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We Kilted Up To Try and Out Muscle Some Vikings… It Didn’t Go According To Plan

Cabers, bagpipes and bearded giants: we tried to conquer the Scottish Highland Games

The third episode of Mpora’s Eccentric Adventures series sees Fathead head over the border to test out his muscle at the Carmunnock Highland Games.

In case, much like Jon Snow, you know nothing of the north, the games are pretty much a display of everything you’d describe as stereotypically Scottish – bagpipes, kilts, music and chucking obscenely heavy objects from A to B.

Fathead puts his manhood to the test in the manhood stone challenge… Photo: Ruskin Kyle

Eccentric Adventures Episode 3: Everything You Never Needed to Know About the Highland Games

What is it? A display and celebration of Scottish culture filled with challenges that include giant sticks of wood, giant stones and giant Scotsmen and women.

The origin of the games predates recorded history, and they’re said to have heavily influenced Baron Pierre de Coubertin when he was planning the revival of the Olympic Games – though we don’t recall any caber tossing at London 2012.

Where is it? There are hundreds of Highland Games across Scotland each year, each of which takes place in spring or summer. The particular games we sent Fathead along to were in Carmunnock, a conservation village in the boundary of the city of Glasgow.

Who enters? Local strongmen and women who eat their porridge every morning and want to prove it. Expect people with long beards, big arms and, apparently in Carmunnock, Vikings.

Can I enter? Some Highland Games have stricter entry policies than others, and some are busier and more competitive than others. Check online for each Games though and you’ll more likely than not find an application form that will let you join in.

You can find an entry form for Carmunnock here, which will ask you for nothing more than your name, e-mail, why you’re interested and the answer to 2+2. So you do have to be somewhat of a basic mathematician to make the cut.

How did Fathead do? He chucked a heavy stone a reasonable distance, successfully lobbed a car tyre over a set of rugby posts and cheated his way to come second out of two in a hay bale race.

He also left his manhood in question by failing to lift a stone he still claims was “glued to the ground”. Practise needed.

Keep your eyes peeled for the next episode of Eccentric Adventures, dropping soon on Mpora.

Directed, produced and edited by Ruskin Kyle, with additional filming by Olly Nice. Video music credit: Live Music – Clann An Drumma.

You may also like:

Eccentric Adventures Episode 1: We Raced Against A Bunch Of Men In A Tin Bath Tub… And It All Went Horribly Wrong

Eccentric Adventures Episode 2: We Entered One of Britain’s Most Brutal Illegal Events… In Pursuit of Cheese

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