Note 100 — Chapter IX · EXCURSION ROUND THE STRAITS.

Tartan is the English for Brechan. It is generally supposed to be Gaelic, but it is not so: it seems originally to have signified shot colours, which always appear in the tartan from the crossings of the colours. It has by some been derived from Tyre tint. The Brechan or Tartan is the set of each clan. The English confound Tartan and plaid, and speak barbarously of a “plaid waistcoat,” when they mean a tartan waistcoat. The plaid is in Gaelic a shepherd’s mantle, but is never used for the Brechan mantle, or “battle colours.” It may be derived from διπλοιδιον (Pollux vii. 49), a name given by the Greeks to a mantle which was supposed to be worn double.