Highland Targets and Other Shields — A Closer Reading

Form and Function Across Cultures

Drummond surveys shield shapes from square to fiddle-shaped, noting that size ranged from full-body protection to small medieval hand shields. He describes a tilting shield from the 15th–16th century that was 'screwed to the armour' and cross-barred lozenge-ways. The Highland target, he specifies, averaged one foot eight inches in diameter. A key structural detail: Highland targets typically have one or two arm-straps and an arm-piece, unlike early bronze or wood shields that had only a handle below the central boss. The back was 'almost invariably covered with deer skin,' with stuffing beneath to deaden blows. Drummond compares this to the double arrangement on Trajan's column and the Greek use of an arm-piece plus handle near the rim.

Materials and Ornamentation

The author distinguishes leather-covered targets from painted ones: Highland targets were not painted, but brass openwork was often filled with bright leather or cloth. He contrasts this with Spanish, African, and Oriental shields—some of buffalo hide 'gorgeously emblazoned in gold and colour,' others of rhinoceros, elephant, or crocodile skin. The Macdonald Target, in Drummond's own possession, is covered in black leather with embossed Celtic ornamentation and 'endless cross-hatching' etched around the pattern, leaving no space for brass. At its centre is the double-headed eagle of the Lords of the Isles. Drummond notes that a similar target may have been made in Spain for a Macdonald chief, given the traffic between the West Highlands and Spain.

Dating Difficulties and Museum Specimens

Drummond candidly admits that 'the same class of ornamentation having been in use with little variation from an early period, it is no easy matter to affix dates to Highland and Scandinavian weapons.' He points to a target in the Society's Museum with stamped birds on its outer circle, originally fitted with a spike, as one where 'age is unmistakeable' despite the general difficulty. Another specimen, found under six feet of moss on Benibreae hill in Lochaber, includes a brass mounting of kite shape and other ornaments deposited by Cluny Macpherson. Drummond's approach is taxonomic: he groups targets by type, material, and provenance, relying on physical evidence rather than tradition.

Drummond's work is a specialist's catalogue, not a narrative history. Readers should attend to the precise descriptions of construction—the arm-straps, the deer-skin backing, the etched cross-hatching—as these details carry the argument. The author's comparisons with European and non-European shields are not digressions but deliberate attempts to place Highland material culture in a wider technological and artistic context. The limited circulation of this text (fifty copies for private circulation) suggests it was aimed at fellow antiquaries, not a general audience.

I keep thinking about those shields in the old study—how the leather and boss were fashioned to deflect, not just to adorn. It makes me wonder about all the quiet hands behind them, and then I recall this odd, tender volume on women who fought, Female Warriors, Vol. 2 (of 2) Memorials of Female Valour and Heroism, from the Mythological Ages to the Present Era. — Inside the Classic, which sits nearby on my shelf, a different kind of armour entirely.