What's the idea of the Sporran Tassels

[Norbo]

Some have them some don't most have 3 some have 5 . What's the idea of them why do most have them . is it just decretive or a deeper older reason for them ?

[Calgacus]

I think they are supposed to represent the drawstrings that were part of older sporrans. They have evolved into purely decorative items.

Here's a replica of a 16th century sporran.

drover_brown_x by Richard the Rogue, on Flickr

[figheadair]

Calgacus has it in a nutshell.

[OC Richard]

By the mid-18th century (if not earlier) they were already merely decorative.

The classic mid-18th century sporran has three, one on each side and one in the middle. (The one in the middle was sometimes doubled.) These were woven leather.

(from the House of Labhran site, a reproduction mid-18th century sporran)



By the late 18th century the tassels had all moved to the front, were increasing in number (often eight or more), arranged in two rows, and sometimes were of metallic thread.



The kilted Scottish regiments, by the 1830s, all had sporrans with either five or six short horsehair tassels in two rows.

Then the number of tassels started decreasing. As far as I can tell, the first army sporran to go with long tassels was the Undress Officers' sporran of the Cameron Highlanders which seemed to appear sometime in the 1840s, black with two long white tassels. This spread to the entire regiment within a few years, and then spread to other regiments, namely the Gordon Highlanders and the Seaforth Highlanders, both of which switched to white sporrans with two long black tassels. The Argylls and Black Watch never made the switch. Neither did the Levee Dress sporrans of the Gordons and Camerons, staying with five short gold bullion tassels.

The pipers' sporrans of the Argylls have long had three long tassels, ditto the pipers of the Scots Guards and certain other nonkilted Scottish regiments.

As one can see in The Highlanders of Scotland, civilian sporrans in the mid-19th century had a variety of tassel arrangements and often had no tassels. The typical civilian sporran in the 19th century was a long hair sporran, worn with tweed for Day and with black for Evening.

Sometime after 1900 an entire new suite of small pocketlike sporran styles swept into civilian Highland Dress, leather for Day and sealskin for Evening. These usually had three tassels on the front, less often five, even less often six. Sporrans made for young boys usually had only two tassels.

[tulloch]

I thought they were just to make a noise and scare wildlife as we walk in the forest.

[BBNC]

I thought they were just to make a noise and scare wildlife as we walk in the forest.

It's not the tassels, what scares the wildlife is the strange creature running around wearing a kilt, LOL!

[thescot]

You put little jingle bells on the ends to scare the bears away. And how do you know you need to worry about bears?

Look for little jingle bells in the bear scat!

[EagleJCS]

As a follow-on to TheScot’s post, it's actually just grizzly bears to be aware of. People should learn to recognize the difference between black bear and grizzly bear scat. Black bear droppings are smaller and often contain berries, leaves, and possibly bits of fur. Grizzly bear droppings tend to additionally contain small bells on leather thongs and smell of pepper.

[BBNC]

Eagle, I was really under the impression that Grizzlies were in kinda short supply around Louisville.

[Ron Abbott]

......so it's nothing to do with being a representation of the number of 'dangly bits' that a man has?

A fair few females have asked me that before!