Re: [Paddlewise] Scot free

   Just happened to see Rick Steves in Scotland yesterday, along with his
   Scotish guide, and besides beautiful scenary, I heard the same story 
about
   Vikings taxing the Scots. Also surprised that Scotish restaurants 
sometimes
   are influenced by French cooking style.

   BRC


>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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