Scottish Customs and Traditions

Scottish Weddings, main customs. The name "kilt". The Sporran as a traditional part of male Scottish Highland dress, main types. The Balmoral as a traditional Scottish hat that can be worn as part of formal Highland dress. The Great Highland Bagpipe.
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Scottish Weddings

Usually a week before the wedding, the mother of the bride will conduct a `show of presents' for her daughter, similar to bridal shower in other cultures. Female guests will bring presents to help the new couple start their own new home. The presents are unwrapped before the guests. For the groom, there is a wild night party, where the groom and his male friends spend the whole night partying and drinking.

The Scottish bride will wear a traditional or contemporary white wedding gown, while the groom dresses in traditional Highland kilt, kilt jacket and sporran. The couple is either bag piped down the aisle or traditional Gaelic hymns are played as they walk to the altar. After the vows, which is recited in ancient Gaelic or modern English, the groom often pins a strip of his clan's tartan colors to the bride's wedding dress to imply that she is now a member of his clan. Later on the wedding reception will be held.

One custom that has been followed for more than 700 years is the custom of the groom carrying his new bride over the doorstep of their new home together. This ritual is considered to keep evil spirits from entering his wife through her feet.

Scottish clothing

The term Highland dress describes the traditional dress of Scotland. It is often characterised by tartan (plaid in North America) patterns in some form.

Male highland dress includes kilt (or trews), sporran, sgian dubh and ghillies. Ghillies, or ghillie brogues, are traditional thick soled shoes with no tongues and long laces. The laces are wrapped around and tied above the wearer's ankles so that the shoes do not get pulled off in mud. The shoes lack tongues so the wearer's feet can dry more quickly in typically damp Scottish weather. The ghillie brogue is named after the ghillie, the traditional Scottish gamekeeper and outdoorsman.

Female highland dress includes women's shoes, also called ghillies, that are tied in the same way but have thin soles for indoor wear and dancing. Traditionally, women and girls do not wear kilts but may wear ankle-length tartan skirts. A tartan sash or shawl may also be worn. Women may also wear dress tartans which are modified versions which include white in place of a more prominent colour.

Kilt

The kilt is a knee-length garment with pleats at the rear, originating in the traditional dress of men and boys in the Scottish Highlands of the 16th century. Since the 19th century it has become associated with the wider culture of Scotland in general, or with Celtic (and more specifically Gaelic) heritage even more broadly. It is most often made of woollen cloth in a tartan pattern.

Although the kilt is most often worn on formal occasions and at Highland games and sports events, it has also been adapted as an item of fashionable informal male clothing in recent years, returning to its roots as an everyday garment.

The kilt first appeared as the great kilt in the 16th century, a full-length garment whose upper half could be worn as a cloak draped over the shoulder, or brought up over the head. The small kilt or walking kilt (similar to the "modern" kilt) did not develop until the late 17th or early 18th century, and is essentially the bottom half of the great kilt.

The name "kilt" is applied to a range of garments:

The traditional garment, either in its historical form, or in the modern adaptation now usual in Scotland, usually in a tartan pattern

The kilts worn by Irish pipe bands are based on the traditional Scottish garment but in a single (solid) colour

Variants of the Scottish kilt adopted in other Celtic nations, such as the Welsh cilt and the Cornish cilt

Other skirt-like garments designed for men, but more or less different in structure from the Scottish kilt, including contemporary kilts

Certain types of pleated wrapover skirt worn as school uniform by girls.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the noun derives from a verb to kilt, originally meaning "to gird up; to tuck up (the skirts) round the body", itself of Scandinavian origin.

The Scottish kilt displays uniqueness of design, construction, and convention which differentiate it from other garments fitting the general description. It is a tailored garment that is wrapped around the wearer's body at the natural waist (between the lowest rib and the hip) starting from one side (usually the wearer's left), around the front and back and across the front again to the opposite side. The fastenings consist of straps and buckles on both ends, the strap on the inside end usually passing through a slit in the waistband to be buckled on the outside; alternatively it may remain inside the waistband and be buckled inside.

A kilt covers the body from the waist down to the centre of the knees. The overlapping layers in front are called "aprons" and are flat; the single layer of fabric around the sides and back is pleated. A kilt pin is fastened to the front apron on the free corner (but is not passed through the layer below, as its function is to add weight). Underwear may or may not be worn, as the wearer prefers, although tradition has it that a "true Scotsman" should wear nothing under his kilt. The Scottish Tartans Authority, however, has described the practice as childish and unhygienic.

The typical kilt as seen at modern Highland games events is made of twill woven worsted wool. The twill weave used for kilts is a "2-2 type", meaning that each weft thread passes over and under two warp threads at a time. The result is a distinctive diagonal-weave pattern in the fabric which is called the twill line. This kind of twill, when woven according to a given sett or written colour pattern, (see below), is called tartan. In contrast kilts worn by Irish pipers are made from solid-colour cloth, with saffron or green being the most widely used colours.

Kilting fabric weights are given in ounces per yard and run from the very-heavy, regimental worsted of approximately 18-22 ounces down to a light worsted of about 10-11 ounces. The most common weights for kilts are 13 ounces and 16 ounces. The heavier weights are more appropriate for cooler weather, while the lighter weights would tend to be selected for warmer weather or for active use, such as Highland dancing. Some patterns are available in only a few weights.

A modern kilt for a typical adult uses about 6-8 yards of single-width (about 26-30 inches) or about 3-4 yards of double-width (about 54-60 inches) tartan fabric. Double-width fabric is woven so that the pattern exactly matches on the selvage. Kilts are usually made without a hem because a hem would make the garment too bulky and cause it to hang incorrectly. The exact amount of fabric needed depends upon several factors including the size of the sett, the number of pleats put into the garment, and the size of the person. For a full kilt, 8 yards of fabric would be used regardless of size and the number of pleats and depth of pleat would be adjusted according to their size. For a very large waist, it may be necessary to use 9 yards of cloth.

The Scottish kilt is usually worn with kilt hose (woollen socks), turned down at the knee, often with garter flashes, and a sporran (Gaelic for "purse": a type of pouch), which hangs around the waist from a chain or leather strap. This may be plain or embossed leather, or decorated with sealskin, fur, or polished metal plating.

Other common accessories, depending on the formality of the context, include:

A belt (usually with embossed buckle)

A jacket (of various traditional designs)

A kilt pin

A sgian dubh (Gaelic: "black knife": a small sheathed knife worn in the top of the hose)

Ghillie brogues

Sporran

The Sporran is a traditional part of male Scottish Highland dress. It is a pouch that performs the same function as pockets on the pocketless Scottish kilt.

Made of leather or fur, the ornamentation of the sporran is determined by the formality of dress worn with it. The sporran is worn on a leather strap or chain, conventionally positioned in front of the groin of the wearer.

Since the traditional kilt does not have pockets, the sporran serves as a wallet and container for any other necessary personal items. It is essentially a survival of the common European medieval belt-pouch, superseded elsewhere as clothing came to have pockets, but continuing in the Scottish Highlands because of the lack of these accessories in traditional dress.

The sporran hangs below the belt buckle; and much effort is made to match their style and design. The kilt belt buckle can be very ornate, and contain similar motifs to the sporran cantle and the Sgian Dubh. Early sporrans may have been worn suspended from the belt, rather than hung from a separate strap in front of the wearer.

When driving a car, dancing, playing drums, or engaging in any activity where a heavy pouch might encumber the wearer, the sporran can be turned around the waist to let it hang on the hip in a more casual position.

Sporran types

"Day Sporrans" are usually brown leather pouches with simple adornment. These...