Long ago, the Scots looked like everyone else, at least in terms of their dress. The men – and probably the women – wore a long shirt or smock or dress. It may have been wool, linen or leather, and usually the material had its original colours, even if the lords, of course, could afford more exclusive colours.

It was the same long shirt or smock that had been worn in Europe since ancient times, even in our country, and which still, in thinner fabric, can be found in the Middle East. It is an extremely practical garment, which of course is worn without trousers underneath. Great men and their women could also complement it with a cloak of appropriate material and attractive colouring.

The long shirt remained in outlying areas such as Ireland and amongst the Gaelic-speaking Irish immigrants of the sparsely populated Scottish Highlands. In Gaelic it was called léine.

In the Lowlands and the ‘Border Country’, where the majority of Scots lived and political power existed, more wealth had made it possible to abandon the long shirt and dress for a more sophisticated style. Here was spoken a northern English dialect, which when it started to be written down, unlike Gaelic, came to be seen as a national language. The famous battles against the English king that were fought between 1297-1328 and led by fighters such as William Wallace, Black Douglas and Robert the Bruce were the liberation wars of the lowland nobility. Wallace was certainly not costumed as in the movie Braveheart, although Wallace’s statue, recently erected outside Stirling, is strikingly similar to Mel Gibson.

The Highlanders’ primitive life was unknown to most Britons and was a source of contempt and horror for the lowland residents of cities like Glasgow, Perth or Aberdeen. While agriculture and basically all useful work was performed by the women, the men devoted themselves, at least according to their own code of honour and the view of their lowland neighbours, only to civil tribal warfare, assaults and cattle raids on the plains. They were seen as thieves and murderers, if indeed they were seen at all.

In the barren, sparsely populated mountainous country, a primitive form of feudalism had arisen. The Gaelic-Irish tribal kingdoms had been split into small units under the lowland king’s formal leadership – which in practice was limited to approving the newly appointed chiefs. The chiefs often had a non-Gaelic origin – Nordic Vikings who had remained before the area was incorporated into Scotland, Saxon lords who had married into their titles, or the Norman nobles who had the area in fief. The subordinates would still, at least in theory, be counted as the chief’s kinsmen, or clan. The word means descendants, and in touch with the outside world, they were often named with the Gaelic ‘son’ names MacDonald, MacGregor and MacLeod. Sometimes the name was instead a nickname such as Campbell (”crooked mouth”) or even pure Norman such as Fraser – from the French fraise, or strawberry. The clans were pretty volatile. They could be dissolved or recreated. The social codes were typical of tribal communities. The original was the way in which the area was still part of the Europeanised Scottish feudal state – a bit like latter-day colonies with governors in Africa.

The involvement of these savages and robbers in these battles of belief that were being fought in the real Scotland was considered inappropriate or unsportsmanlike in the same way as enrolling natives in the European colonial powers’ disputes in Africa. The most famous royal action in a clan war was instead the battle at North Inch in 1396 – the kind of event where colonial masters allow ”savages” to act to the amusement of the sophisticated powers. Two feuding clans, Quhele (pronounced Kay) and Chattan, got to settle their score before King Robert III with 30 fighters in a field north of the old capital of Perth. A local blacksmith who was admitted as a reserve of the Chattan clan was one of the eleven survivors. The Quheles clan was annihilated, dissolved and disappeared from history.

But even the Highlanders were reached by some development. During the 1400s, a new way to weave wool was introduced: tartan. The word is explained by Hugh Trevor-Roper, who wrote the best portrayal of the myths of Scotland, The Invention of Scotland (published posthumously in 2008), it is from the French, tiretaine, and relates to weaving methods. WW Skeat says, however, in his classic etymological dictionary of the English language (1879-81) that the word refers to Tartary, that is to say the Orient, which still confirms the foreign origin. From the beginning it was a single-coloured fabric, often a reddish brown like the heathlands. But weaving techniques are thought to have progressed in the islands to the west, where fishing allowed for greater prosperity, and from where arose the practice of weaving with variegated coloured thread.

