Traditional Scottish culture is mostly fictional | Hacker News Reader

Traditional Scottish culture is mostly fictional

nysun.com

20 pointsbyrneseyeview10 comments

"Until the 18th century, no one north of the Tweed had ever seen a kilt"

This is misleading. As noted later in the article, highlanders wore plaids, which are basically kilts with an over-the-shoulder piece that can be used as a cloak (it's actually all one big piece of cloth). If you saw a plaid, you'd say, "that's a kilt." Go to a Renaissance Festival and you'll see them all over the place.

I don't understand how the transformation from plaids to kilts (a component of plaids), in response to a changing environment, is not 100% Scottish culture? It seems like this is just hairsplitting. An incendiary version of events with the goal of obtaining a catchy book title.

P.S.

I am not even a little bit Scottish.

> Yes, he admits, the English "have created one of the great literatures of the world. Yet, have they a single myth that they can call their own?"

Yes, Beowulf. There were probably many others of its kind that were lost when the Anglo-Saxons became Christian. It would violate a lot of what we know about psychology if there were any culture that never had any indigenous mythology.

But the events of Beowulf happened in Scandinavia. The poem itself was written in England, though. Probably.

Not that I think it matters much: I suppose only those cultures that have existed entirely in isolation really have truly unique myths, and that isn't very many cultures. And maybe not all of those unique cultures, either, given how many themes are found in the mythology of very different peoples.

Right, which presumably means that the tale originated before the Saxons invaded Great Britain. But nonetheless the version we know is told in Old English and not any of its continental predecessors, and its earliest manuscripts are all found in Britain. It isn't disqualified from being uniquely English by the fact that it derives from earlier times in Scandinavia any more than Mormonism is disqualified from being uniquely American by the fact that it derives from earlier times in Jerusalem.

Incidentally, a lot of the traditional culture in most countries is fictional. In Europe in particular, a lot of it was made up in the nineteenth century, when there was a huge wave of antiquarianism.

>huge wave of antiquarianism

I would call it nationalism. Medieval Europe had no notion of nations. The Dutch national hero, for example, is Prince of Orange, a small sunny principality in South of France.

Throughout the history people associated themselves with their Sovereign, who could be a Spanish king in the Dutch case, or some German duke in case of Italians etc.

Then suddenly in the 19th century there was huge social demand for an independent nation-state. And that demand has met its supply in the form of national legend building.

Scots got their kilts (tartan originally was cloth supplied to colonies), Finns got their national epos written by a single guy, Russians got their national literature written by people who spoke French most of time.

An important lesson is that perception is reality and the one who controls (writes) the history can shape our self-identify.

Bit of an exaggeration to say "mostly fictional" isn't it? Boece published his fictional 900-year history only 30 years after Columbus set off around the world.

In any case, Trevor-Roper published some of the papers this book was based on back in the 1970s and Boece's work wasn't the only record we have of that period of time.

On a related note, nobody in Ireland appears to say, "Top o' the mornin to ya!"

But they do get drunk a lot.

Whatever next? The Stone of Destiny is a fake? There's no Loch Ness Monster?

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