Badges are the most misunderstood item and the item that is the most misused; disinformation is given out freely by good intentiond people who know nothing about the badges. They will tell you the crest is a badge, and it is not. Crests are a "strap and buckle" pin, within is the topmost portion of the Arms of the Chief of a Clan. The topmost part is usually a helm, (not always) with an item on top of that helm, when enclosed in a "strap and buckle pin, members of the clan may wear it. That is all of the arms that is worn by clan members. No one wears the Chief's Arms. except the Chief and family he designates to wear it.
The badge is a plant, worn by clans when they went to war. After a Fiery Cross was set, runners went out to all the Clan, members and allies. When they gathered to get ready they put a sprig of a plant, indigenous to their area, in their bonnet. That way they would see it and not fight their allies. The kilt, was not yet a kilt and was only saffron cloth, sometimes in muted checks, which could become undistinguishable in the twilight or dark. The plant badge was their best way of identifying themselves. All the true clans of the Highlands had a badge of one plant or another.
Clan Gunn's plant was Juniper, and Clan MacLeod of Lewis's plant was red whortleberry. That is what a true badge was.
In earliest times the badge of the clan was a native plant or tree. Sprigs or leaves were worn in the bonnet. Flora served as a clan badge until the 18th century at least, when Queen Victoria and Sir Walter Scott with his novels - The Waverly Novels, romanticized the clan items and regalia. It was strictly a Victorian invention to wear the clan crest as the badge and it is not correct.
If you are interested, read (on main menu) Queen Victoria's romanticizing of the Highlands.
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Nancy MacLeod MacCorkill, F.S.A. Scot,WSA
Author, Poet,
Historian of the Ancient Clans of Scotland
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