The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

146 THE HIGHLANDERS [parti
Wallace, who had been living in the Braes of Gowrie, having
entered Dundee, was met by the son of the English constable
of Dundee, and adds :
" Wallace he saw and tovvart him he went,
Likli he was licht byge and weyle beseyne,
In till a gyde of gudly ganand greyne.
He callyt on hym and said, Thou Scot abyde,
Quha dewill the grathis in so gay a gyde (attire),
Ane Ersche mantill it war the kynd to wer ;
A Scottis thewtill (large knife) wndyr the belt to bar,
Rouch rewlyngis upon thi harlot fete."
There is thus a complete chain of authorities for the dress
of the Highlanders, from the fourteenth to the seventeenth
century, having consisted of the Highland
shirt stained with
saffron, the Breacan or belted plaid, the short Highland coat,
and the Cuaran or buskins, and that their limbs, from the
thigh to the ancle, were certainly uncovered.
Previous to the fourteenth century, we cannot expect to find
descriptions of the dress, but the existence of the same dress
among the Highlanders can be established by another mode of
proof On the various tomb-stones of the ancient Highland chiefs
still extant in some of the ruined chapels of the western Highlands,
are to be seen effigies of these personages, represented clad
in armour, and almost invariably in the Highland dress. The
dates of these monuments are various ; but the most complete
evidence perhaps of the existence of this garb in the fourteenth
century, is to be found in the sculptures
of Macmillan's Cross.
This ancient structure has been preserved in an uninjured state,
and is still standing in the village of Kilmory in Knapdale :
although there does not appear any date upon the stone, yet
from the form of the letters in which there is this inscription,
*'
Crux Alexandri Macmillan," there can be no doubt that it
is at least as old as that period. On one side is the representation
of an Highland chief engaged in hunting the deer, and the
dress of the figure appears quite distinctly to be after the High-
land fashion. But from the Duplin Cross, the date of which can,
from various circumstances, be fixed to have been towards the
•end of the ninth century, there are a number of figures repre-
sented in the Highland garb, armed with the target and long