Highland MYTH BUSTING - Did they WET their KILT before sleeping in WINTER? Historical Survival

I have been incredibly assured that when the Highlanders are constrained to lie among the hills in the cold dry windy weather they sometimes soak their played in some River or burn once enveloped in the whole mantle they lay themselves down in the heath upon the leeward side of some Hill where the wet and the warmth of their bodies make a steam like that of boiling a kettle the way they say keeps them warm by thickening the stuff and keeping the wind from penetrating [Music] Tom how did John up in this position hi folks Tom for Van dijosi nice tune in so if you're new to the channel I like to make videos about a ton of different topics but one of my favorites is the topic of Wellness survival and what I love so much about Wellness survival is how it forces you to simplify life right down to its absolute Basics and I feel this can help us build strong foundations and resilience and also just helps us appreciate and be grateful for the little things in everyday life now in order to teach and learn about Wilderness survival skills I love to use the element of story because as a species we have this sort of Storytelling Instinct and we use it to Define and orientate ourselves in the world that's why we love movies and novels so much and over the past four years I've been looking at the wider story of the 17th century Highlander to see how they met their basic needs off the landscape now I was raised in a modern Central heated house growing up wearing modern Footwear and for most of my outdoor experience I've been using modern equipment but comparing this with the experience I've had so far with the historical kit I'm already convinced that the people of the past were much tougher and much more cold adapted compared to my modern soft self but there's a few stories I've come across that just seem a bit too superhuman and it's made me wonder how true are they and how much has been modeled romanticized or exaggerated by the people who wrote them down so in this video I'm joined by my buddy Jason and together we share and discuss some of our favorite stories of Highland hardiness before putting one of them to the test an account to our Highlanders were described as deliberately soaking their plates in water in Winter conditions before wrapping themselves up in it for falling asleep in the open Hill but first we shout out to wandrian who made this video possible now they say ignorance is bliss but I'd argue that learning is even better and on one one dream subscription you can learn about pretty much anything you can think of from Science History economics music psychology how to brew beer you name it they've got it wandrium is the Rebrand of the Great Courses plus which has been around since the 90s but rather than posting your VCR like the good old days you now have everything on demand via smartphone through the wanderm app one dream courses offer a huge variety of short and long form videos lectures tutorials how to's and documentaries all given by enthusiastic experts in their field and new content is released monthly my favorite thing about it is you can download the audio of the courses on your phone and just listen to it like you would the podcast while you're doing other things for example this month I've been building a shed and why while working away listening to my headphones I've learned about mind-blowing facts such as how our daily life can actually change our genetics via the course epigenetics how environment changes your biology I've also been learning about storytelling and The Human Condition as well as comparative economics some past courses I've also enjoyed include the Celtic world and cooking across the ages just to name a few so you can try it out for free by going to www.ondrium.com forward slash bandabydosie or click the link in the description below and start learning today it also helps support the channel [Music] alrighty so for today's Highland mythbusting I'm joined by my buddy Jason Jason did his work experience with me a couple of years ago through his college and now he's back to help me out this year now am I right saying Jason was it my videos that first inspired you to start wearing the plate yes this is true so that was a couple years ago and now this guy pretty much lives with his own he wears it more than I do and uh you haven't even worn normal shoes for the past two years so look at those toys this guy takes it to another level so he's perfect to come help me out for this little mythbusting experiment now first of all what is the Scottish winter like now it doesn't really we don't really experience the same extreme colds that you do in kind of Northern Europe and North America uh Scottish winner you can kind of get a mix mix of everything sometimes in the same day snow rain hail Sunshine so although Scotland doesn't experience too extreme cold statistically most hypothermia cases occur between -5 and 5 degrees Celsius because that's the temperature range where you can both get wet and cold so although Scotland's not extreme cold you could say it's actually almost more dangerous compared to a very cold dry climate and what about this reference to cold exposure well for the rest of the video we're going to be looking at this book Bert's letters from the north of Scotland and this was basically written by a British officer called Edmund Bert who traveled the north of Scotland at the beginning of the 1700s and he was writing letters back to his friend in London describing what he saw now bear in mind the Edmund Bert came from a privileged family and some of the things he said about the Highlanders is quite snobbish and condescending um but he also described a lot of things about daily life and to date this is still one of the best historical references we have for the highlands in this time period so now on to the story of Highland hardiness that Jason and I are actually going to test out and interestingly the story starts with what Bert describes as a rodima need or gasconade which is basically means a boastful story for the sake of boasting you know it might not be true and uh it's quite funny gaskin-aid one of these gas grenades is that the layered of kepok Chieftain of the branch of McDonald's in a winter campaign against a neighboring layered with whom he had he was at War about a possession gave orders for rolling a snowball to lay under his head in the night whereupon is followers murmured now we despair of victory since our leader has become so effeminate he can't sleep without a pillow so yeah he's saying he's a wuss because uh it needs a pillow even though it's made out of snow but that was a gas grenade that starts the story uh Bert then goes on to the thing we want to test this and