Article by our Games Secretary
Friday, January 1, 2010, 01:24 PM
Posted by Administrator
“A wonderful gift from the past”
by Gerry Reynolds
Secretary of the Inverness Highland Games It is reported in numerous books and Highland games programmes, that King Malcolm III in the 11th century, summoned contestants to a foot race to the summit of Craig Choinnich (overlooking Braemar) in order to find the fastest runner in the land to be his royal messenger.
While many have claimed that this event is the origin of today's modern Highland games, the fact remains that a hill race is a hill race and Highland Games are, and always have been, something entirely different.
Highland Games can best be defined as a wonderful collection of traditional Scottish activities all happening in the same place at the same time.
While there are some who will argue that Hoghland Games can trace their roots back to the party that happened after the Battle of Bannockburn in June 1314, it is fair to say that there is a bit of straw grasping going on when folk try to link modern Highland Games with that particular celebration. For one thing, according to the academics, the first recorded use of the word "Highlander" is generally attributed to John Fordun in 1380. To really discover how these Scottish activities all came to be gathered together we have to go to one of the darkest periods of Scottish History.
The Battle of Culloden on 6 April 1746 was the final clash between the French-supported Jacobites and the Hanoverian British Government in the 1745 Jacobite Rising. Culloden dealt the Jacobite cause—to restore the House of Stuart to the throne of the Kingdom of Great Britain—a decisive defeat. It was the last battle ever to be fought on British soil and the aftermath of the battle was particularly brutal and earned the victorious general the well deserved nickname of "Butcher" Cumberland.
A few months later, on 1 August 1746 The Act of Proscription came into effect in Scotland. The Dress Act was part of the Act and made wearing "the Highland Dress" including tartan or a kilt illegal in Scotland and this Act was part of a series of measures attempting to bring the warrior clans under government control by crushing Gaelic culture. An exemption allowed the kilt to be worn in the military, continuing the tradition established by the Black Watch regiment.
The law was repealed in 1782, but by that time kilts and tartans were no longer ordinary Highland wear, their use having been ended by enforcement of the law and by the circumstances of the Highland clearances. Within two years Highland aristocrats set up the Highland Society of Edinburgh and soon other clubs followed with aims including promoting "the general use of the ancient Highland dress".
According to Webster (1973) Donaldson (1986) and Jarvie (1991) Brewster et al. (2009) it is generally agreed that Highland Games became established in the modern format based on a St Fillans Society Gathering at Falkirk which, by 1819 had grown to include Athletics, Piping, Dancing (including the sword dance which made its debut at their Gathering that year) and Heavy Events.
Shortly afterwards, the famous Sir Walter Scott was given the job of stage managing the visit of King George IV to Scotland and he created a spectacular Highland pagent with the King portrayed as an Ancient Chieftain.
In “21 daft days” in 1822 Sir Wallter Scott laid the seeds of turning what had been seen as some as the uncivilised outfits of mountain thieves into national dress claimed by the whole of Scotland. This process was completed in 1848 when Queen Victorian purchased Balmoral Castle and Highland Dress and Highland Games subsequently became fashionable. It is a little known fact that the year before Queen Victoria purchased Balmoral that Prince Albert attended the Northern Meeting Games here in Inverness and that the poor organising committee that year had to postpone the whole event by 24 hours when they discovered he was going to be late.
While it is nice to think of Highland Games as suddenly appearing as a package complete with Heavy Events, Highland Dancing, Solo Piping, Track and Field Athletics and Massed Pipe Bands, the evidence suggests otherwise. Highland Games are a wonderful gift from the past that have given Scotland a unique cultural experience that is now being enjoyed at Games staged wherever Scots have settled all over the world.
Our own Inverness Highland Games are twinned with the Triad Highland Games in Greensboro in the USA and the Waipu Highland Games in New Zealand and at midnight on December 31st 2008 we became the first three Games in history to compete in a live intercontental Highland Games event thanks to the wonders of modern television and satellites orbitting the earth.
Things have certainly changed since the early days of Highland Games and if you want to know just how much I will leave you with one final example. At the first “True Highland Games” staged here in Inverness in 1822 three cows were killed by sledgehammer so that a competition could take place to pull a leg off one of the unfortunate beasties the fastest.
You will be pleased to know that this is one event that we will not to having again .
Unless of course we need the publicity...
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