[Gay Gordons] > I think legend has it that the dance got its original name from the looks > of the Gordon Highlanders' uniform.
Not from its looks, from its adoption. It could have looked like a wheelie bin covered in rotting sacks and still got the same tune. > Sometimes it is spelled Gey or Gei or similar variant. The "Gordons" is a > military unit (Remember the song "Here's tae the Gordons"?). In this > context Gay does not mean "happy", it means "fierce". Wrong. There is no such meaning for the word in Scots or any other language. (Even "homosexual" would make more historical sense: that's attested as far back as the early 19th century). > One further note: I understand now that the Gay Gordons are a military > unit, but I do believe they are also a Highland clan, so would love some > info on whether the two are related, how that happened & to which the song > is pertinent, if anyone knows. Thanks! -Karen The Gordons had ceased to be a clan in any meaningful sense by the time the regiment was first raised (1794, as the 92nd). It was initially recruited from areas dominated by the Gordon family (Aberdeenshire), but every large aristocrat in Britain did the same thing on their respective patch, and clan loyalty did *not* come into it as a factor when joining up in Aberdeenshire any more than it did in Birmingham. The 92nd merged with the Stirlingshire Regiment (the 75th) in 1881, to create the Gordons that were the subject of the song/dance. They went on to merge with the London Scottish. The episode that acquired the Gordons the fame that led to all the musical memorials is described in as much detail as any sane human being would want to know at: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Atlantis/2359/contents.html i.e. it's the same battle as that marked by "The Heights of Dargai". (I only just found this site; I'd already put together most of the story myself, and everything the author says checks out with what I've read independently). It's not a million miles from a certain current location of infantry warfare and not such a different kind of action, either. A good basic web reference on Scottish regiments is the "Scots at War" site run by Diana Henderson (all-round clued-up professional military historian): http://www-saw.arts.ed.ac.uk/parent.html =================== <http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/> =================== Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music & Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
