The Reverend John Lane Buchanan noted from the 1780s in the Outer Hebrides that ‘Every beggar, male and female, must carry their blankets on their backs in a kind of sack made of grass, from house to house to sleep in. ‘ He also mentions sacks being generally used in houses and made of ‘benty grass’.
Resource
Rev. John Lane Buchanan ‘Travels in the Western Hebrides from 1782-1790’ 1793
