The Icelandic tail-cap or skotthúfa is a typical part of the Iceland

Iceland

Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

ic national costume. Originally it was only worn by men, but starting in the 18th century women started to wear it along with the peysa, a men's jacket with a single row of buttons creating the proto-peysuföt. Later it was adopted for the bodice-dress (upphlutsbúningur ).

The men's version is usually striped, while the women's is almost always black.
While the men's version was knitted from fairly coarse wool the women's version used a small string with a tassel made of fine wool

Wool

Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and certain other animals, including cashmere from goats, mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, vicuña, alpaca, camel from animals in the camel family, and angora from rabbits....

 and later sewed with velvet

Velvet

Velvet is a type of woven tufted fabric in which the cut threads are evenly distributed,with a short dense pile, giving it a distinctive feel.The word 'velvety' is used as an adjective to mean -"smooth like velvet".-Composition:...

 with a silk

Silk

Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...

 tassel (35 – 38 cm.).

In the beginning of the 19th century, the tail-cap was rather deep, but from 1860 it was replaced by the modern, shorter version. The tassel and cap are connected with a tassel-cylinder (skúfhólkur) made of silver

Silver

Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

 or gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

. The cap is pinned in the hair by means of a black knitting-pin but if the woman wears plaits, the end of them are fastened under the cap in the neck with a typical cap-pin.