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By and by the idea would be hit on of separating body and skirt of an encumbering costume that, serving both for dress and blanket, had to be thrown off when it came to hot fighting or active business. Thus was developed the philabeg or little kilt which we know, in its present form vainly said to be the invention of an Englishman, even of an army-tailor, and, there is strange whisper, of some Quaker! J. F. Campbell of Isla, Lord Archibald Campbell, and other writers make out, however, by help of old pictures and older sculptures, a very good case for antiquity both of the kilt and the diverse patterns of tartan. John Major, teacher of Knox and Buchanan, speaks of the “wild Scots” as dressed in “patchwork,” and going naked from mid-leg. A print in the British Museum shows kilts among the Scottish auxiliaries of Gustavus Adolphus. Sir R. M. Keith, in Frederick the Great’s time, wrote home from Germany for “a plaid of my colours sewed and plaited on a waist belt ... in which to show my nakedness to the best advantage”; but he does not use the name kilt for what in the army was at first an undress uniform. “Till he got his plaid kilted on him” took some time; and this phrase, used of one of the 1745 heroes, explains the name which Burt spelt quelt.

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