Highland Targets and Other Shields

There is a class of Scottish antiquities to which hitherto comparatively little attention has been paid by the archæologist. I mean the warlike weapons, offensive and defensive, of our Highland forefathers, many of which were used down to a comparatively recent period. Of these weapons much ignorance seems to prevail even among the Highlanders themselves, who almost invariably answer inquiries as to their age, that they had no doubt they had been used from time immemorial.

In England, and on the Continent, much interest has been taken in the study of arms and armour. On the Continent, the books are endless; in England there are the works of Meyrick, Grose, and Skelton, with Boutell’s “Monumental Brasses and Slabs,” and others of a kindred nature, all showing how much instruction may be gained by such inquiries when followed out in a proper spirit. In Scotland, we certainly have M‘Ian’s “Highlanders,” and the “Costume of the Clans” by John and Charles Sobieski Stuart, both admirable works, but treating more of dress than of the armour and weapons, which, though alluded to, can scarcely be said to be illustrated, and without delineation they are almost valueless, as so much, 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 and among different nations, assumed so many forms as the shield. It was square, oblong, and kite-shaped. The brass mounting of one of the last form, which was found under 6 feet of moss on the hill of Benibreae, in Lochaber, with other brass ornaments for a shield or armour, shown in the accompanying woodcuts, has been deposited in our Museum by Cluny Macpherson, Castle Cluny. The shield assumed a variety of other forms, it was triangular, crescent, and fiddle-shaped, concave and convex; it was hollow and fluted, also oval and circular, varying in size from being large enough to protect the whole body to the small mediæval hand shield, which was no larger than the iron or bronze boss of the Scandinavian or Anglo-Saxon shield. During the 15th and 16th century, a sort of tilting shield was introduced; it was made to fit the shoulder, sometimes covering the chin also, and was screwed to the armour. I have one of these, which is cross-barred lozenge-ways, and between the spaces is elaborately engraved.