many other like stories are romantic but there is one thing that at first thought might seem very extraordinary of which I have been incredibly assured that when the Highlanders are constrained to lie among the hills in cold dry windy weather they sometimes soak the blade in some River or burn and then holding up a corner of it a little above their heads they turn themselves round and round until they are enveloped in the whole mantle then they lay themselves down on the heath upon the leeward side of some Hill where the wet and warmth of their bodies make a steam like that of boiling a kettle the wet they say keeps them warm by thickening the stuff and keeping the wind from penetrating he continues by saying I must confess I should myself have been apt to question this fact had I not frequently seen them wet from morning to night and even at the beginning of the rain not so much as stir a few yards to shelter but continue in it without necessity till they were as we said wet through and through so he's describing this practice but he hasn't actually seen it but he believes it because he's seen them soaking wet for most of the day and that they just don't really seem to care about being wet and cold he continued on with his description they have been accustomed from their infancy to be often wet and to take to water like Spaniels so again he's referring that they've been accustomed from a young age they're called adapted and to deal with it but he finishes with another important Point saying though I never saw this preparation for sleep in windy weather yet setting out early in the morning from one of the Huts I have seen the marks of their lodging where the ground has been free from rain or snow which remained all around the spots where they had Lane so he's saying he hasn't actually seen them wet the plate and wrapped themselves up but basically leaving his lodgings in the morning he saw the little circles in the snow where people had been lying so interesting quite so to put this story to the test Jason and I first experimented wrapping the plate around us the way Bert described now if you want to know more about the played or great Kilt please watch my video titled the great survival Kilt where I provide very detailed information on this item of clothing now from experimenting we quickly found that holding a corner of it a little above your head and turning round and round like Bert described just didn't really work for us as the plate tended to collect around your feet tripping you up but after many attempts we decided the best way was to first stand in one corner and then make the first wrap around your waist like you would a towel you can then throw the rest of it around you and with some practice you can do this in one swift motion creating many layers of overlapping wool around your body yeah after we were happy with our wrapping technique it was time to test where they're soaking the plate actually helps with keeping you warm in the cold so after waiting till the sun set and the temperature dropped to -5 degrees Celsius we tracked out to the open mirror to find a good spot all right under excited I need a nap [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Music] we decided the best little budget way to test this was for us to wear a similar clothing as possible and for one person to soak their plate while the others kept theirs dry we could then lie in the cold open Heath for about an hour and compare our experiences needless to say folks please don't try this at home Tom how did you end up in this position take some wrong turns in life let's make turns depending on your perspective so we've both been lying here for about an hour it has been an hour now so far I'm not convinced why you would soak it I mean it's not windy so maybe um maybe I would learn if it was windier why I would do that yeah it's definitely warmer than not being wrapped in a plate so a wet blade is better than no plate at all uh but yeah for me personally I probably called this around where my bare legs are and the water seemed to collect on the lower side I'm kind of a bit soaked there so that's why I'm pulled this I mean I'm not hypothermic but I certainly couldn't fall asleep but uh Jason how cool to you where do you feel the cold right now well I wouldn't have a comfortable little beauty sleep here no no they surely wouldn't not even when we nap perhaps but I wouldn't trust him yeah I wouldn't trust it no I love trustworthy net we are theorizing that these guys were just winding up an English officer and their their goals are laughing at us for trying to 300 years later that's what a frozen plate sounds like wet formed like leather we went back to Camp to thaw out and then repeated the experiment in the morning this time Jason's talking his Kilt while I kept mine dry and both of us lying on a mattress of bracken so you're not covering your head no no I should have redone the celt but now I'm already cozy okay so you're not gonna read it no we'll see how it lasts because maybe maybe in theory if we have more of it at our core maybe we're warmer number but if you're in cold dry windy weather you'd probably want to cover your head yeah 20 minutes 20 minutes Jason throws it through gold my toes are indeed too cold ah Joey no it's just just uh letting out some passion yeah passion for history this is my passion for science yes people ask me what they are you know when they look at me I'll be I'm a scientist it's all righty so we've defrosted a wee bit from our experiments so Jason you think it's a myth that they sold the blades or do we need more data I think we need more data I think it's plausible plausible to lie among the hills in cold dry windy weather so we could experiment in cold and dry weather but it wasn't that windy it's very light breeze so we haven't exactly um covered the conditions they sometimes soak the plate in some River or burn now from my experiment last night um I think soaking it the word soak doesn't make sense because I had quite a lot of excess water and what happened was as soon as I laid down then that excess water just dripped and pooled and it soaked um my linen and that's another thing I just don't think linen is not a good base layer for winter um so but you know when we we uh when we left that kind of crustiness the the plate almost went hard formed a shell I could see how that could be beneficial in cold weather but maybe you don't need to soak it you just need to dip it a quick kind of coating not have that much excess water so I'm questioning soaking right now would you agree with that yes yes I think um if they would wet the plate maybe partially and then after that partial wetness is frozen and you put that around yourself I'd make some kind of space our space in between um I think that idea