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

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Many years ago I did some winter camping (I'm in Canada) with a friend, his father and grandfather. The grandfather had fought in the Korean war and he showed us a lot of what they did to make it through those winters. One of the things he did was to cover himself with a wet WOOL blanket before going to bed. The blanket would freeze solid forming a solid, wind-proof shell that kept him warm and dry inside. Once it solidified you could literally lift it off of yourself and it would keep its shape. It was like a turtle shell. He told us that the key was that it was a wool blanket as no other fibers would behave the same way and still maintain their insulation when wet. I never tested it with any other types of blankets but I can say that a wet wool blanket will keep you quite warm in a cold, windy Canadian winter.

We used something similar up North on the oil rigs, We would use a pressure washer and lightly wet the outside of our coveralls and cloth jackets, it would freeze into a suit of armour that would stop even the worst wind and keep you super warm! The only catch was you had to stay outside the rest of the night because if you went in the ice would melt and soak you to the bone and you’d freeze going back outside

The minute you read that quote I thought someone was engaging in the great Scottish tradition of having him on. 😂 Nice to know our ancestors were telling tall tales to Englishmen even back then.

I think the old school wool was and is a better material than the sponge we have these days that soaks up tons of moisture. Wool wasn't stripped of its lanolin back then and was often rough spun or some such. This made a brutally resilient material that was largely water resistant. I doubt old school plaids would wet through, ever.

I have a friend here in sweden who use a wool blanket as an tarp setup, he soaks and freezes it to make it more rigid in windy conditions so it doesn't flap around. However it has to be melted before it can be packed on the sled again.

I'm into hand weaving, being a Scot I am also very interested in the kilt. In the old weaving books it is mentioned that the plaid is dampened not soaked. The theory is the wool swells when wet so the wind doesnt come through. The plaid was wrapped as a cocoon so your breath will heat the interior, the textile freezes on the outside , this allows the heat to say in.

Our weather here in the Pacific Northwest of North America is wet and cold most of the winter, very similar in many ways. I've spent many days getting wet all the way through while hiking or working outside but I do everything I can to be completely dry at night. I don't know what may have created those spots bare of snow that they claimed were highlander nests, but here the deer do that, so that is immediately what came to mind. You can find the little dry indentations from where they bedded down at night and now I want to point them out and tell people, "Oh, that's where a bushcrafter slept."

When my dad went camping (before I was born) he said he always would get his wool sweater (jumper) damp, not dripping, in cold weather… because it was warmer. He swore by doing this, and he was a person who hated the cold.

Not to forget to mention, I put frozen socks and shoes on in the morning. (didn't have any dry ones anymore) And was still warming up from that. Hence why the comment on the toes❄️

When I was a kid I always wore wool socks and when playing in the stream out back on the farm I soon learned that when my rubber boots filled with water and we're dumped out that my wool socks got extremely warm which led to me wetting my socks on purpose whenever it was cold out to keep my feet warm ! Wool now days doesn't seem to act this way and it's almost impossible to find pure wool socks anyway !

20th Century Highlander here. The idea behind this is to damp the plaid on a freezing night, not soak it though, so the wind freezes it to ice on the outside. This does actually provide a hard thermal layer. 👍

Brilliant experimental research. fascinating to see you both put it to the test.

I recently moved all the way from the South of England to central Scotland..... the cold is an issue. After two winters I am well on my way to adapting. I used to be a heatbug but now for about five months a year my flat is incredibly cold and Im damned if IIm spending £400 a month on heating. Apart from the obvious changes to my clothing and habits, most significantly, you body does start to adapt. My three biggest takeaways were... 1. Your body adapts very slowly to the cold over months and years 2. Activity in the cold keeps you warm inside afterwards for many hours 3. Cold shock is very helpful. It sounds counterintuitive but the worst thing you can do in Scotland is wrap up in as many layers as possible and stay still. Even iif its below freezing, its better to get up and do a bit of digging in the garden. Then come inside and have a shower and you will be warm for half a day. Similarly, the odd cold shower, and exposing yourself to the cold when you first get up, shocks your body's metabolism and makes you feel warmer. Ive even got to the point where Im camping in conditions that I would have considered unimaginable a few years ago. You body and your techniques just adapt. But yeah the worst thing to do in Scotland is try and "hide" from the cold. The more you expose yourself to bursts of bitter weather the warmer you feel in the long term. As for soaking your blanket in water ... I think that was some journalistic "flourish" from a guy trying to oversell a story. Great video once again.

I was trained in survival school in those conditions to wet our outer layer of clothes to freeze them to trap heat and to stop wind stealing our heat. I believe the Highlanders did this. Think about Vikings rowing for weeks soaking wet in storms and bad weather. Having your wool frozen would be the original anoraks. Enjoy your videos!

I think I may know what this is. We used to do it in scouts and our scout leader was a retired green beret guy. We were stuck out after playing a twilight glow stick version of capture the flag one night as night closed in on the face of the mountain we'd been camping on so the scout leader had us wet the huge bath towels we'd been directed to bring from home in the creek and waited as he piled more wood onto the tiny stone-lined fire pit we all shared. As the fire blazed up and slowly died down, each one of us gingerly wrapped our damp towel around a single large, blisteringly hot stone and scurried away with our prize into our cheap 1980's sleeping bags. As the night went on and the temperature fell well below zero, the hot rock towels and the warm steam they continuously generated kept us all from dying in the wind on the face of that rocky mountain cliff face. It was even comfortable. Until the towel finally dried out and I had to sacrifice the last of my canteen water to re-drench it...and myself. So I'm wondering if the highlanders were using this trick on an inside layer to create a sort of "danger taco" that actually kept them alive and warm inside the plaid. They certainly had access to stones... and all the other tools that'd be required to make this happen. Then again, maybe it wasn't plausible in their case. I'm not an expert. But also...maybe so?

When I was in massage school, we did a hydrotherapy technique that is similar to this. The short version of this hydrotherapy was to wrap a person in a cotton sheet that was thoroughly soaked in ice water, wrap the person tight to their bare skin. Lay them on the table and cover them with a wool blanket (wool is a good insulator even when wet) as the person's body heats (and though shivering) the wrap heats up and the wool keeps the heat. The person goes from cold to being in their own personal sauna. The sauna part takes about 30 minutes in a 70° F (21° C) room. The person actually starts sweating so we have to give them water until the competition of the treatment , witch is about 60 minutes in total. I think that what was written in your book is totally possible, as described.

Several years ago I read a book about the history of Poachers which included a chapter about 1700s High Land cattle rustlers , it made note that the Rustlers could not make a fire as it would give away their position. It stated they would make a Heather bed then wrap themselves completely in their plaids as you did, then lay down together ' As if sheep ' for shared warmth, then the boy would use his pail to ' dampen ' the top layer of each man's plaid, when done his reward for being the last to bed down he would get into the middle of the group . I hope this is helpful. I will do my best to find the book and post the ISN number for your reference. Oh thank you for your excellent posts.

I'm surprised there was a need to wet the plaid, surely good Scottish weather/rain would ensure it was nearly always wet!

Always a good day when Fanbabi dozi posts!