The new fabric was used in various garments. For higher gentlemen came a sort of pantyhose, trews or trowes. They were suitable for riders or those who were carried by underlings, but not for walkers. King James V in 1538 ordered the ”trousers in Highland tartan” for visits to the harsh climate. His ”Highland jacket” was made of velvet and his long shirt of Dutch cloth.

Of tartan was woven plaid also. The word is, according to Skeatsläkt, I don’t know this word.I don’t know this word.from the Latin word for leather and our word fäll and referred to a jacket of any material. But, woven in tartan, plaid quickly became both a status symbol and utilitarian. Its use spread among the people and replaced the old long shirt. A large piece of cloth that hung over one shoulder and was often stitched together over the other, then was fastened around the waist with a belt and was draped so that it hung a bit down towards the thighs. For the poor, tartan-plaid replaced all other garments. It was warm and could be used as a sleeping bag or tent. But there were drawbacks: it was difficult to perform useful work in – which according to tribal norms should not worry a real man. In windy weather it sometimes showed terrible things.

Anyway, the plaid vogue spread during the 1600s. Towards the end of the century, different islands and regions can be distinguished in different types of tartan.

Scotland had since 1603 been in union with England, when the Scottish Stuart family inherited the crown. But King James VII (or James II of England) was overthrown in 1688 because of his Catholic faith. The countries were united in 1707 to form Great Britain. In 1715, warriors from the Highlands finally became visible in the larger context. King James’s son James Edward Stuart attempted to regain the crown. His sparse support came from, among others, Catholic lords in the Highlands who, before everything faded to nothing, sent fighters dressed in plaid or long shirts.

The attempt to pacify Highland dwellers followed. The area was opened up by road construction. They also wanted to spread civilisation by enjoining ‘decent’ attire. The proposal fell. Had it been otherwise, the most remarkable Scottish garment, the kilt, would never have appeared.

After the area was opened, in 1730 an enterprising English Quaker from Lancashire, Thomas Rawlinson, decided to build an iron-smelting plant near Loch Ness. What attracted him was the availability of fuel from birch wood, which he bought from the clan chief Ian MacDonell. The problem was that the local forestry workers were hampered by the awkward plaid. Rawlinson’s ingenious solution was to cut the plaid and turn the bottom into a skirt of decent length. The rest of the plaid got the more modest dimensions that the colourful plaids tourists today buy from the weavers outside Inverness, which are worn as a cloak or a giant scarf over the shoulder. The word kilt had existed earlier, but it meant plaid. Originally the practical work skirt was called a philibeg.

The fashion spread like wildfire. It was already widely known when a tragic turning point came 15 years later; James Edward’s son, Charles Edward Stuart, commonly known as ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, raised again a revolt in the hopeless ambition of becoming King Charles III of Great Britain. There was not an ounce of Scottish nationalism in his company, much less any Highland patriotism. But still, a number of Catholic or strong Tory-royalist clan chiefs could command blindly obedient tenant farmers to fight with the broadsword for the Stuart monarchy’s return. But in the Highlands there were clans that supported the ruling dynasty. And most Scots, the lowlanders, were Puritans and strongly hostile to the Stuarts.

Still, the prince managed to reach halfway down to London, before he was forced to return to Scotland and up into the Highlands. The remainder of the army was crushed in the terrible battle of Culloden on 16 April 1746. The even bloodier slaughter of fleeing Highlanders afterwards was seen as just punishment of criminal savages. The sadistic torture killings of the leaders of the prince’s party brought cheers from among the spectators. Now, as of August 1, 1747, men were forbidden from wearing ”Highland clothing”, namely: ”The Plaid, Philabeg or little kilt, Trowes, Shoulder-Belts, or any part whatever of what peculiarly belongs to the Highland Garb.” Also forbidden was ”tartan or party-coloured plaid or stuff” in coats and jackets – an accurate picture of fashion at the time, including the 15-year-old kilt.

