Hugh Trevor-Roper's 'The Invention of Scotland' - July 23, 2008 - The New York Sun

This link has been bookmarked by 4 people . It was first bookmarked on 24 Jul 2008, by Olifante *.

01 Aug 08

harry palmer
scotland myths history propaganda kilts politics
- The Scots' continual resort to mythmaking, from medieval times down to the 19th century, seems to Trevor-Roper to demonstrate an essential truth about the Celtic mind, as opposed to the Anglo-Saxon. Drawing on an old but resilient stereotype, he contrasts English prosiness with Celtic imagination. Yes, he admits, the English "have created one of the great literatures of the world. Yet, have they a single myth that they can call their own?" Surely it is no accident that all the great mythic heroes of the British Isles, from Cymbeline to King Arthur, were invented by the Celtic peoples — the Welsh, Scots, and Irish — who inhabited the land before the Anglo-Saxon invasion.
24 Jul 08

Ian Parker
scotland history
Olifante *
- tartan and kilt, those universal badges of Scottishness, are about as authentic as Disneyland. Until the 18th century, no one north of the Tweed had ever seen a kilt; nor did the clans, as legend has it, distinguish themselves by the pattern of their tartans, until they were taught to do so by an enterprising clothing manufacturer.

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