The Weapons and Fighting Methods of the Highland Scots
A study of the historical swordsmanship and warfare practices of the Scottish Highlanders

Article by Dale Seago.

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While the Lowlands of Scotland soon came to hold the greatest concentrations of population and political power, it is the Gaelic culture of the Highlands which seems to most fascinate people. Partly for that reason, and partly because addressing the subject of weaponry and tactics "across the board" would just be too huge a project, this article will be limited to an overview of the main personal arms carried and used by the Gael up through "The Forty-Five" - the last Jacobite rising. In keeping with the nature of this Magazine, I will also exclude more than a passing mention of projectile weapons (the bow, pistol, and musket) and focus on sharp and pointy things propelled solely by muscle power.

Cultural Influences: Ireland's Heroic Age

The Gaelic culture of Scotland which ultimately displaced that of the indigenous Cruithne or Picts (while the native people themselves were assimilated) was imported from Ireland; and as such it was essentially a Celtic warrior culture. Wealth was counted by the tribe or clan in terms of two things: cattle, and the number of fighting men a king or chief could bring to a battle. Warfare was classically tribal, in the sense that things tended to be decided by a single battle more often than by protracted campaigns, or series of battles leading toward a strategic objective; and the man held to be the best fighter had the right to the "hero's portion", the choicest cut of meat, at feasts.

Apart from the "melee" style of battlefield combat which seems to have been common among Celts, and which often fared ill against the highlyw organized tactical approach of the Romans, there was a strong emphasis on individual combat skills among the Gael. In Irish heroic literature, before major battles (or even in place of such battles) we find opposing champions bashing it out one-on-one in front of the watching war-bands. These accounts also offer interesting clues to ancient Gaelic combat training: We read of the champions "warming up" (and presumably trying to "psych each other out") before the actual fight by performance of a variety of "sword-feats", "spear-feats", and various athletic maneuvers. These are named in a way which seems to presume that the listener (these originally were oral tales) will recognize them. That in turn sounds like these were some sort of "weapon kata" reflecting the existence of some kind of systematic warrior training.

This idea is further borne out in the Red Branch cycle of hero-tales, where the young Cuchulainn is sent from Ireland to Scotland to spend time training there under Donal the Destroyer. From there he goes on to complete his training under a warrior-woman, Scathach the Shadowy One, who appears to have been running a training academy on the Isle of Skye off Scotland's west coast.

Weapons of the day were, as might be expected, swords, bows, axes, spears, and knives; but what is meant by "sword" in Bronze and Iron Age Ireland and Scotland might surprise some people. The early Irish bronze-age "sword" is not very big, for one thing. For another, in general size and shape it looks remarkably like a common sort of pre-Victorian Scottish dirk, except for being double-edged. (For an excellent example of what this "sword" looked like in outline, see the photo of Garth Duncan's silver-and-ivory handled dirk in this issue. The Scottish dirk was actually derived from the medieval ballock knife, but more on that later.) Construction was with a "notched butt" blade, without a tang, riveted to the handle. These are often referred to as "rapiers" by archeologists, apparently because they were not much good except as stabbing weapons because of the inherent weakness of the join of handle to blade.

By the late Bronze Age the Gael had caught on to the idea of a full tang, and the sword blade assumed a characteristic "leaf" shape which carried over into the Iron Age and which also made it an efficient cutting weapon. Interestingly, the blades remained pretty short, averaging 15 inches or so. This type of sword has been found in both Ireland and Scotland, and there are relief carvings in stone from the time of the Roman invasions of Scotland showing the local folk (who would have been Picts, not Gael) carrying similar swords. If we accept the idea that form follows function, it would appear that the Gael of this period preferred an "up close and personal", cut-and thrust form of fighting.

In other weapon similarities, molds for the same style of bronze spear butt-caps are found in both Ireland and Scotland. Indications from the hero-tales are that, as with the Norse, the spear was thought of more as a throwing weapon than as a hand-held weapon in (for instance) the Japanese fashion.

Viking Influences and Middle Ages Conflicts

Commencing in 794 A.D., both the Gaelic Scots and the soon-to-be-absorbed Picts (and for that matter the Irish as well) were plagued by the Vikings, with different groups fighting both with and against the Northmen at different times. Vikings settled in the Orkneys and the Hebrides or Western Isles, with the Outer Hebrides remaining the titular property of Norway until ceded to Scotland in 1266 - whereupon Gaelic culture resumed its dominance. (By the end of the 1400s the Norse tongue had died out in the Hebrides, though its influence on the Gaelic of the islands survived in pronunciation and some loan-words.) As might be expected, Viking-style swords and battle axes came to be used in the North in this period.

The Middle Ages saw relatively large numbers of Scots from the Highlands and the Isles engaged in conflicts in Ireland, giving them considerable exposure to "how war was done" elsewhere. Gaelic chieftains began making use of their talents from the mid-1200s onward in Ireland, and their presence there was frequent for the next four centuries as galloglaigh or "young foreign warriors". These fighters were particularly known for their use of battle-axes and two-hand swords. The last force of West Highland warriors serving in Ireland, under Donald MacDonald of Clanranald, was defeated at Wexford in 1648. Highlanders thus gained experience fighting Anglo-Normans in Ireland during the same period (commencing with William Wallace's struggle) in which they allied with Anglo-Normans of the Scottish Lowlands to fight Anglo-Normans from England.

This period marks the development of a uniquely Scottish broadsword which, instead of the crossguard common on European swords, features down-sloping quillons which foreshadow the hilts of later Scottish two-handed swords.

Scots also served in the Crusades, and later in France. Commencing in the early 1400s, both Highland and Lowland men answered the call of the Dauphin Charles (later Charles VII of France), and up through the sixteenth century units of Scottish mercenaries were in the pay of the French king.

