The Kilt. Is it a Skirt? Is it Norse?

The Gaelic word for the kilt is “Feilidh Beag” (small plaid or blanket ) or in the case of the Belted Plaid “Feilidh Mór” or “Breacan An Feile” (seen in “Braveheart).

The word “Kilt” is Scots and (probably) comes from the Norse worde “Kjalta” (to wrap).

From the same root comes “Kjortel” (the type of tunic worn by many people including the Norse).

In Scandinavian languages you have the Danish “kilt” (to tuck), the Swedish “kilta” (to wrap or swathe) AND the swedish and Danish “Kjol” witch in Norwiegian is called “skjört” and Icelandic “skirt” (pronounced “skeert” but with the same meaning as the English “skirt”).

Also, the the Swedish word for the tunic that is part of Sami folk costumes is “kolt”.

The Celts where known to wear trousers (called “bracae” by the Romans).
The Scoti (Gaels) that came to Scotland from Ireland also wore trousers, so did the Gaels in Ireland.

However, male “kiltlike” garments can be found in many cultures (Romans often wore tunics (the word Tunica is Latin) with or without trousers and the Toga is a fabric wrapped around the body. Egyptians also had a garment similar to the modern smaller kilt.

So is the Kilt a Skirt?
Etymologically there is a connection to skirts, tunics and fabrics being “wrapped” around you in general so i would say yes.

Practically, all kilts (great or small) are “wrapped” around so again, yes.

Is it Norse?
Probably, though it might have been worn with a tunic and / or trousers and it would have resembled the great kilt / belted plaid thrown over the shoulder or over the head as a cloak. Though probably not with anything like a tartan.

Tartan came about by weaving as different colours blend you get a tartan / plaid pattern.

Originally tartans where regional. Some dyes where more common than others in different areas, the rest was up to personal taste.
The idea of tartans strongly connected to certain clans , septs or families came later as part of Victorian romanticism.

Is it masculine?
Etymologically all fabrics wrapped around you are connected (Kjalta) regardless of whom it is wrapped around.

The Scottish kilt however is a male garment.
It is however part of the wear of certain dances and in those it is worn by both men and women (in other dances the women wear a tartan dress with a vest called an “Aboyne”).

Traditionall costumes like the Bonnie Prince Charles ,Montrose Doublet or Argyle are usually only worn by men (they all include the kilt).

In todays fashion anyone can wear a kilt that feels like it with or without tartan.
It can be combined with anything one likes and actually that is the most traditional since it did start out as everyday wear.

Viking buried with axe, sword and spear found with fully intact Viking boat burial in UK

ScienceDaily (Oct. 23, 2011) — The UK mainland’s first fully intact Viking boat burial site has been discovered by archaeologists working in the Scottish Highlands. The 5m-long grave contained the remains of a high status Viking, who was buried with an axe, a sword with a beautifully decorated hilt, a spear, shield boss and bronze ring-pin.

The British Isles (short Version)

People from Scandinavia began to attack England from the end of the 8th century onwards. In 793 the Vikings sacked the monastery on Lindisfarne, off the coast of Northumbria. This has traditionally been regarded as the start of the Viking Age in Britain.

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Ireland

Irish annals first record a Viking raid in 795, on Rathlin Island off Ireland’s north-east coast. In 798 there is a reference to the breaking of a shrine or reliquary, and also the seizing of cattle. Until the 820s, raids in Ireland were only occasional; in the years 813-21 there is no mention of Viking raids at all.

The main evidence for Viking occupation of Ireland comes from Dublin. Some aspects of Viking-age Dublin are known through the study of old maps and drawings, place names and documentary records. The name Oxmantown, situated across the River Liffy from Dublin, indicates an area where the ‘ostmen’, the Hiberno-Norse Dubliners, lived after the arrival of the Anglo-Normans. Most evidence of the Viking city of Dublin has come from large-scale archaeological excavations.

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Shetland and Orkney

The Northern Isles are only 320km (200 miles) or two days sailing time from the western coast of Norway, and were obvious stepping-stones for the Vikings on their way to Britain. The islands offered the natural resources of the sea, the shore and the cliffs, which provided the mainstays of life, and there was plenty of pasture for sheep and other beasts.

Orkney offered good arable land where corn could be grown; its greater economic potential made it the seat of Viking power in the islands. Modern historians believe that the leading family in the MMMMÃre district of Norway, south of Trondheim, established the earldom of Orkney. It was Rognvald of MMMMÃre who established his brother Sigurd the Mighty as first earl at some time in the later 9th century.

The most famous Viking settlement site in the Northern Isles, Jarlshof, is on the southern tip of mainland Shetland. Excavations there have revealed a succession of buildings spanning 600 years of occupation.

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Hebrides

Place names in the Western Isles suggest the settlement of speakers of Old Norse, whilst discoveries of silver hoards and burials suggest that the Vikings inhabited these islands in the 10th century, an unexplained contrast with the Northern Isles where most hoards were hidden in the 11th century.

The hoards and burials were found throughout the islands, from Lewis in the north to Islay in the south. An excavation on St Kilda, 65km (40 miles) out in the Atlantic to the west of the Hebrides revealed a Viking warrior who had been laid to rest beneath a cairn.

Written evidence also mentions Viking settlement on these islands:”Having landed in the west Ketil fought a number of battles and won them all. He conquered and took charge of the Hebrides, making peace and alliances with all the leading men there in the west.” (Eyrbrygga Saga, Chapter 1).