But it was also the beginning of something new.

There was one exception to the regulation – military units. A Highland militia had already been recruited by the Crown to stop cattle theft and extortion, Sidhier Dhu or The Black Watch. It soon came to serve even in wars abroad. More Highland regiments were then created – a livelihood for the poor youths affected by the ravages of the homeland and the increasing evictions when clan chiefs and other landowners replaced their tenant farmers with more profitable sheep herds. From the outset, these soldiers were dressed in the practical kilt, which thus became the central garment in the only permitted type of Highland clothing.

Uniform tartan patterns were used on regimental kilts. New regiments got new variants. Through these deliveries to the army, the weaving industry expanded. Over time, the lowland firm of Wilson & Son in Bannockburn became the most successful in the industry. That the regiments marched to bagpipes – a pan-European instrument that was otherwise going out of fashion – meant that they came to be associated with the kilt and became the new Scotland’s special instrument.

During the Napoleonic Wars, the Highland regiments garnered admiration on the continent not only through their courage, but also by their exotic and seemingly ancient attire. They seemed to conform to the Celtic romantic ideal that a generation earlier, with the falsified Ossian Songs, spread across Europe and made the names Oscar, Fingal and Selma popular.

The decisive step was taken in the final stages of the war, in July 1814, when Walter Scott anonymously published his novel Waverley about Bonnie Prince Charlie’s rebellion in 1745. Scott became his era’s most widely read and acclaimed storyteller in Europe, but he is currently valued low. It’s unfair. Quite apart from its entertainment value, he is probably history’s greatest single literary innovator. He invented the historical novel, that is a story that portrays times the narrator has not themselves experienced, in a way that we are aware of the changes in mindset, living conditions and costume. Similarly, the method of letting the protagonists such as Bonnie Prince Charlie only appear occasionally, while we follow a fictional, uninteresting subordinate character who becomes our peephole out towards the strange environment and its remarkable personalities; likewise, the artificial ‘archaic’ language spoken by the Vikings, Romans, Indians or Gaelic Highlanders. Above all, he invented the ‘omniscient narrator’ that can be in several places at the same time and look through the eyes of several people.

He became more localised from Waverley onwards, the main creator of Scotland and the Scots as we know them. The main character witnesses in Chapter 15 a Highland warrior’s entrance onto an estate in the lowlands: ”The individual Gael was a stout, dark, young man, of low stature, the ample folds of whose plaid added to the appearance of strength which his person exhibited. The short kilt, or petticoat, showed his sinewy and clean-made limbs; the goatskin purse, flanked by the usual defences, a dirk and steel-wrought pistol, hung before him; his bonnet had a short feather, which indicated his claim to be treated as a duinhe-wassel, or sort of gentleman; a broadsword dangled by his side, a target hung upon his shoulder.”

The story of the rebellion, the prince and the Highlanders sparked a huge enthusiasm. As early as 1782, the ban on civilian Highland clothes was lifted, and enthusiasts from across the classes had started posing in imaginative variations. With Waverley, the fashion grew into mania – the tartan craze. Scott himself based on this image his brilliant suspense novels such as Rob Roy (1818), depicting the uprising of 1715, and The Fair Maid of Perth (1828) about events surrounding the Battle of the North Inch.

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In January 1820, enthusiasts in Edinburgh founded The Celtic Society, where members dressed in tartans and kilts, a suit that had previously never been seen in the capital. Scott was obviously an honorary member, but was content to wear trews. The society’s leader was David Stewart, an ex-officer from a Highland regiment who, in a book from 1821, explained that the short kilt was an ancient type of folk dress and also advanced the revolutionary idea that there existed special tartan patterns for different clans. The book came to be invoked as the scientific basis for all subsequent studies of clan life.

