Any festival would be highly favored to hang its hat on just one of these
spectacular events, but it’s the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games in
Linville, North Carolina, that lays claim to all of them. Considering the games
take place at one of the highest elevations east of the Rockies and in what
many call the most scenic place in North Carolina, it’s not so surprising that
the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games turn out so many superlative
events.
“It’s sort of like a 10-ring circus in a one-horse town,” says Frank Vance, who
has served as general manager of the Highland Games for 25 years. To be clear,
Grandfather Mountain’s average annual Highland Games attendance of 30,000
or more isn’t the most in the world, but it has more clans represented than any
other Scottish games — aye, even in Scotland (with the exception of Edinburgh
in 2009). More than 100 Scottish clans and societies attend each year. And
Vance suspects it’s because of the magnificent surroundings: an epicenter of
color and culture and activity sprawled across MacRae Meadows in the shadow
of Grandfather’s rugged peaks.
“This is the way it would have been in Scotland 200 years ago,” says Vance,
noting this isn’t any old festival crammed into a ball field or a parking lot. “I
don’t think that there’s a more beautiful location anywhere in the world than
Grandfather Mountain.”
AS THE GRANdFATHER MouNTAIN HIGHLANd GAMES strives to
foster and restore interest in Gaelic culture, the event is rich with Scottish rituals
and traditions.
on Thursday evening, one of the festival’s first events is the Torchlight
Ceremony — a call to raise the clans. Historically, the raising of the clans refers
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WBM july 2012