From the Standing Council of Scottish Chiefs website From http://www.clanchiefs.org.uk/category/post/ accessed 28 December 2014.
The Standing Council of Scottish Chiefs make several excellent points in their post 'The Modern Clan System' which impact on Clan Gunn. They say - The clan system as we know it today was created over the course of a few years in the first quarter of the 19th century. At its heart were the novels of Walter Scott who triggered an extraordinary revival of interest in the Highlands and Highland history. This was sealed by the visit of King George IV to Edinburgh in 1822 when, to the bewilderment of many Lowlanders, the capital – and the king – were decked in tartan and alien pipe music accompanied every function. In its aftermath Clan Societies and Highland Societies sprang up across Scotland. Thousands wanted a Highland heritage and sought a connection with a clan so that they could wear the new tartans, declared by the chiefs to have been worn as a badge of identity since time immemorial. And the new clan societies and the manufacturers of tartan were pleased to accommodate them. The concept of septs and associated names was created.. ... Surnames came late to Gaeldom It may be hard for some, including Clan Gunn Societies, to accept but even the main body which represents Scottish Clan Chiefs recognises- 1) Named 'Clan tartan' is really nothing more than tourist ware of the 1820s. 2) The modern 'clan system' is in essence little more than a dress up version of the novels of Sir Water Scott. 3) Septs are basically a tourist trap of the early 1800s. 3) No-one had surnames for many years. As I have often said mythic Gunn 'history' demands the impossible about the Gunn surname with its supposed Orkney / Norse / Viking origin. The idea does not work because -
I could go on, and I have elsewhere on in this site. The Clan Gunn surname just does not come from the Orkney island. The idea deserves to be dead and buried. See http://clangunn.weebly.com/real-origin-of-the-clan-gunn.html for a much more likely origin for the Clan Gunn.
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