Scottish
Weapons
The
Sgian Dubh (this is literally translated from the Gaelic "Black
Knife"): this wee knife was approximately 8" long from
the tip of the blade to the top of the hilt. The blade itself
was (and is) about 3-1/2" long. It was carried in a variety
of places depending upon where you were. In the early years (14th
- the 17th and mid 18th century) it was carried under the armpit
of the highlander, for it was a weapon of last resort. When a
highlander was not in battle and in a friend's castle or home
it was worn in the hose or boot in plain sight. This was done
to indicate that there was no malice to be done.
The
"Dirk" was a weapon of war and was about 18" from
blade tip to the top of the hilt. It had an 11-12 inch blade and
was worn centrally located on the waistbelt. When in battle the
Dirk was carried behind the Targe or shield. In some cases it
also served as an eating utensil.
The
Scottish Claymore was of undetermined length due to the fact that
it was made for the person carrying it. It was carried in a sheath
that hung in back of the person carrying it. It was a weapon of
double use. First it did not have a sharp edge mainly because
it was used as a stabbing weapon as well as a club. The weapon
was designed so that the blade could be used to knock the legs
out from under the horses of the enemy. Then taken by the blade,
it was used as a club to disable an enemy that may have been in
armor (usually the English).
The
basket hilt sword was carried on a waistbelt to one side of the
Highlander.
A
full set of "Highland" accoutrements was essential for
the fashion-conscious patriotic Scottish laird of the first half
of the nineteenth century. They generally consisted of a basket-hilted
sword and dirk with gilt metal decorative mounts, an elaborate
horse hair sporran with a gilt metal cantle; black leather waist
and sword belts with gilt metal heraldic mounts; a powder horn;
a cartridge case; and a steel flintlock pistol. All these items
and more had their origins in the weapons and jewelry of the seventeenth
and eighteenth-century Highlanders, but by the nineteenth century
they had been imbued with the Romanticism of the period.
Return
to Scottish History
|