Blair Collection > Critical dissertations on the origin, antiquities, language, government, manners, and religion, of the antient Caledonians, their posterity the Picts, and the British and Irish Scots

Caledonians and Germans 151
fome difficulty in fettling the precife meaning of
the word Bracca. But every Highlander in Britain
knows that the Bracca was an upper garment of
diverfe colours. The very word is to this day
preferved in the Galic language, with the addition
of only a lingle letter, and, in the fame language,
any thing that is party-coloured is conftantly di-
ftinguifhed by the epithet Breac.
Blue was the favourite colour among the Ca-
ledonians "*, or at leafb the moft prevalent. That
their women of quality ufed blue mantles
may be concluded from a palfage of Claudian f,
as well as from tradition.
The only or principal difference between the
drefs of the males and females was, that the
mantle of the latter flowed down to their ankles,
as it did among the women of Germany. The
ufe of the Fibula was common both to the men
and the women of Caledonia *.
K 4 It
* Solin. cap. xxxv.
-j- Inde Caledonico vehta Britannia monftro
Ferro Pifla genas, cujus vefligia verrit
Carulus, oceanique sftum mentitur amlQus.
Claud Imprim. Con. Stil.
In this pafTage Britain is perfonified by the poet, and is painted
in the cheeks, and clad with a blue mantle in the Pictifh manner.
It is hardly pofTible to make fenfe of the wards without taking
them in this view.
I have it from very good authority, that a large filver buckle,
once worn by Robert Rruce, King of Scotland, was till of late
in the poirelhon of Macdougal, of Dunolly, a gentleman in Ar-
gylefliire. Bruce, after the fatal battle of Methven, found hini-
lelf under the neceflity of flying to the Highlands, attended by
only a fmall band of trufly friends. Macdougal, of Lorn, one
of the anceftors of the gentleman now mentioned, being in the
Englifli intcreli, attacked that illulbious Prince in his flight, and
overpowered