"Favourite Scottish Highland Games Sport?" Topic

What's your favourite traditional sport from Scottish Highland Games events?

Caber Toss
Hammer Throw
Hill Race
Stone Put
Tug-o-War
Weight for Distance
Weight for Height

We have the sci-fi sports poll going, let's get back to the stone age, as the Highlands do best!

Shot o' whisky swallow.

Tossing the caber – it's fabulously silly

Caber toss. 👍
It should have been used to break up pike blocks.

I'm going to assume "weight for height" equates to the sheaf toss? Then that one. There's a practicality to it, and no mythologizing about it originating as "secret combat training". I always thought they should add an endurance variant; who can toss the most over a set height before they collapse?

Nessie rasslin'!

Descriptions and vids of a number of the events here. Weight for height specs are down near the bottom of the page:
link

Hill racing. Going up is brutal, going down is suicidal.

It should be an Olympic sport.

YouTube link

Blood feuds, cattle rustling and kidnapping seem to have been omitted.

RP – not saying these are totally irrelevant but I feel you're confusing the Borders with the Highlands.

google -'Reivers'

No, I think you will find a whole lot of blood feuds among the clans along with cattle rustling. Maybe not so many kidnappings.

I'll confess I hesitated over cattle rustling, ochoin. It's so much handier when you have a national border close by. But if you have clans, ruminants and a weak central government, it's pretty much inevitable.

Hilarious!
Honorable Mentions:

Haggis Tossing
Wench Tossing
Lassie Wrangling
Bagpipe Tossing
Counting the Pence
Cullen Skinking
Hieing the Noo
Gettin' Steamin'
Flouncing the Sassenach
Bogarding the Uisgebaugh

Certainly the Highland clans could be rather tumultuous – indulging in all three activities.

However, the Border clans (both sides of the border) were specialists.

So we could add Blackmail* to the list of sports.

*the various outlaw clans began setting up protection rackets, demanding money from farmers in return for not being raided. If the farmers didn't have money then they could pay in things like barley, malt and oats instead. If they couldn't pay at all, they were kidnapped until their families coughed up.

This extortion practice became known as 'black mail'. 'White mail' was the tax you paid the king.

The Mob in America would call the Highland blackmailers "Earners".

I'm with Shagnasty.

And how could I have forgotten blackmail? Not only a Scots name for the sport, but the very sport the Black Watch was organized to prevent. Thank you, ochoin.

And yes, the priority of the various sports would be different out of the Highland Zone and nearer the English border.

All in a spirit of fun, I hope. I've been to Scotland, and even a bit into the Highland Zone--a courteous, welcoming and generous people, though I think driving on a Highland secondary road is perhaps too dangerous to be considered for the Olympics. The (permanent) signs reading "ONCOMING TRAFFIC IN MIDDLE OF THE ROAD" are a little disconcerting for the visitor, but a true part of Scots culture, rarely seen elsewhere.

I'll do my turn in the barrel when we do Hoosier, German or American sports.

My favourite traffic sign in Edinburgh was "CHANGE OF PRIORITIES AHEAD". Never know what will happen after you go down that road.

But really, some of you folks should get out to the actual Highland Games events, they are a lot of fun to watch!