[Paddlewise] Scot free

I forwarded the info on "Scot free" to my brother who is a history buff.

He wrote back:
That's an interesting take on it. In fact much of the culture of Scotland,
primarily the Western Isles (including Islay) was greatly influenced by the
invasions, settlement and later admixture with the Norse tribes following
circa the 9th century AD. However, when the Romans ruled England centuries
prior to that, they called the tribes to their north the Picti, and those to
their west, on Ireland, the Scoti. These Scoti were the founders of Dal Riada,
the kingdom in Argyll that was the basis of the Lordship of the Isles, based
on Islay, that would eventually come to hold sway over all the Western Isles
and much of the "mainland" northern Scotland, including the Inverness area
.
I'd guess that "scot free" indeed originated as the poster suggests, but
Scotland is from the Latin.


>>>>>Occasionally the odds are against us, and we get away scot free!

Scot free and Scotland, is Swedish did you know that?!

Scot, or as we Swedes spell it today "skatt", means tax, so when the
Vikings
ruled northern England they called it the Land of Tax, as the
inhabitants were
forced to pay tax to their Viking rulers. So originally scot free, was
evading
paying the taxes due to us Vikings ;-)!

"En skatt", is a treasure, but many collected "skatter" becomes a
Treasury :-)!

As the Phrase Finder puts it:

"Scot as a term for tax has been used since then to mean many different
types of tax.
Whatever the tax, the phrase 'scot free' just refers to not paying
one's taxes.

No one likes paying tax and people have been getting off scot free
since
at least the 16th century. This reference from Vincent Skinner's
translation of
Reginaldus Gonsalvius Montanus's A discovery and playne declaration of
sundry subtill practises of the holy inquisition of Spayne dates from
1598:

Escape scotte free."

http://www.phrases.org.uk/ <<<<<<<<<<<<<<
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