PLAIDS. A plaid is a pattern in textile fabrics consisting of bars, or stripes, of color crossing each other at right angles. A plaid is a development of the check, which in textile fabrics is a pattern of squares of alternate colors. Properly speaking, a check should have no divisions between the squares more than a thin boundary line. In other words, the pat tern should resemble the ordinary chess-board. The word check is derived from an old Euro pean custom of settling accounts and comput ing money by means of counters, or tallies, on a table covered with a checkered cloth. The word comes from the French echiquier mean ing chess-board.
The check, a very ancient pattern, was ex traordinarily popular in ancient Egypt as a motive of decoration; and this motive was un doubtedly derived from the woven fabrics and the baskets of plaited reeds and rushes. In the decorations of temples, tombs and houses the Egyptians frequently used a single checker of two colors, dark and light, alternately arranged. Sometimes the form was rectilinear instead of square. Sometimes each square was ornamented by a cross; and in this case the blocks were frequently yellow and green, alternately, and the device (cross) upon them red and black. Occasionally, too, the squares were of various colors arranged in such a way as to form geometrical patterns. Sometimes the squares were cut into halves and the little triangular blocks were grouped so as to make a pleasing effect of form and color. Fabrics, both of linen and wool, exhibited a great variety of motives formed of straight lines — lines horizontal, perpendicular and diagonal. The Egyptians may be said to have "worked the check to death." The check is found in nearly every country, ancient and modern, savage and civilized, as a motive of decoration and as forming a pattern for textiles. Scotland is, however, of all coun tries the home of the plaid, there called forfeit:, and affectionately aplaidien in song, story and legend. The word tartan is derived from the Gaelic tarstin, or tarsuin, meaning across, athwart, over or through, which, of course, ap plies to the crossing of the threads in the weav ing of any sort of cloth. The word tartan seems to have been applied in early times to the waterier/ and not to the pattern.
To-day the word tartan includes both ma terial and pattern. The French had the word tiretaine in the 13th century for °cloth dyed of a scarlet color.° In a wardrobe account of James III of Scotland (1471) there is mention of an ell and a half of blue tartan to line his gown of cloth of gold. James V of Scotland in 1538 on a hunting excursion into the High lands wore a suit made of varicolored tartan.
The variegated pattern has also a Gaelic name— "Cathdath," "war-color," or "the strife of colors." Another name is plodders. An Englishman visiting Edinburgh rn 1598 wrote, "The citizens, wives and women of the country did wear cloaks made of a coarse cloth of two or three colors in chequer-work, vulgarly called plodders?' In 1616 Taylor in his °Penniless Pilgrimage" describes the dress of the High as "warm stuff of divers colors which they call tartan.° The use of the tartan seems to be beyond the reach of history. The Scotch Highlanders are a remnant of the great Celtic race and were the last to oppose the conquering arms of Rome. When Agricola invaded North Britain in 81 A.D. he found 21 aboriginal tribes, or clans. Clanship, like the tartan which dis tinguishes its wearers, eludes the historian and disappears in the mists of tradition. The pic turesque dress of the "Bonneted chieftains all plaided and plumed in their tartan array" is, therefore, one of the most ancient of all costumes.
The clothing of the early Britons was much the same as that of the Gauls. From the Belgic Gauls who settled in Britain, the Britons learned to dress skins, to spin and to weave. The Gauls made several kinds of cloth which they dyed various colors. For the tunic and trousers they used a cloth of mixed colors, forming a check, the prototype of the Scotch plaid. The mantle was generally one color, preferably blue. The Britons were particularly skilful in dyeing; and they used the juice of such plants as the foxglove, sorrel and the famous woad, from which the blue dye was obtained. Color was an important element in British dress. The colors the bards wore were blue, green and white. The Irish Druids wore several colors: the higher the rank, the greater the variety. In Ireland outside the priesthood, color was much esteemed; and the first regula tions resembling sumptuary laws in the British Isles were passed long before the Christian Era, ordering the Irish peasantry and soldiers to have their garments of one color only, officers of two colors, commanders of clans, three; and so on. The Royal Family were allowed seven colors. Irish bards wore plaid, or checkered, cloth for their undergarment—a kind of tunic —and over this they threw a long cloak striped in various colors. There is a striking kinship between the Scotch tartan and the checks worn by the Irish in ancient times. In common with the Gauls and ancient Britons the Celts were fond of brilliant colors; and even as far back as 390 B.C. Livy and Virgil assert that these strangers appeared "in flaming tartan garb" be fore the walls of Rome in that year.