Highland Games

Clans, Others Will Gather At Grandfather Mountain On July 9-12

LINVILLE, N.C. – Attending the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games and Gathering of Scottish Clans, July 9-12, will be like visiting another country.
You’ll have to learn some foreign terminology – Gaelic, to be precise – if you want to make heads or tails of the events schedule.
“Caber,” for example, may be roughly understood to mean a telephone pole, though the word was invented centuries before there were such things.
Caber throwing, therefore, is an athletic event in which burly men wearing plaid skirts hurl enormous tree-sized projectiles as far as they can hurl them.
Similarly, “clachneart” is a 16-pound stone, known to the Scots as “the stone of strength.” The clachneart competition bears a strong resemblance to the shot put.
A “sheaf,” yet another item subject to vigorous hurling, is a big bag of hay.
Coming off the athletic field in no way relieves the spectator of rigorous linguistic exercises.
The “ceilidh” is a Scottish folk festival and social gathering that typically involves step dancing – think “Riverdance.”
And then there’s the “Gaelic Mod,” which is a judge’s court, where the singing, dancing and playing become competitive, with prizes awarded, and musicians are likely to play a “trump,” or jaw harp.
The “kirkin’ o’ the tartan” on Sunday is part of a worship service, “kirk” meaning church and “tartan” evoking not only the distinctive plaids worn by each Scottish clan – more than 100 of them are expected to gather at the games – but all the related ancestral associations woven into their brightly colored fabric.
Long before you stumble across these various tidbits of fascinating folklore, the first and most important Gaelic term you’ll see, splashed in big letters across signs and programs, is “ceud mile failte.” It means “a hundred thousand welcomes.”
Harris Prevost, vice president of Grandfather Mountain, says that all hugely welcomed visitors are likely to learn a lot more than just a few new words.
“People who come just for the entertainment find out that they are Scottish,” he said. “Their names may not sound Scottish but these septs – a clan will have a number of different septs – have tents set up where you can go and say, ‘My name is such-and-such and am I a member?’ And they will be able to look it up for you and tell you exactly where to go. And then you can go to the clan and find out all about your ancestors. All the clans have histories and all that information.”
A “sept,” he added, “is a family under the protection of the clan. They’re part of the clan in that they’re in the clan territory, and if they went to war, they would all be on the same side. Probably they are not blood-related, but have some kind of arrangement where they’re protected or cared for.”
Even if you were to discover, most tragically, that you have not one single drop of Scottish blood flowing in your veins, Prevost swears you’ll still have a great time at the games.
Something of interest takes place in every part of MacRae Meadows on every day.
“Pretty much on every corner are natural amphitheaters because of the slope of the land,” he said. “In those areas, some venues have been established for entertainment groups. One may focus more on Scottish folk music or softer music, and another may be more contemporary rock fusion, a merging of rock with Scottish music. Rock bands with pipes. They’re very popular.”
In various times and places there’s a footrace, a torchlight ceremony, a bike race, children’s activities, a marathon, clan tugs-of-war, sheep herding and border collie demonstrations, piping, fiddling, harp-playing, drumming and lots of marching and parading about. Estimated attendance at this year’s games will be in the range of 30,000.
“It’s far more than the athletic events on the field and the piping contests,” Prevost said. “It’s a lot of pageantry, and it’s very colorful. This is a beautiful setting reminiscent of northern Scotland.”
And speaking of the beautiful setting, in June, a huge chunk of Grandfather Mountain was deeded to the state of North Carolina, converting 2,600 acres into a brand-new state park.
That back-country tract is on the part of the mountain renowned for its miles of hiking trails and abundant wildlife, including bears, cougars, otters, and Bald and Golden eagles, not to mention some spectacular scenery. The partial transition to public land is the first phase of more changes down the trail.
Long term, the plan is to buy out the Morton family ownership and turn Grandfather Mountain into a nonprofit foundation.
But for the time being, the famous Mile-High Swinging Bridge, the Natural History Museum, the restaurant and gift shops, and MacRae Meadows are still retained under a privately-held organizational umbrella.
“The attractions will be part of the foundation but will still be run by the family,” Prevost said.

YOU SHOULD KNOW
Globally renowned as a nature preserve and biosphere, Grandfather Mountain is one of the highest peaks in the Appalachian chain. From the ridge of his brow to the tip of his nose – it may take just a bit of imagination to see the grandfather profile in the topography of this mountain – the summit tops out at 5,946 feet.
You can see this most famous view of the old man from Highway 221, at the entrance to the mountain, 17 miles south of Boone, N.C. The scenic route would be to exit the Blue Ridge Parkway at milepost 305. The address is 2050 Blowing Rock Highway, Linville, NC 28646.
To learn more about Grandfather Mountain, go to www.grandfather.com or call (800) 468-7325. For information concerning the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games – including a schedule of events – go to www.gmhg.org or call (828) 733-1333.

LOIS CAROL WHEATLEY is a freelance writer. Contact her at features@bristolnews.com.