Click the tartan to view its entry in The Scottish Registers of Tartans which includes registration details, restrictions, and registrant information.
Unregistered tartans may link to one of the web's online design environments for similar information.
For any questions about reproduction of designs or weaving of these tartans, please contact the registrant directly or via this website.
Find a Rainbow Day
"One wet, early evening in the sheep-shearing season
I saw that occasional, rare thing-
A broken shaft of a rainbow with its trembling light
Beyond the downpour of the rain."
~ Hugh MacDiarmid, The Watergaw, 1925
This tartan was designed to suggest a double rainbow in a "dreich" grey sky after a thunderstorm. The Scottish word "dreich" (meaning dreary, gloomy, bleak, miserable, grey, depressing, devoid of sunshine) was voted Scotland's most favourite word in a government poll! Though the most visible and lauded are the single bow and double rainbow, the "almost rainbow" called a "watergaw" is not continuous, but exhibits itself as a single patch, a broken fragment of rainbow which follows the end of a downpour. The word, which originated in the Borders, is probably best known as the subject of Hugh McDiarmid's poignant poem, set in cold weather after a downpour, while shearing ewes shivering with cold. The narrator espies the watergaw 'wi’ its chitterin’ licht ayont the on-ding' and ponders the passing of his father. With hopes that "April showers" truly do bring "May flowers" to all. 🌧️🌈
"If you like the weather in Scotland, wait half an hour and it will change."
~ Traditional
Ae weet forenicht i’ the yow-trummle
I saw yon antrin thing,
A watergaw wi’ its chitterin’ licht
Ayont the on-ding;
An’ I thocht o’ the last wild look ye gied
Afore ye deed!
There was nae reek i’ the laverock’s hoose
That nicht -- an’ nane i’ mine;
But I hae thocht o’ that foolish licht
Ever sin’ syne;
An’ I think that mebbe at last I ken
What your look meant then.
Hugh MacDiarmid: The Watergaw, from Sangschaw, 1925
This poem is composed in what Hugh MacDiarmid called "Synthetic Scots". His standard-English approximation:
One wet, early evening in the sheep-shearing season
I saw that occasional, rare thing --
Broken shaft of a rainbow with its trembling light
Beyond the downpour of the rain
And I thought of the last, wild look you gave
Before you died.
The skylark’s nest was dark and desolate,
My heart was too
But I have thought of that foolish light
Ever since then
And I think that perhaps at last I know
What your look meant then.
***
The proverb "March winds and April showers bring forth May flowers", first recorded in 1886,and the shorter, trochaic version "April showers bring May flowers" (originally "Sweet April showers/Do spring May flowers", part of a poem recorded in 1610 are common expressions in English speaking countries.
The phrase is referenced in the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales: "Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote The droghte of March hath perced to the roote".
By designer Carol A.L. Martin, this tartan represents a double rainbow in a grey sky after a thunderstorm.
For a list of uniquely Scottish words and expressions for the weather, click the double rainbow over Loch Ness and Urquhart Castle.