h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thank you for NOT posting that....& congratulations to your highly-intelligent offspring!

Thanks, but I take Standard Grades, due to me living in the wonderfully rainy country of Scotland

We'll drink one to ya at the Highland Games this November, lassie! (laddie?)...

I'll be wearin' me kilt (in me family tartan, of course)...

da Baron

ptewie!<<----------------------*

"A good thing about the country is less PIDGEONS per acre!"

You have a family tartan?
I never heard of it...the "Shatterday"
and Aurora's a wee bonny lassie

Sure! Shatturday is a TITLE, not a family name! If the Price of Wales can have a tartan, I guess I can too!

da Baron
ptewie! <<---------------------------------*

"Bloody pidgeons won't know my family name unless they can read tartans!"

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Umm, why can the Prince of Wales have a Tartan?

I would have thought that the heir to the throne of England can have anything he wants...but he does look good in a kilt. Not many men can carry it off. He does.

Because he's Crown Prince of Scotland, as well! He can wear the Royal Stuart...

da Baron
ptewie!<<---------------------------*

"Bloody English are near as bad as Pidgeons!"

Actually, with very few exceptions, anybody can wear any tartan they like. The idea of tartans being clan-related is a comparatively recent invention, certainly within the last 200 years or so. One of the few exceptions is the Balmoral tartan, which was designed for Queen Victoria (as far as I know) and can only be worn by a member of the Royal Family.

Well you learn something new every day.....thank you!

Actually, when the Scots lived together in small groups (clans) in the Highlands, everyone bought the tartan that the local weaver made. He would make only one kind of tartan, so everyone in the clan wore that tartan!

I always understood that tartans were made using whatever natural dyes were available. And I doubt that a weaver in even a small rural community would only make one kind of tartan. If it genuinely was a small community, weaving was often done by the women, each of whom might do a different tartan. And a clan's territory could cover quite a large area, so there would be more than one person weaving, and hence there would be more than one tartan in common use.

The reason I say that 'clan tartans' are a recent invention is that they were thought up by two men (French or Polish immigrants, definitely NOT Scots) who were writing a book about Scotland and its clans some time in the late 18th or early - mid-19th century. Before that a Scotsman would wear a kilt in any tartan going.

If you say so! I'm not really an expert.

Whats the point, I ask? Lizards, being resplendantly arrayed in a coat of satiny shiny scales, have no further need of adornment of course,and we pity you humans who are so naked and insecure that you need clothes to confirm your identity.Pass the pina coladas, please.
Unplaidly yours,
LizardLady

my uncle married a scottish woman and in the wedding he wore a kilt and we could if we wanted also.I didn't ,but my yonger brother did but we didn't look for a specific type of tartan.

At my cousin's wedding all the men were asked to wear the tartan from the bride's family name. My dad chickened out because he reckoned he didn't look as good in a kilt as his brother (the bride's dad)!

I'll bet the notion of "family tartans" were actually invented by the kilt-makers! They've certainly capitalized on 'em. Bloody kilt will cost you 300 American Dollars! And that's without the shoulder-sash and all the other goodies!

da Baron

ptewie!----------------------

Holey moley..$300..How much would the little knife cost?

You'd better not be talking about claymores! (See U142065, she's got one). You're better to hire a kilt, and "The other goodies" are known as a sporran.