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Re: What do scots use to carry around all their bits and peices!?
I never could get enough info either...so I just made a bigger sporran...and carried less junk. On the period side, it holds weskit inkwell, fire kit, spare socks, compass, pistol fixuns, spare bowstrings...
http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/m...-sporran-2.jpg
http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/m...-sporran-1.jpg
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Re: What do scots use to carry around all their bits and peices!?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nighthawk
That's where I saw the discussion of the "housewife," and I guess you have a bag for your char cloth.
I was pondering putting the char cloth in a copper tube with corks or caps over in Brute's other thread about the flint/striker/clasp thing for the belted plaid.
Thought I had read a discussion about it somewhere around here...
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I know I'm jumping very late into the fray...wearing the great kilt, you can come up with quite a variety of "pockets" and folds into which to hide things. For example, after securing your belt and standing, take the long sections of tartan at the corners up front, give them a few good twists, then tuck them in the small of your back. This give you some storage around both side of your waist. You can make a large storage area at your back if you take trailing plaid behind you, take the opposite ends, bring one end over your left shoulder, one below your right arm and secure with a bodkin. It takes some practice to figure how all this works, but it's well worth it.
Using some of the techniques described above I've managed to...transport a 12 pack of good ale into events. :twisted:
Cheers!
R
PS for practicality, I use a snapsack, to avoid dropping whatever I'm carrying in my kilt to drop when I unbelt at night.
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At the expense of not sounding like an old lady - I would implore you that no matter what you bring, at least bring one modern convenience, that being purification tablets for your water (I usually bring a flask of iodine purification tincture and add a few drops to every quart).
Unless sulphuric diarrea that lasts three weeks to a month is your thing. I speak from experience here.
Worst.Summer.Vacation.Ever
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robert griffith has a soldier with a British Army knapsack of the time ..what I've seen they had a raw cowhide knapsack, really just a folded holstein looking thing with armstraps and a Army Broad Arrow -maybe a GR as well, Grenadiers carried sidelong knapsack . Sporrans were raw otter or badger . they really didn't have much, a sporran was for whatever ..meal, money ..whatever . Beyond that the bits go int the drill box and the pieces go in the midden what's left over goes in the glove compartment anything else goes in the boot of the Morris 1000, that's where granda put the salmon -sorry Granda "the biggest salmon caught in the UK in 1976 47.5" 41.5 lbs . They'd'a had a range of sacks beyond that .
;)
d
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I rely on a purse. Carried, of course, by my lovely wife.
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Looking at the original post, I agree with Mael Coluim about using a loose plaid worn over the shoulder and can pass on some tips.
The Roman forked stick over the shoulder really works well if you are wearing segmented body armour, but is a real problem without a great deal of padding and lots of shifting if you are carrying any weight, it's a bit like balancing the load on your head - ergonomic, but you need a lot of time to get conditioned to it. The hobo's bindle was certainly used by Medieval pilgrims, depicted with pear-shaped sacks tied on and long sacks slung over them giving a 'saddlebag' effect.
Colleagues of mine tried C17th snapsacks and gave up on them for serious hikes, especially when made with a rope sling or straps thin enough to tie the ends because of the way it digs into your shoulder while tightening your pack slowly as it rains. Both those problems can be eliminated if you copy the native American method of wrapping and tying your bundle (with a fur layer outside) like a parcel a very wide strap, a beaded tumpline originally, which can be fitted over the head and across the upper chest, copied by C18th British Rangers like John Lovewell and Robert Rogers, many of whom were Scots. I wouldn't put a lot of weight there unless you're pretty tough and have good lungs, but you can sling it over one shoulder for variety.
Leather haversacks (satchels slung over one shoulder) or knapsacks (similar to rucksacks, with straps for both shoulders, though badly balanced by modern standards) can be expensive and often heavy and many of the linen equivalents probably look very 'Revolutionary War' in the States despite being much older. The Medieval pilgrim's 'scrip' is a satchel and about the most authentic for the 1100-plus period, so you can make it look very different from the plain rectangular buttoned military haversacks by using either a sagging convex base, the opposite concave base (looking like a cushion) or particularly trapezoid with a large base and then add the characteristic tassels - one on each corner and sometimes on in the middle. Leather or fur-covered was favoured, but you can surely reconstruct fairly freely.
Much more convenient than using part of the plaid you are wearing, we return to Mael Coluim's suggestion. A separate cloth bundle can be slung over the shoulder and tied securely without risk of losses. Sources for this method include the early C14th Manesse Codex, showing a pilgrim with a bright yellow, fairly loose example worn over their cloak. Experiment has recommended not using your rain cover or main cloak for the bundle, but then we live in Britain and the reverse might be the better bet. You don't want to use grey as that will look very like the US Civil War 'Mule Collar'. The proven method is to wrap the contents into the second and fourth fifths of the length of the blanket and tie them in place with string, leaving a fairly loose part in the centre to rest softly over your shoulder and at either end which can be swagged up to make it look more medieval and less C19th.
I'm not up to date on the latest on the subject, but the evidence for the plaid is much later than the 1100s. There are strong opinions on the subject, but you can see what appear to be loosely folded mantles draped close to the body and sometimes belted on Pictish stone figures, so if you wear a long enough undershirt to be a decent tunic and gather your mantle in a very casual fashion, you should pass. Obviously a rough earth-tone mantle with a subtle check or very thin stripes on a plain ground will look more Medieval than a recognisable tartan. Shoes are always hard, but Pampooties or leather 'hippy' sandals should do.
Hope that's helpful.
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In Rob Roy the movie the coins are whaled over in a leather bag that's exactly what my uncle described of a bag found up north supposedly from the 1757 full of musket parts, worms, balls, trade axe heads ..leather won't be cut thru -tough ..flexible ..easy shaped to anything ..a rawhide un tanned woulda been what any highlander would've had ..beyond selling skins to local leather worker or as a trade ..rawhide ..maybe . If leather's too expensive for a prototype try some heavy canvass to get the feel ..black powder guys may have thei dieas on carrying and toting gear .
d
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Quote:
Originally Posted by georgeetta
In Rob Roy the movie the coins are whaled over in a leather bag that's exactly what my uncle described of a bag found up north supposedly from the 1757 full of musket parts, worms, balls, trade axe heads ..leather won't be cut thru -tough ..flexible ..easy shaped to anything ..a rawhide un tanned woulda been what any highlander would've had ..beyond selling skins to local leather worker or as a trade ..rawhide ..maybe . If leather's too expensive for a prototype try some heavy canvass to get the feel ..black powder guys may have thei dieas on carrying and toting gear .
d
WOW. That was hard to read. You know that you would make it a lot easier for everyone if you tried to use some punctuation. You know, things like sentences (with capital letters at the beginning and full stops at the end) and perhaps even paragraphs.
I'm not trying to be the grammar police, it's just easier to read. Thanks.
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