would hold water yeah well played [Laughter] so we need more data so Jason and I agreed that soaking the entire plate just didn't make sense but could wetting just the last few meters help act like a wind barrier well to test this I needed to find somewhere colder and windier so I climbed the mountain with my buddy Jack and we found a frozen lock in the wind no idea the exact temperature but the wind chill factor definitely felt lower than -5 degrees Celsius after lying in the hair there for about 20 minutes the wet section of the plate had already Frozen and comparing holding the frozen section with the dry section up to the wind the frozen section was slightly better at shielding the wind but this small Advantage was still outweighed by the fact you had a block of ice next to your body and putting the Frozen plate back on after the experiment wasn't very pleasant for good measure and to compare different methods I experimented wrapping a dry plate on a different winter hike in tardin and this time lying on a sheepskin to protect me from conduction from the ground so after freezing my nuts off a few times all for the name of Science and History what is the answer did Highlanders deliberately soak their plates when sleeping in Winter or was someone winding Mr Burt up and is this a myth well from the experiments and from my past experience in Scotch outdoors I think the vast majority of this quote doesn't make sense and that it's a myth however I did learn some things so let's break this down and see what we can disregard and what is possible when the Highlanders are constrained to the LIE among the hills in cold dry windy weather he's seen constrained to me that means they're not really choosing to do it they sort of have to do it because of the situation they sometimes soak the blade in some River or burn from that first experiment with Jason soaking it doesn't make sense to have that much excess water means you just drench your under layers of clothing and the water just pools on the side that you're lying keeping you really wet and cold soaking it doesn't make sense and holding a little corner above the heads they turn around and round enveloping themselves again that didn't work for us we found it easier to stand still and wrap it with our hands rather than us spinning round they then lay themselves down on the heath upon the leeward side of some Hill Leeward say that that makes sense so leeward side basically means the sheltered side of the hill so they're at the wind that would make sense you use the landscape to your advantage for a shelter but if you've already got out the wind why wet your plate to keep the wind off that's what I'm thinking where the wet and warmth of our bodies make a steam like that of boiling a kettle so yes wool is an amazing fabric it contains 80 of essential is a value even when it's soaking wet but if I was constrained to lie among the hills in cold windy weather I would do anything to keep that extra 20 insulator value okay and I I understand what he means about that kind of wet wet warm feeling uh the very first um day of that expedition I did a couple years ago I got soaking wet because I was walking in the in the rain all day but to me there's a difference between the wetness that you get from walking in the rain and soaking your plate because when you walk in the rain you're slowly getting wet and you're also moving you know you're creating a lot of body heat just from moving so you're sort of heating up the wetness as you go so when you lie down you've already you know you've already done some of the effort of warming that that water up but to be all warm and cozy and dry and then suddenly introduce freezing water and then lie still that's different he continues the wet they see keeps them warm by thickening the stuff and keeping the wind from penetrating now this part I do believe in some situations so yes will does swell a bit and from our experiments it freezes and creates a shell making it more wind resistant however most Blades of the time period they were thick and they were already quite felted meaning they're quite a good wind barrier in themselves and that method of wrapping yourself up me and Jason found we could get about three or four layers of wool on our upper body so three or four layers of felted wool is already a pretty good wind barrier why would you need to wet it it then goes on to say that he would have questioned this fact if he hadn't seen them you know being wet through and through throughout the day which again I have no doubt that these people these Highlanders were super tough way tougher than me but again I think there's a difference between being wet through and through from standing in the rain standing and moving doing stuff during the day I feel like that's still different to deliberately wetting your clothing and then lying still and finally he finishes saying that he admits that he didn't actually see them prepare to sleep like this but he saw the marks in the snow where someone had told him where they had Lane and when I read that bit I really felt like someone was winding him up now just put yourself in the mindset of a high holder during this time Bert was writing this about 15 years before the last Jacobite rising and the Battle of Culloden so although this was technically a time of peace he probably would have been considered still being considered the enemy or at the very least a southerner so if I was a Highlander during this time period And I met Mr Bert I would probably be tempted to wind him up a bit or the very least sort of do bossful stories to just show how tough my guys were now on the other hand I also believe that you know potentially one or two people probably did do this did do this preparation for sleep in a very specific situation and as stories happen you know they get exaggerated and they get changed and they get passed on so potentially someone did do this but I just think from the experimenting I just it just doesn't make sense but that's just my opinion what do you guys think let me know in the comments below so I hope to do more of these myth busting videos so if you want to help fund them consider becoming a patreon and there you also get access to extra learning resources as well as monthly behind the scenes videos a few thanks to wandering for making this video possible please do try out that free trial folks it really is a good resource and it also again helps find more videos she's thanks to Jason Jack and Sean for making this possible thanks for watching and I'll be back with another video next month cheers stay warm

Channel: Fandabi Dozi

Views: 611,790

Keywords: Highlander, Myth Busting, survival, kilt, plaid

Id: fkW3BpB1z_s

Length: 24min 14sec (1454 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 30 2023