A Scottish Weekend

"Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led,
Welcome tae your gory bed
Or tae victorie!" ~ Rabbie Burns

Last Saturday, I took a little trip up to Sky Meadows State Park outside Delaplane, Virginia for the 35th annual Northern Virginia Scottish games and festival.

The location was chosen for it's extraordinary resemblance to the Scottish Highlands.



As many of you know, my heritage is Scottish. My surname is a sept of clan Gunn, of the northern Highlands of Scotland. I was little disappointed to discover my clan was not represented at the festival, but I did meet another member of clan Gunn, here:He was the only other member of my clan I met there, although he told me there was another one there, one of the members of one of the bagpipe and drum bands. He is wearing a kilt of the Gunn clan tartan plaid. I have a tie just like it.

Here are some pictures I took of some of the Kilted Scots in attendance:



I tried a sample of Haggis, a national dish of Scotland. A Haggis is actually a large spherical sausage made of the liver, heart, and lungs of a sheep, all chopped and mixed with beef or mutton suet and oatmeal and seasoned with onion, cayenne pepper, and other spices. The mixture is packed into a sheep’s stomach and boiled. I got it from this stand here: If you click on the picture you can make out the word, "Haggis" below the counter behind the people standing there. Actually, the sample I tried wasn't in a sausage, so I don't know how authentic it really was, but they had the ingredients posted on a sign at the booth, and most of the ingredients they had in theirs are present in the preceding description.

It is not as horrible as it sounds, but it doesn't taste good.

I watched a little bit of the caber toss, a traditional Scottish sport that involved throwing a large pole. Caber is the Gaelic word for "tree" . Contrary to popular belief, the toss isn't judged on distance but rather, accuracy.



There was entertainment besides the Pipe and Drum bands previously alluded to. Here is a picture of a Scottish folk singer. I think his name was Robert McLeod. I'm not sure. He was very good.

Here is a picture of one of the bands that were entertaining. They had a parade sometime during the festival but I was somewhere else at the time and missed it.

As we were leaving the rain started to fall. You can see this gentleman and his wife were getting wet. So was I.

This picture wasn't at the festival. I saw this rather perplexing sight elsewhere. Both of these signs were in the front yard of the same house! I wonder if there is a disagreement between a husband and wife here:

Before I close, if anyone out there is still wondering what a Scotsman wears under his kilt, this may be the answer to the age old question: Click the picture unless you're squeamish.