Fascinated by Scott’s novels and what he heard about the romantic Scottish culture, King George IV, in the summer of 1822, decided to visit Edinburgh – the first monarch to be seen there since the 1600s. Scott was appointed a director and host for the visit, with Stewart as an assistant. A series of folkloric antics was orchestrated. Clan chiefs were invited to appear with uniform kilt-clad subordinates. They paraded under Scott’s leadership at Castle Hill, where people so clothed would, a generation earlier, have been seen as criminal aliens. The tartan, including the different patterns, had been supplied by the firm of Wilson & Son. Members of the Celtic Society, in tartan, formed a guard of honour for the king. The climax came when the monarch himself appeared dressed in a kilt and plaid in the pattern of Wilson & Son called Royal Stuart. No king had ever trod Holyrood Castle so costumed. For safety’s sake, he wore skin-coloured long johns under his kilt.

Possibly the firm Wilson & Son acted in good faith in respect of some of the most imaginative designs they imposed on the clans. They should have taken the advice of experts. Everything indicates that this came from two remarkable characters who fulfilled Scott’s and Stewart’s reimagining of the Scottish identity.

Brothers John and Charles Allen were Englishmen, fraudsters, charmers, and, indeed, very learned men. In Scotland, they changed their name to Hay, after an extinct noble family. They said they had in their possession a manuscript from the 1500s, Vestiarium Scoticum, where all the clans’ tartans were described and also patterns for all major lowland families, including Scott’s. The manuscript had belonged to Bonnie Prince Charlie. Scott belonged to those who doubted and explained the idea of ??ancient tribal designs as absurd. But it did not help. Having first worked discreetly as an adviser to Wilson and others, the brothers appeared openly in 1829. They published the manuscript in a limited edition in 1842. Two years later came a larger magnificent volume about the clans. Meanwhile, the brothers had developed their scam. They were, in fact, John Sobieski Stuart and Charles Edward Stuart, the grandsons of Bonnie Prince Charlie, from whom they inherited the manuscript! For a time those pretenders held a kind of court outside Inverness with pipers and kilts in ”Royal Stuart”, before the hoax was revealed in 1847. The brothers disappeared abroad. But oddly enough, their book series continued to be used as a source, and the whole of Scotland was dressed in tartans and kilts in the brothers’ invented colours.

Even Walter Scott had reacted against the madness of the mania he had unleashed. His son-in-law, Lockhart, called the new national identity that had been created a ”hallucination” and pointed out the absurdity of the country’s real history being replaced by worship of the Highlanders who, in reality, had always been a small and usually insignificant part of Scotland’s population. Lord Macaulay, himself of Highland lineage, wrote amusingly in 1848 in Chapter 13 of The History of Englandfrom the Accession of James II about the absurdity of painters and actors starting to produce historical Scottish heroes like Bruce and Douglas ”in patterned petticoats”. It was as if one were depicting George Washington with a tomahawk and scalps in his belt!

But nothing has helped. Especially as the domestic criticism hardly reached abroad, which in turn loved the romanticism of the Celtic kilt, and did not want to hear about doubt. The Scottish heaths stood alongside Italy’s ruins as the first modern tourist destination after the Highlands were pacified, the roads built and the banditry ceased. The detested wildernesses became romantic and populated by bagpipe-blowing fairytale characters with ancient kilts in their clan’s ancient colours. The Battle of Culloden was a nationalist struggle for a threatened culture whereby the fallen heroes were sorted into different graves according to clan patterns. In Edinburgh and Glasgow’s slum districts, kilts began to appear as a sign of some sort of affiliation to the common myth.

”A people”, it is said, ”is a group of individuals united by common misconceptions about its history”. But the expectations of the outside world and the tourism industry can do much to keep the fantasy alive. And maybe one should add that to have fictitious nationalities is so appealing, picturesque and basically as harmless as the Scot in his ‘ancient’ packaging.