Cabers and Claymores
Ann Hills on highland games at Braemar
Soon after Queen Victoria built Balmoral as her Scottish home eight miles from Braemar, she endowed the Braemar Gathering with a status which has survived. Each year, on the first Saturday in September, royaIty attend the games, along with around 20,000 visitors, to witness traditional sports – running and tossing the caber, throwing the hammer and Highland sword dancing accompanied by bagpipes.
The games encompass 'loyalty, royalty, tartanry and Balmorality', according to Grant Jarvie, the author of Highland Games: the Making of the myth, (University of Edinburgh, 9,95 pounds) which explodes the idea that they merely represent an eccentric spectacle among the heather-clad hills.
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