Saturday we traveled with friends to our first Sottish Festival held in Lincoln, NH at Loon Mountain Resort. It was the 51st festival. Our friends have attended many times, so not knowing what to expect we told them we would follow their lead.
We headed first to the Parade Square where the opening ceremony and massed bagpipe bands were assembling. From there we went to see a dance contest and then ended up watching some of the highland games. There was so much going on, all at the same time on the schedule throughout the grounds. We only got a sampling.
For me one of the highlights was seeing all the people showing their Scottish heritage in their dress. I've never seen so many men in kilts and looking like in was a natural thing for them.
If you knew your clan, you could register at a tent set aside for it.
The opening ceremony started with a bagpipe band leading in all the clans represented here.
Not sure what the significance of this group was but we did see them later as we passed an area showing old crafts.
After the clans left it was time for the massed bagpiper bands.
I'm not one for bagpipe music in a confined space but here with the mountains around us the sound was wonderful.
We stopped in later to see a sword dancing contest. This was a young lady in the under 12 category.
These two were older and I was surprised to see a young man dancing it too.
Here's who provided their music.
Isn't this a lovely couple?
This man sang all the national anthems on the parade ground. He sounded much better in this setting. The anthems were for Canada, Scotland, Great Britain and USA.
Highland games included a type of shot put for women and men, caper toss (like tossing a telephone pole) and something with a pitchfork and make believe hay bale.
I'm hoping Blogger will let me load a video.
No luck with 39 second one.
We lucked out with the weather. It was a beautiful blue sky day with a high in the 60ºs. Sunday as I write this it's raining all day.
6 comments:
As you have no doubt see, we stumbled onto a Scottish event, on a smaller scale than yours, but quite delightful.
...what a fun celebration!
What a gorgeous day to visit the festival. All your photos are wonderful. Everything was so interesting!
Great to attend Highland festivities! And I enjoyed your photos too. We who have Scottish heritage enjoy sharing music and fun together!
What an interesting day! There are Highland Games here in western NC but I've never been. Men do look good in kilts (if they have nice legs.)
Ironically, on two visits to Scotland, I only saw one kilt and that was worn by a piper in a tourist area, paid to charm the visitors.
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