HIGHLAND TARGETS
AND OTHER SHIELDS.
BY
JAMES DRUMMOND,
R.S.A., F.S.A. SCOT.
Edinburgh:
PRINTED BY NEILL AND COMPANY.
1873.
(10.)
Read before the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, April 1871.
The Fifty Copies now printed for private circulation contain additional
matter, with different and more numerous illustrations.
here is a class of Scottish antiquities to which hitherto comparativelylittle attention has been paid by the archæologist. I mean the warlikeweapons, offensive and defensive, of our Highland forefathers, many ofwhich were used down to a comparatively recent period. Of these weaponsmuch ignorance seems to prevail even among the Highlanders themselves, whoalmost invariably answer inquiries as to their age, that they had no doubtthey had been used from time immemorial.
In England, and on the Continent, much interest has been taken in thestudy of arms and armour. On the Continent, the books are endless; inEngland there are the works of Meyrick, Grose, and Skelton, with Boutell’s“Monumental Brasses and Slabs,” and others of a kindred nature, allshowing how much instruction may be gained by such inquiries when followedout in a proper spirit. In Scotland, we certainly have M‘Ian’s“Highlanders,” and the “Costume of the Clans” by John and Charles SobieskiStuart, both admirable works, but treating more of dress than of thearmour and weapons, which, though alluded to, can scarcely be said to beillustrated, and without delineation they are almost valueless, as somuch, in these weapons, depends upon the ornamental detail for character.
At present I wish to call attention only to one of these Highland weapons,the Targaid or Target. No weapon of war has, at different periods andamong different nations, assumed so many forms as the shield. It wassquare, oblong, and kite-shaped. The brass mounting of one of the lastform, which was found under 6 feet of moss on the hill of Benibreae, inLochaber, with other brass ornaments for a shield or armour, shown in theaccompanying woodcuts, has been deposited in our Museum by ClunyMacpherson, Castle Cluny. The shield assumed a variety of other forms,[Pg 4] itwas triangular, crescent, and fiddle-shaped, concave and convex; it washollow and fluted, also oval and circular, varying in size from beinglarge enough to protect the whole body to the small