All ages are included and the children love the experience! Note: Information about the Border Collie demonstrations have not yet been released for Dog-lovers adore the Border Collies demonstrating their sheep and occasionally duck herding skills.
Scottish shepherds developed an elaborate system of whistle commands to accurately coordinate teams of collies across open fields to keep their flocks safe and organized. The festival typically has hawk handlers too. The trained red-tail hawks are amazing. Each clan is comprised of multiple family surnames septs. At the Highland Games, all of the clans have tents.
At the front of clan tents, there will be a genealogy tent where you can look up which clan your family may hail from, then find your clan tent. Visit your clan tent and meet the members for the best kind of games experience. Each clan has its own history and traditions which they will have represented at their tent.
Usually the clan tents have much to share. No worries, there is plenty of traditional Scottish fare to sample! Not to fear however! These are a perfect option for children. A bridie is a savory meat and vegetable pie similar to a hot pocket. They are easy for little hands to hold without making a mess.
Next, venture to the shopping area and take some time to peruse the wares. There are plenty of toys and novelties for the kids, lovely Scottish home decor items, jewelry, books and best of all, imported food stuffs that are difficult to find stateside! I personally stock up on PG Tips Scottish Breakfast tea — the most delicious way to start your day and remind you of your visit.
There is a great variety of British candies that are fun stocking stuffers. If you need a gag gift maybe a white elephant gift for the holidays? On November 25, , a flaming cross atop Stone Mountain announced the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan—a celebration of the reign of Jim Crow and a 20th century resurgence of lynching aimed primarily, but not entirely, at the Black sons, daughters, and grandchildren of former slaves in the South. Leo Frank , a Jewish pencil factory manager convicted of a murdering a year-old female employee, had been hanged by a white mob in Marietta only two months earlier.
Neither Scotland nor mother Britain had anything to do with the mountaintop cross-burning. But those with the matches claimed to be emulating an ancient Scottish tradition. In fact, they were also imitating a much newer phenomenon—Hollywood and its silent movie Birth of a Nation.
The D. The popular work lionized the first iteration of the Ku Klux Klan and its reign of terror immediately following the Civil War. But there is more to this tale than a single case of theocratic arson. Scholars on both sides of the Atlantic have long noted the relationship between Scotland and the American South when it comes to history and myth. At the very least, the relationship has provided a cultural escape hatch for many white Southerners.
The carving on Stone Mountain was begun in , the year of the cross-burning that announced the revival of the KKK. Work was finished in , the same year that the annual Highland Games began on the grounds of Stone Mountain. My father was never a fan. But when my parents abandoned Atlanta for Florida and retirement, my wife and I inherited Alice, an elderly cousin in Buckhead who was also from the Old Country.
And so we took her to Stone Mountain each October. It was on one of these weekends that I first saw the Games as something other than an opportunity to sample very tasty—and extremely unhealthy—Scottish cuisine. While I leaned on a fence, watching border collies work a herd of sheep, a somewhat familiar figure brushed past me, proudly sweating through a woolen kit that would have made any Edinburgh kiltmaker weep in financial ecstasy.
A short-waisted dress jacket hung over the pleated kilt. An expensive sporran, a leather purse, slapped at his waist. His sgian dubh, a small knife, was tucked into a knee-high sock, just as fashion required. And under the Glengarry-style cap, with its black ribbon hanging off the back, was the head of U.
Representative Larry McDonald, my congressman. Before there was Donald Trump, there was Larry McDonald of Marietta, a urologist by trade and a Democrat with few equals in Congress when it came to rabid conservatism. McDonald hid his racial animus under the anti-Communist cloaking of the John Birch Society, which he would briefly lead as national chairman. But this was the South, and we all knew the code words. It was the kilted McDonald who first pointed me to the troubled triangle of Scottish heritage, Southern racial politics, and Stone Mountain.
A second inkling arrived several years later. Larry McDonald was long dead, one of passengers killed in when their South Korean jetliner was shot down by Soviet fighters after wandering into Soviet airspace. But I was obliged to keep a skeleton staff busy, and the Highland Games were back in town. One of my charges was a somewhat sheltered, recent graduate of Spelman College.
The color quickly drained from her face. If there is a single individual standing at the intersection of Scottish and Southern mythology, it is Sir Walter Scott. Even with the adjustments, Stone Mountain Highland Games will provide the finest Scottish experience in the Southeast.
On Saturday and Sunday, we will be transforming the meadows and meandering tree-lined paths into the impressive mix of sights and sounds of a Scottish Highland Games presented in a uniquely southern style. Don your tartans if you have them and come join us. No tartan? That's OK too!
0コメント