Other alliances were undertaken between Highland clans and powerful southern houses, such as that between John MacDonald, Lord of the Isles and William, Earl of Douglas, in the mid-1400s.

"Nature vs. Nurture": Foreign Training and Experience Loses to Culture

The point to be made from the military involvement of the Scottish Gael in all these activities outside clan boundaries is that they were not ignorant savages (as the English and Lowlanders regarded both them and the Irish). They were exposed to, and learned to use, the weapons and tactics of their contemporaries in other locales, and they brought these things home with them. Nonetheless, some distinct cultural preferences in both can be observed.

Among the ancient Gael, battle and hunting (and cattle-reiving, partaking of elements of both) were considered the noblest activities; and the warrior aristocracy was supported by the chiefs. In the late 1400s, according to historian John Major (born in 1469), this was still the case. He wrote that the Highlanders "... delight in the chase and a life of indolence; their chiefs eagerly follow bad men if only they may not have the need to labour; taking no pains to earn their own livelihood, they live upon others, and follow their own worthless and savage chief in all evil courses sooner than they will pursue an honest industry."

Major also commented on contemporary Highland dress and weaponry: "From the mid-leg to the foot they go uncovered; their dress is, for an over garment, a loose plaid, and a shirt saffron-dyed. They are armed with bows and arrows, a broadsword, and a small halbert. They always carry in their belt a stout dagger, single-edged, but of the sharpest." (Here we see two weapons particularly associated with Highlanders: the "small halbert" or halberd more commonly known as the Lochaber axe, and the dirk or its forerunner the ballock knife. More detail about both will be forthcoming.)

While many Highlanders may have familiarised themselves with standard European battle tactics, their culturally preferred approach in their own home terrain seems to have remained unchanged up through The '45. James D. Forman describes it well in his booklet, The Scottish Dirk:

"To the last, performance on the battlefield was very much a clan and individual matter and little more than the famous wild Highland charge could be expected, that is, a horde of brave men aimed in one direction running at high speed and striking out with broadsword and dirk."

This peculiar dichotomy between European training and Gaelic cultural preferences is also borne out in the writing of retired Highland soldier Donald McBane, who saw nearly half a century of military service (mostly outside Scotland) in the latter 1600s and early 1700s. In 1728, at age sixty-four, he published a book which was part personal memoir and partly a manual of arms covering training in a variety of weapons. McBane acquired vast experience; indeed, his account makes him sound eerily like an "immortal" from the "Highlander" movies or television series: in addition to surviving uncounted brawls, personal duels, and edged-weapon prizefights, in military action he was shot, stabbed with knife or sword, and bayonetted innumerable times, once even being blown up by a grenade and suffering burns over most of his body (he lay, blind, in a tub of oil for two weeks while his skin regenerated)... yet he was always up and fighting again soon after. (More than once he was both shot and stabbed several times in a single battle and left for dead.)

His first battle, however, was against other Highlanders:

"The McDonalds came down the hill upon us without either shoe, stocking or bonnet on their head. They gave a shout... then broke in upon us with their Sword and Target, and Lochaber Axes.... Seeing my Captain sore wounded, and a great many more with heads lying cloven... I was sadly affrighted.... I took my heels and run thirty miles before I looked behind me."

The "Lochaber axe" McBane mentions is not a true axe as we think of one today, but a polearm more like a sort of halberd. There was no single blade style used, but one of the most common versions is a bit reminiscent of a Japanese naginata blade - but mounted along the shaft and extending beyond it rather than having a tang going into the shaft. Though cutting was primary, in this form it was an effective thrusting weapon as well.Typically, there was also a hook affixed to the shaft with the point facing away from the blade edge: just the thing for snagging and unhorsing the Sassenach for a coup de grace on the ground, or for tangling up an enemy's sword or targe in order to get your own weapon in past it.

As for Scottish swords, the two kinds most familiar to people are the great two-hand sword often called a claymore, and the one-hand basket-hilted broadsword often called a claymore. There appears to be some disagreement over whether or not the term "claymore" - in Gaelic "claidheamh mor", great or big sword - actually properly refers to the two-hander. It does seem logical, since the two-hander certainly is a great big sword; but the written Gaelic use of the term seems to have referred to the basket-hilt sword. Perhaps a more appropriate name for the former would be "claidheamh da lamh", literally two-hand sword. Dating from the Middle Ages, in its later and quintessential form the long double-edged blade (often made outside Scotland) was affixed to a two-hand hilt (usually locally made) with downsloping quillons and a heavy pommel. The last battlefield use of this type of sword in any significant numbers appears to have been at the Battle of Killiecrankie in 1689.

The "other claymore", the basket-hilted broadsword, dates in Scotland from the mid-1500s (about the same time the belted plaid became common as a garment) and remained in wide use through the last Jacobite rising in 1745. The blade was generally double edged, though single-edged versions known as backswords were not uncommon. The basket around the hilt offered protection to the hand, a particularly vulnerable target; and it also did much to counterbalance the blade, making the weapon faster and more maneuverable than might be supposed. More often than not in later times, the blades were foreign-made with locally produced hilts. There had been a thriving weapons industry along the Scottish east coast, and the blademakers of Edinburgh's Canongate were respected. Basket hilt swords in particular were made in Stirling and Glasgow. These activities were curtailed during the mid-1600s, however, thanks to Oliver Cromwell's invasion and occupation of Scotland.

(Curve-bladed basket-hilt sabers, by the way, were uncommon but not unknown in the Highlands. There are portraits and written records featuring them from the late 17th to early 18th centuries, and some examples survive. Again, these typically had foreign-made blades and Scottish-made hilts.)

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