|
These swords take me back ! It reminds me of being in the National Museum of Antiquities, Queen Street, Edinburgh in 1981/2.
My Dad had been made redundant from his managerial/supervisory job at Hunter & Foulis, Edinburgh bookbinders (they could book-bind far cheaper in the Far East) and we were trying to help to get him doing something. One enterprise I thought of was targe-making. It was pretty rare thing in Scotland back then and my Dad went part-time to art-college to learn various artistic skills and also to learn the art of leather-tooling. Soon, he had wee mallets, skiving knives etc, dyes and leather and was designing zoomorphic and other various Celtic knot patterns from books and examples etc.
We went several times to the above-mentioned museum and saw the curator, who allowed us to inspect various targes close-up, take photos etc, including ones in the reserve collection which were missing some leather, studs etc, but which gave us the opportunity to see the inner cross-ply board construction of the targes. Some targes had removable spikes which were stored in a pouch in the back of the shield. So, my Dad made several different targes and named them after Highland districts like Badenoch, Lochaber, Moidart etc. He also did the metalwork. One design included small pierced brass plates which had red cloth backing, which showed through. There were no serious re-enactors or suppliers of the Jacobite period at that time to be able to get repro redcoat cloth, so instead I bought a real Guards tunic cheap, which was in poor condition and he used the rear (new) face of its scarlet cloth for the targe detail. While in the museum, the Curator also let us handle various 17th/18th Century basket-hilted broadswords, basket-hilted backswords and basket-hilted curved swords, as well as dirks, just for curiosity. Right after that, we spoke to a blacksmith my Dad knew to see about making the triangular section dirk blades. I remember the curator telling us that various targes in the collection had been recovered from crofts and castles over the years, where they had been relegated to acting as lids for salted herring, oats and flour etc barrels.
Alas, despite all my Dad’s efforts and initial interest from tourist and kilt-shops, the timing was wrong and Scotland was in a recession. The market for (expensive) hand-crafted high-quality targes etc just wasn’t there and any Jacobite era re-enactors who may existed at that time showed nothing like the excellent accuracy I see achieved by your site members nowadays. It was a bit like that famous debacle in the USA in 1961 of the 100th Anniversary Bull Run battlefield re-enactment, where most re-enactors (except the properly-dressed Maryland unit) wore pressed blue papier-maché or felt cavalry kepis from Woolworths, dyed denim jackets and light blue jeans and carried BB guns. Compare that to today’s excellent ACW coverage !
BTW I cannot praise highly enough the historical Highland costumes of some of your members in particular – Woodshiel you are a hero among heroes ! When I look at some of the efforts done in Scotland to portray Jacobite-era Highlanders, especially for tourists, well, you put their hairy half-ar**d efforts to shame – truly. I wince when the Travel Channel is on and I see the fill-in about Scotland and you see that group of dopey performing “Jacobite” tenor drummers, trailing their Braveheart-inspired belted plaids on the floor while doing their Bonnie Prince Charlie “Stomp The Yard” dance. Total eejits !
I wish I had money to spend on the beautiful swords, targes and dirks you showed – really beautiful. Ah well, maybe next year !
| 
I don't typically drool over baskethilts but my goodness! Thank you for these pictures!! Great stuff!
Linear Mode
