Scotland

Question: Is any information available regarding a Fleming tartan?

Gwen Harris Scotland , , , ,

The existence of a tartan for the Fleming clan is in question.

Of three tartan finders on the web, only Clan.com purports to present a unique, blue Fleming tartan, stating that Murray and Sutherland tartans might also be used. Scotclans shows a Murray of Atholl as a Fleming tartan with the note, “There is no registered Fleming clan tartan. However, as a sept of Clan Murray of Atholl, Flemings, and those associated with the name, can wear the Murray of Atholl tartans.” The Clan Fleming Scottish Society declared this sept a myth created by tartan vendors. Scotlands Shop comes up empty on a search for Fleming.

Further, Scottish clan maps do not list a Fleming clan. We note, however, that the clans Stewart and Murray are present in the Perthshire area, where Alexander Fleming and his wife, Jean Stewart, lived in the early 1800s. See the Scottish clan map on Wikipedia.

What are tartans, and why are they associated with clans?

Continue reading →

Robbie Burns Day –January 25

Gwen Harris Scotland , , ,
Robert Burns
Robert Burns – image from BBC Robert Burns

Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursel’s as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
And foolish notion:
What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us,
And e’en devotion!

“To A Louse ( On Seeing One on a Lady’s Bonnet at Church)”  Robert Burns 1786.  
From the Ontario Reader: The High School Reader 1886 (1)

Everyone of Scottish descent in nineteenth-century Canada would have known some lines from Robert Burns. My Heart’s in the Highlands (1789) would have been a favourite for the Flemings, whose Scottish homeland was Perthshire in the Highlands.

My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart’s in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart’s in the Highlands wherever I go.

Burns’s Night

The Fleming family would surely have celebrated Robert Burns’s birthday on January 25. To this day members of the Scottish diaspora (and their associates) around the world gather for an evening of bagpipes, music, highland dance, recitation of Burns’s poems, and the traditional dinner of haggis, neeps (turnips) and tatties (potatoes). A Scottish friend has provided this account of the event.

The haggis is piped in, borne aloft and accompanied by various officials and dignitaries and the Whisky Bearer. Then the Maister o’ Ceremonies intones 

“My lords, ladies and gentlemen! Pray silence for our Haggis Maister Scottie MacKiltface who will salute our guest-of-honour before disemboweling it with the dirk tucked neatly into his right-legged Highland hose.”

Picture of haggis on a serving plate being pierced by a dagger. Drams of whiskey are in four small glasses nearby.
Cutting the Haggis (2)

Address to a Haggis:

Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin’-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o’ a grace
As lang’s my arm.


Continue reading →