Customs and traditions of Scotland

Scotland is a country with an intense national traditions, tra­ditions very much alive even now and rather rare in the modern world. Scotland has her own distinctive national dress, the kilt. This short pleated skirt, made of tartan, is worn only by men. Orig­inally, the tartan was worn as a single piece of cloth, drawn in at the waist and thrown over the shoulder. It is probably the best walking-dress yet invented by man: there is up to five metres of tartan, the softest woolen material of bright colouring in it; it ^1S

warm for a cold day and cool for warm weather; it stands the rain for hours before it gets wet through. And what is more, if a Highlander is caught in the mountains by night, he has but to unfasten his kilt and wrap it around him — he'll sleep comfort­ably enough the night through.

It was the dress of the old-time Highlanders who formed tribes (clans) with distinctive names, beginning with Mac. The kilt worn by each clan in a special pattern was very suitable for going through wet, moorland country.

Scotland has its own national beverage, Scotch whisky (from Gaelic usage, meaning water). Scotland has its own typical musical instrument, the bagpipe; its own national dances, High­land dances; its own songs, its poetry, traditions, food and sports, even education and manners. To put it in a nutshell: Scotland is not England.

BRITISH CULTURE

ENGLISH RENAISSANCE

The epoch of Renaissance, the epoch of humanism, born in Italy, penetrated England after revolutionizing the culture and science in Italy and the whole Western world. The human being, the beauty and the joy of life were now in the centre of attention.

Three phases of this process in England are easily distin­guished: 1) the end of the 15^th and the first half of the 16^th cen­tury; 2) the reign of Queen Elizabeth and the life-span of Will­iam Shakespeare; 3) after W. Shakespeare's death and to the beginning to the puritan revolution.

The Renaissance epoch gave birth to a flood of scientific discoveries in England. "

In 1576 the first theatre was built in London by a group of actors. And soon theatres appeared everywhere. The images of the plays represented the antagonistic forces of the society. It is known that England developed the finest drama in the world. W. Shakes­peare's numerous tragedies, comedies and poems were of great. success. The peak of English poetry is considered to be his series of 154 sonnets, a passionate monologue of a young man addressed to a mysterious "Dark Lady of the Sonnets".

THE BRITISH MUSEUM

The British Museum, situated in an immense, light-grey building, like a Greek temple, is one of the world's greatest trea­sure-stores. Its supreme collection was based on the will of Sir Hans Sloane in 1753, which persuaded Parliament to acquire his art, antiquities and natural history collections. At the same time the Harleian Collection of manuscripts was purchased for the nation. Today the museum has two departments — the Museum of Mankind and the National History Museum.

The Museum of Mankind contains a vast collection of an­tiquities, including marbles from the Parthenon, ancient works of art in stone, bronze and gold and collections illustrating West­ern Asiatic civilizations. The Museum keeps also the Rosetta Stone that helped archaeologists to find the key to the Egyp­tian hieroglyphics. The Natural History Museum contains fi^ve principal collections on the history of plants, minerals and the animal kingdom.

The British Museum has one of the largest libraries in the world. It has a copy of every book that is printed in the English language, so that there are more than six million books there. They receive nearly two thousand books and papers daily. The British Museum Library has a very big collection of printed books and manuscripts, both old and new. You can see the best collection of Greek papyri from Egypt, and vast collections of original historical manuscripts of incalculable value, which they keep in glass cases. You can also find there some of the first English books printed by Caxton, the first English printer. He lived in the 15^th century and made the first printing-press in England.

The British Museum has a wonderful art gallery too. It has unique collections of sculpture, ceramics, drawings and paint­ings of the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greek, Romans, Africans, Chinese, Japanese, Indians and many other peoples. It has unique collections of Italian drawings, English and French prints, and so on, and so forth.