The flag

If you come to Scotland, you’ll probably see it quite often, much more than the UK flag, so you may want to know a wee bit about it. First of all, the Scottish flag is called the Saltire or sometimes St Andrew's Cross. Through the years, the blue colour has varied between light or darker blue, so you can see several variations of it.

If you don’t know it yet, it has been used, with the Cross of Saint George (England) and the Cross of Saint Patrick (Ireland), to create the Union Jack, the flag of the United Kingdom.

'But why did they choose this design and not a plain background with a giant unicorn on it?' I hear you ask. For a start, we’ll talk about unicorns really soon, stay tuned, but for now, let me tell you a story:

 the Picts and the Scots were going to be attacked by the Angles (a Germanic people). Even being heavily outnumbered, their king refused to lose hope and prayed the whole night. On the morning, he claimed that Saint Andrew (one of the twelve apostles of Jesus, martyred on a saltire cross, we’ll talk about him later too, I said stay tuned!), appeared to him in his dream, promising victory. As the two armies were preparing for the battle, some strange cloud formed in the sky and it looked like a white cross on a bright blue sky. The omen lightened the heart of the Picts and Scots soldiers, while the Angels totally lost their confidence. Of course, it led to an incredible victory for the Picts and Scots clan and to the adoption of this symbol as the national flag of Scotland.

To be honest, this story has many flaws that I won’t discuss here to keep unscathed the beauty of the myth.

Now you know the basics of the flag of Scotland, see you next time pal!