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Scotland

In 794 Vikings first attacked sites in northern Britain. At this time there was no unified kingdom making up Scotland, just a series of independent territories occupied by several distinct peoples, including the Picts and the Scots. Evidence suggests that the Vikings invaded certain areas of Scotland, including the Outer Hebrides, Shetland, and some of Caithness and Sutherland, and settled there

The stretch of water between the Northern Isles (Shetland and Orkney) and the adjacent mainland (Caithness and Sutherland) was known by the Vikings as Pettlandsfjordur - ‘the firth of the Picts’. When the Vikings arrived the Picts controlled these areas as well as eastern and central Scotland.

Vikings reached the north-west tip of Britain, which they called hvarf  ‘the turning point’, known today as Cape Wrath. After they turned south they came upon what they called the Suthreys - ‘the southern islands’, known today as the western Isles or the Hebrides.

Some of the Hebrides, including Iona, the adjacent mainland promontory of Kintyre and its surroundings in Argyll, formed the kingdom of Dalriada; these lands were controlled by the Scots, who originally came from north-east Ireland.

In the Firth of Clyde, Vikings encountered the seat of the British kingdom of Strathclyde. The Strathclyde Britons shared a border to the east and south with an Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria that extended across the Lothians as far north as the Clyde-Forth line.

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The Isle of Man

The Isle of Man was inhabited by British and Irish Christians at the start of the Viking Age. However, runic inscriptions suggest that both Norwegians and Danes settled on the island and place names there suggest that some Viking settlers had spent time in Ireland, Scotland or England.

The island still has its own parliament which meets at a stepped earthen mound called ‘Tynwald’; this is from an Old Norse name thingvvollr, meaning ‘assembly fields’, and reflects a system of government that goes back to the Viking Age.

The Isle of Man was probably an important settlement for the Vikings going about their business in Ireland, the Western Isles, mainland Scotland, Wales, and north-west England.

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Wales

Vikings from Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Hebrides raided Wales, particularly coastal monasteries, from the 950s. There is no evidence for any Viking immigration and land-taking in Wales, as there was in England, nor for any long-lasting independent Viking power base such as Dublin. Wales was, however, part of the important Viking trading network around Britain and Ireland. Anglesey seems to have been a favoured port of call, and the natural haven of Red Wharf Bay in particular attracted traders. Archaeological evidence from Anglesey that demonstrates contact with Viking-age Ireland includes a hoard of five Hiberno-Viking arm rings.

Archaeological excavation has not uncovered any richly accompanied Viking graves like those found in other parts of Britain and Ireland. A simple burial on the coast at Talacre, Flintshire, in north Wales, in a stone cist, included a spearhead and knife.

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The Danelaw

The boundary separating Anglo-Saxon England from Viking England was defined in a treaty between King Alfred and King Guthrum in AD 880. This was written as follows: Up the Thames, and then up the Lea, and along the Lea to its source, then in a straight line to Bedford, then up the Ouse to the Watling Street.

Although this political boundary had completely disappeared by 954, there were still social differences between areas of ‘English’ England and what had become Anglo-Scandinavian England. This is seen within the various Codes of Law that successive English kings issued which recognised that the laws of Anglo-Scandinavian areas might differ subtly from those in use elsewhere.

In the early 11th century Archbishop Wulfstan of York referred to the ‘Danelaw’. Unfortunately he didn’t define the geographical location of this area, which was probably the east and north of England. It is in these regions, however, where archaeological evidence demonstrates the greatest impact of Viking settlers on the landscape.

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North-West England

Viking settlement in the north-west of England was unrecorded in any surviving Anglo-Saxon annals, but evidence suggests that they did settle here. An Irish source records how a Viking leader, Ingimund, in the early 10th century, was expelled from Dublin and eventually settled near Chester. Other evidence suggests substantial Viking settlement along the coast from the River Dee to the Solway Firth.

Archaeological evidence from this area includes burials with Scandinavian affinities, including one at Beacon Hill in Cumbria; some individual objects; a series of silver hoards; and some stone carvings.

This is old news to any historian,archeologist, linguistic or anthropologist and probably most of you, but i publish it all the same.

Blood tests taken over the past year may help show part of Cumbria in northwest England was a Viking stronghold 1,200 years ago.

Geneticists discovered the area around Penrith has clear evidence of Norwegian influence.

However, the study also confirms that Vikings settled in large numbers in the Shetland and Orkneys and the far north of the Scottish mainland.

The research is part of a ground-breaking project commissioned by the BBC to uncover the UK’s Viking roots.

Vikings revealed

In the first large-scale genetics survey of its kind, experts from University College, London, studied the DNA of 2,000 people.

The full results of the project will be revealed in the final programme of the series, Blood of the Vikings, on Tuesday at 2100 GMT.

The study shows the genetic pattern of the Vikings remains in some parts of the UK population.

The research confirms the Norwegian Vikings did not just raid and retreat to Scandinavia, but actually settled in Britain.

Genetic markers

Of all the English test sites, only Penrith in Cumbria had clear evidence of Norwegian influence.

Surprisingly, mainland Scotland had a similar Celtic input as the population of southern England, showing that not only were the English never “homogenous Anglo-Saxons”, but neither were the Scots predominantly Celtic.

Geneticist Professor David Goldstein, from the University College London (UCL), led the study. He said: “Modern genetics has opened up a powerful window on the past.

“We can now trace past movements of peoples and address questions that have proved difficult to answer through history and archaeology alone.

Men only

“I’m delighted that we have been able to distinguish clear markers to indicate the genetic inheritance from the Norwegian Vikings.”

Scientists at UCL took mouth swabs from 2,000 people from 25 different locations across Britain.

They only tested men because information they were interested in was contained on the Y chromosome - which women do not have.

The genetic material in the samples was compared with DNA taken from people in Scandinavia where some locals are thought to be most similar to the Vikings.