Ballads of Battle/Freimdun Dhu: The Black Watch

by Joseph Lee

FREIMDUN DHU:
THE BLACK WATCH

Betwixt 1715 and 1745 several independent companies were raised to secure the pacification of the Highlands. From the dark character of the tartans worn by most of the composing clans the companies became known as the Freimdun Dhu, or Black Watch, in contradistinction to the Leidman Diarag, or Red Soldiers. After their embodiment into a regiment of the line, no clan having a supreme claim to impress its tartan upon the whole, and the Colonel, Lord Crawford, being a Lowlander, the peculiarly dark pattern still worn was devised.

 

Dark is thy tartan, Freimdun Dhu;
Black and green, and green and blue:

Now in it I see thread of red—
The blood our Highland host has shed.