What's the idea of the Sporran 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!

[artificer]

Interestingly enough, there is one style of sporran which almost always has five and only five tassels (or tassel-like appendages, they could be petals or 'pennants')- that is the Hunting Sporran.

Whether it is the older style with a semi-soft body and metal cantle (hinged or fixed) or the newer style constructed of hard front and rear panels, practically every hunting style sporran I've ever seen originally has/had five tassels.

Here's a modern style Hunter done by L&M:


Here are a few I've done in the old style:


detail shot of same


A 'matched set' from last year


And a piece modeled on the sporrans originally worn by the Dukes of Windsor and Gloucester.


ith:

[Farmer Jones]

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.

I have just scanned the two most important Canadian Wildlife identification hand books. Both "What scat is that", and "Whose pooh In Canada" agree that on occasions, bells have been found in very large black bear scats, along with strips of scout merit badges.

[OC Richard]

very cool Artificer! I'd not noticed that hunting sporrans have five tassels as a rule, and in a single row.

With the long hair Army sporrans it was either five or six, but in two rows.

I do wonder when hunting sporrans evolved. They don't show up in The Highlanders of Scotland and as I recall they don't show up in photographs until about the same time as all the other small pocketlike sporrans appear, around 1900. I'll have to browse through my old photos and see what I can see.

I wonder about possible connexions between hunting sporrans and 18th century style sporrans. These appear to be more or less reproduction 18th century sporrans with added tooled targe, and tassels. Switch to a leather cantle and vestigial tassel-flaps and Bob's your Uncle.





The fascinating outlier in THOS is this sporran. Was it a vintage sporran when the portrait was done? Does it date to the mid 18th century? Not farfetched, because I wear a 100 year old sporran all the time.

There's the brass cantle and the five tassels in a single row. But no targe, and as you see extra tassels scattered below the five-tassel row.

[Ron Abbott]

Interesting also that he's wearing ghillie brogues.
I've seen other photos of him wearing them, but how often do you see the current royals wearing them?

Likewise the dicing on his hose.
Looks as though it came straight from a glengarry.
Haven't seen dicing like that on hose before. Then again maybe it just looks that way because of the photo quality and the fact that in my own mind it's red, white and black!