The most ridiculous.......

[ChattanCat]

Kilt police will arrest those who are not in their clan's tartan.

[wvpiper]

Actually, that is true. However, a similar incident did occur.
Just after the Jacobite uprisings, the government had captured a Jacobite (no duh). When they charged him, he claimed he wasn't a soldier but, only a mere Piper as well a Jacobite. They then decided to consider pipes a weapon, thus allowing them to kill him. Now, I don't remember his name nor when exactly this happened, I used to, but now I don't. I'll look for it.

It's not true. One, single piper was hanged for treason, not for playing the bagpipes. Bagpipes are not mentioned in the proscription or disarming acts...

"Nowhere in the Disarming Act of 1746 or it’s amendments in 1748 were bagpipes even mentioned. Part of the myth comes from the case of James Reid, a piper who was hanged for treason, not for possessing or playing a bagpipe. James Reid had been captured as a Jacobite occupier in the English city of Carlisle in December 1745. He had been active in the rebellion and although he was a piper he was also a rebel. The judge when handing down his sentence said in his ruling, “no regiment ever marched without musical instruments such as drums, trumpets and the like; and that a Highland Regiment never marched without a piper; and therefore his bagpipe in the eyes of the law, was an instrument of war.”

It is likely that as a some one who didn’t actually carry arms against his Majesty, Reid thought he might be able to avoid both the death penalty and transportation “across the Seas” (as other pipers subsequently brought to trial were able to do). Unfortunately, Reid was a victim of judicial inflexibility, malice, and revenge. "
http://www.midlandhighlanders.org/history.htm

[Swampthing]

That didn't come out right, what I meant was that it is true that the said myth is..well..a myth!

And that looks like the incident I was talking about.
How could you be considered a traitor (of this sort) without a weapon, in one form or another? In order to convict him they considered his pipes to be a weapon, thus giving them their case, thus leading to his execution, thus the end of that.
I did not state that they charged him for owning those pipes, but that it was what allowed them to convict him, and in this case, kill him.

This misunderstanding was a mistake, on my part.

In other news: Dang! I sounded like an attorney up there!

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

It's not poor spelling. Up until the arrival in the early 19th century of dictionaries that prescribed how words should be spelled, spelling was more descriptive than exact, and everyone spelled words as they heard them and as they themselves pronounced them. There was no correct spelling before then.

Is this true only of the English language? I ask only because it doesn't appear (on the surface) to be true of say, classical Latin, classical Greek, or classical Gaelic.

[Fedgunner]

Is this true only of the English language? I ask only because it doesn't appear (on the surface) to be true of say, classical Latin, classical Greek, or classical Gaelic.

It might be. I have read that Wm. Shakespear spelled, in his own hand, his name 6 different ways.

[The Celtic Gypsy]

I think the myth that surprised me the most was bagpipes being Scottish. Check out this site for other kinds of bagpipes

http://www.hotpipes.com/main.html

[gilmore]

Is this true only of the English language? I ask only because it doesn't appear (on the surface) to be true of say, classical Latin, classical Greek, or classical Gaelic.

Perhaps there was greater homogeneity and less variety of pronunciation in those languages than in English.

Standardized spelling happened at different times in different langauges.

I have read that Gaelic was standardized in the 18th Century, by scholars who were influenced by their classical, public school educations, and hence often used Greek-derived spellings, such as "ph" rather than "f," as in "philabeag."

[kiltedsawyer]

Okay, this one I'm not sure about, but I doubt the accuracy as the person who told me this also told me that kilts pleated to the sett were military and those pleated to the stripe were civilian. So here goes:

If you tie the ribbons on your balmoral; you're married.
If you let them hang; you're single.

I think it's a myth.

[JS Sanders]

Regarding pipes and the Disarming Act....

Pick up a copy of John Gibson's Traditional Gaelic Piping 1745-1945. It's an erudite read, but as exciting as watching concrete harden.

The author reveals that cattle drovers continued their use, piping colleges continued, and traditional dance bagpiping continued into the 19th century.

Transport to the crown's colonies followed by the Clearances were the major reasons for the decline in piping. Much of the rest is romanticism.

I took a niece to Culloden three years ago. A docent located at the Cairn droned on & on about the Proscription and Disarming Acts and the subsequent piping ban, etc. I wanted nothing more than to point out his errors, but it didn't seem to be the proper place.

Slan yall,
steve

[Scotus]

Kilt police will arrest those who are not in their clan's tartan.

This is not myth; we will.