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Badges are the most misunderstood item and the item that is the most misused. Disinformation is given out freely by 'good intentioned' people who know nothing about the badges. They will tell you the crest is a badge, and it is not.
The badge is a plant, worn by clans when they went to war. After a Fiery Cross was set, runners went out to all the Clan, members and allies. When they gathered at a definite site, to get ready they put a sprig of a plant, indigenous to their area, in their bonnet. That way they would see it and not fight their allies. The kilt, was not yet a kilt and was only saffron cloth, sometimes in muted checks, which could become indistinguishable in the twilight or dark. The plant badge was their best way of identifying themselves. All the true clans of the Highlands had a badge, of one plant or another.
Clan Gunn's plant was Juniper, and Clan MacLeod of Lewis's plant was red whortleberry. That is what a true badge was.
In earliest times the badge of the clan was a native plant or tree. Sprigs or leaves were worn in the bonnet. Flora served as a clan badge until the 18th century at least, when Queen Victoria and Sir Walter Scott with his novels - The Waverly Novels, romanticized the clan items and regalia. It was strictly a Victorian invention to wear the clan crest as the badge and it is not correct.
If you are interested, read (on main menu) Queen Victoria's romanticizing of the Highlands.
©Sconemac,
Nancy MacLeod MacCorkill, F.S.A. Scot, USA.
Author, Poet, Journalist,
Historian of the Ancient Clans of Scotland.
.....Scone
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