Cowal Highland Gathering in Dunoon 2017

A spectator at the Highland Games
 

Well I have now experienced a real Highland Games and we had an entertaining afternoon despite the mud!  The Highland Gatherings were historically for the clans to gather and show off their best warriors skills and to showcase their music and dancing talents. So we saw all the Heavy Athletics events which were listed as Throwing the Hammer Scots style; Tossing the Tilhill Caber and throwing the Cowal Stone.



The Wrestling Judge

Entrants were from Scotland, Iceland (their team  won last year) and Germany. My grandson found the German lady entrant's name hilarious, Sylvana Bomholt, I will leave that to your imagination (try saying her surname out loud leaving off the final letter!)


The Scottish wrestling was very entertaining to watch, as men in kilts had to wrestle each other to the ground. There was no ring it was just done on the grass in bare feet. There was also a ladies class.

Scottish Wrestling with a steward looking on
 

The Highland Ladies
 

The Gathering was also host to the World Highland Dancing Championships, the Pipe Band Championships and the Solo Piping. The dancers came from as far afield as the USA, Canada, New Mexico, Ireland and New Zealand. It was a truly international event with entrants in other categories fromd France as well as Europe and Iceland as previously mentioned.

The Clan - Scotland's Cycle Stunt Team and the Ridgeside Falconery were putting on displays to entertain the crowds and of course a Ceilidh Tent with live music. The Falconery was interesting as the show included owls! There were some interesting facts such as the mews were originally home to the falcons and other birds of prey. The expression "Pound of Flesh" didn't come from Shakespeare but is a falconery term. All families would have some hunting bird and the rich families would have a falcon and their own falconers who lived in the mews with their birds. These birds were expensive and precious so if the falconer lost a bird he had to pay in a pound of his own flesh as this is what the bird might have caught. Rather gory!

There was also a 5k run and a Hill Run Race and other entertainments such as the strolling stilt man.

 

Scottish Wrestling with the Heavy Athletics going on in the background

On the ferry over we met a man who appeared to be a Highlander but he was in fact a visiting American from Florida. He did claim to be half Scottish though! A truly international gathering and an experience I won't forget.