wash being back at the regimental depot-where even my fellow soldiers noticed. But the real joke came in Germany, where nearly a year later I was reunited with the kit from the Middle East--then for the first time I really noticed the smell.

Old soldiers tales are really rather boring, but there is a point: would a highland drover have carried spare clothing-I think not, even if they owned a s[pare set: and probably such things as bathing on route would not have been considered. Just as I doubt if an English labourer, or even American cowboy would have been too fastidious: the average working men would have by modern standards stunk, and most people would not have noticed.

Just as mentioned by Andrew-there can be long backpacking trips when any serious washing just does not happen.

A problem being that we tend to have an ideal vision of the past, and forget that the highlanders were regarded as savages from north of the highland line by the great bulk of the Scottish community: a community which would have scorned to wear such garb as that of the highlander. Think here of the Scottish regiments which were horrifed when they became kilted: an oops there for the romantic vision. A vision supported by Sir Walter Scott and romantics of the 19thC, and more recently by such people as the comedian Billy Connelly, who in his early years made the most scathing references to 'the wee tartan skirts': yet who now appears fully kilted.

James

[Pour1Malt]

...
Could it be that wool spun in a croft by a different method that the English would retain the natural smell from the sheep. Lanolin is smelly. Maybe substances used to dye the wool could have distinctive and not necessarily offensive smells...

well kent in medieval days... ya wash oot the lanolin by soaking the wool over nicht in a bath of urine....

then, obviously, ya wash oot the urine....


dyes were maistly red onion skins, tubers, and the like....

a highlander would ha had one great kilt- as others hae said... it was his clothing, blanket, and backpack....