Like an annual Olympiad for sporran-wearing sportsfolk, Highland Games have been held for centuries around the north of Scotland. The most famous is the Braemar Gathering, where you can witness feats of strength (caber tossing, stone putting, weight throwing), fitness contests (hill running) and competitive displays of Celtic culture such as Highland dancing and bagpipe playing.
It’s believed that some sports now included in track-and-field athletic competitions worldwide, such as hammer throwing, originated with the Highland Games. The revival and popularisation of these events from the 1830s reputedly influenced the development of the modern Olympic Games. It’s claimed that Baron Pierre de Coubertin – co-founder of the International Olympic Committee – watched a Highland Games display at the 1889 Paris Exposition, and included some of its sports in the new competition.
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Where to see Highland Games
Local gatherings that come under the broad tartan umbrella of Highland Games take place from late spring through to early autumn, right across the region. They’re staged in Scottish towns and villages north and west of the notional Highland Line, defined roughly by the southern and eastern edges of the Grampian Mountains, and including the Cairngorms and islands.
The largest event in terms of competitors and spectators is the Cowal Highland Gathering. Held in late August in Dunoon, it attracts around 3,500 participants watched by crowds of 23,000. However, the most famous games are in a village on the River Dee in the Cairngorms: the Braemar Gathering at the Princess Royal and Duke of Fife Memorial Park, held on the first Saturday in September since 1832.
How did the Highland Games begin?
The exact origins are opaque, but a seminal event thought to have inspired the Games took place in 1064, when Scottish King Malcolm III (Malcolm Canmore, a pivotal character in Shakespeare’s Macbeth), challenged men to race up Creag Choinnich hill from Braemar in a bid to find the fastest runner to act as his royal messenger.
There’s evidence of inter-clan events featuring physical challenges being organised over the centuries that followed. However, in the aftermath of the Jacobite rising of 1745 and the Battle of Culloden the next April, all clan gatherings and celebrations of Highland culture were outlawed by the Act of Proscription – which also included the so-called ‘Disclothing Act’, banning the wearing of kilts. After this act was repealed in 1782, interest in traditional pursuits quickly gained momentum.
The Braemar Wright Society (now the Braemar Highland Society) was created in 1815, and the Braemar Gathering was launched in its current format 17 years later, continuing to this day. Queen Victoria attended the gathering in 1848, granting it royal status in 1866. Since then, the reigning monarch has traditionally attended and acted as the official patron of the event. King Charles III is the current Chieftain of the Braemar Gathering.
What happens at the Highland Games?
As well as a foot race up Craig Choinnich, invoking the original challenge issued by Malcolm Canmore, the signature event at the Braemar Gathering is the caber toss. This discipline involves throwing the trunk of a tree, typically larch, as far as possible – a key objective being to achieve a vertical flip.
This is just one of several ‘heavy’ events, which also include the stone put – like the shot put, but with a boulder – and the Scottish hammer throw.
There are also several weight throws, some judged by distance, others by height: the keg toss, in which a beer barrel is thrown over a horizontal bar and the sheaf toss, in which hay bales are catapulted with pitchforks.
Other strength contests include Maide-leisg (or ‘lazy stick’), which involves two competitors sitting sole-to-sole, gripping a stick between them, each attempting to haul his or her opponent off the floor. Competitive Highland dancing and music is also a mainstay.
Where's the largest Highland Games?
Following the Clearances, the diaspora spread Highland culture far and wide. Today, versions of the Games are held in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US. Indeed, the world’s largest – the Pleasanton Scottish Games – is staged in northern California every Labor Day weekend, attracting 50,000 spectators.
Top image: a pipe band makes their way through the site at the Braemar Royal Highland Gathering in 2025. Credit: Getty
