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The Highland Dancing Atlantic International Championship, and
center, herding demonstrations draw crowds. The games begin with
the Torchlight Ceremony, held on Thursday evening.
Frank Vance, general manager of Grandfather Mountain Highland Games
to a summons to battle, but at the Highland Games, the cere-mony
represents a celebration of Scottish heritage. A torchbearer
represents each participating clan. Approaching from the com-pass
points to symbolize the widespread distribution of Scottish
descendants, lines of torches glow in the darkening sky. The
four lines eventually meet to form a cross.
Sheep herding with border collies, one of Vance’s favorite
events, takes place on each day of the games.
“I’m an old, retired school teacher,” Vance explains. “Those
dogs obey their master so much more than my kids obeyed me.”
Rest and relax with storytelling by Orville Hicks of nearby
Beech Mountain, a lasting bastion of preserved stories handed
down by Scots-Irish peoples who settled in Appalachia hundreds
of years ago.
“The last place in North America that I know of that the
old stories in Scotland are told the way they were told is by the
Hicks family in Beech Mountain,” Vance says.
In addition to standard festival food, sample a menu of
Scottish fare, whether it is a Scotch egg (a hard-boiled egg
wrapped in sausage), meat pies or a lamb sandwich.
Attendees gather together on Sunday morning for a church
service representative of the old Presbyterian worship services
held in Scotland, including a Kirkin’ o’ the Tartans, during
which a clergyman asks a prayer over the tartans — the plaid
clothing patterns unique to each clan — requesting a blessing
for each family. The service is followed by the Parade of Tartans,
a stunning display of clan names, kilts, tartans and flags in a
march behind massed pipe bands.
www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com WBM
PHOTOgRAPHS by HELEN MOSS DAVIS
highland games july 12-15
g randfather mountain
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