Dance Blue Bonnets 588

scddb=not-identical:8753

The dark blue bonnet, or cap, is a typical article of traditional male Scottish attire, and it should not come as a big surprise that the “blue bonnets” in this case refer to the Scots in arms against the English (All the blue bonnets are o'er the border – Sir Walter Scott).

During the past few centuries, Scottish military units sported a variety of bonnets including the “Balmoral bonnet” (a fairly flat cap similar to a beret, but with a cockade and badge at the front left and a “toorie” or fluffy woolen pom-pom, usually red, at the centre of the crown) and the “Glengarry bonnet” (a more elaborate item more like a fore-and-aft or overseas cap, with a cockade, badge, red toorie and often a red-and-white diced band at the bottom, cock feathers and long streamer ribbons in the back). Nowadays only the Glengarry bonnet remains in military use, although the Balmoral bonnet is still popular as a part of Highland dress. In So You're Going to Wear the Kilt, J. Charles Thompson claims that “some of my Scottish advisors […] have no use for a Glengarry for anyone of any age who is not forced to wear it by military regulations”.

The music for the dance used to be called Lesley's March (its namesake, one General Lesley, lived in the 17th century and fought, like many other Scots, on the Swedish side in the Thirty-Year War on the Continent before returning to Scotland to lead the army of the “covenanters” against Cromwell), but was renamed Blue Bonnets o'er the Border after Sir Walter Scott had come up with appropriate words to suit the tune.