THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 23, 1996 TAG: 9606230051
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEPHEN HARRIMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: 117 lines
The Tidewater Scottish Festival is a lot more than guys in skirts with big dirks hanging from their waists and little knives stuck in their socks, more than Rob Roy for a day, more than Braveheart in the broiling heat.
It's even more a commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the death of Robert Burns, who reinvented Scotland after the English had hammered their northern neighbors into submission, done a bit of ethnic cleansing and robbed the Scots of their national identity by taking away their tartans.
But Scotland it wasn't.
At a nearly shadeless Chesapeake City Park, with the sun pounding down through the damp air, it seemed more like Barbados without a breeze.
Scots being a clannish bunch, this annual event is more like a family reunion. There are Scots from Scotland, Scots from Canada, and of course Scots from all around here. For those new to the heritage thing, there were several tents that offered general genealogical assistance.
Most of these Scots wear tartan patterns, which denote the clan to which their family belongs. So, you can just look at a person's outfit and know - if you have an encyclopedic knowledge of the hundreds of patterns - whether your ancestors hated each other or were pals.
I did meet one fellow, though, who wore a simple T-shirt that read ``Not only am I perfect/ I am from Scotland/ Born and Bred.
What the men wear, I should quickly point out to avoid many phone calls from angry men with brogues, is not a skirt but a kilt. It takes from six to 10 yards of worsted wool fabric to make one of these things. If you're thinking of getting one, guys, the pleats go in the back and fashion dictates a hemline just above the knee. Careful about crossing your legs.
And contrary to popular belief, men usually DO wear something underneath, usually the same thing worn under trousers.
The dirk is a big knife, sort of like a Roman sword, although I believe the Scots adopted the idea from the Saxons. It was used when wielding the giant broadsword would be overkill.
I got two differing reports on the little knife in the sock. It's called a sgian dubh (pronounced skien-doo, or something like that) and it means black knife because traditionally it had a black handle.
It's stuck down in the hose, by the way, not sock. One fellow told me you left the handle showing if you were with a friend, but stuffed it all the way down into the, uh, hose if you intended to kill someone. That is, so they wouldn't see it.
Another fellow said that didn't make any sense at all. How would you get to it to kill someone if it was stuck all the way down?
It's a moot point. All the little knives I saw had the handles showing. I was among friends.
There were stands offering typical British fare - meat pies, bridies, shepherd's pies, fish and chips, bangers on a bun and other food substitutes - but I noticed that the first thing that sold out was the hot dogs.
The public address announced that Ferguson mules would be pulling a wagon for passengers. I thought for a while these must be Scottish mules, like Tennessee walking horses. Turns out they are just local mules, ``border twins'' called Virginia and Carolina, owned by Bob Ferguson of Chesapeake.
Whenever the Scots get together like this they have what are called Highland Games athletics, which are sort of like not-made-for-television Olympics.
Among the events are the 22-pound hammer toss, an idea that grew from guys goofing off around the blacksmith shop; the sheaf toss, in which a 16-pound sheaf of hay wrapped in burlap is tossed with a pitchfork over a crossbar; the weight toss, where a 56-pound hunk of steel is tossed, one-handed, over a bar; and the caber throw, in which guys attempt to hurl a 100-plus-pound telephone pole end over end without killing themselves.
How high would you guess the winner tossed a sheaf of hay - 17 feet? . . . 20 feet? I was amazed to see it sail over the bar set at 27 feet, 6 inches. That's as high as a third-story loft.
My favorite event is the border collie demonstration, because I am fascinated by animals who are smarter than I am, and I like to see animals work for a living. Border collies work sheep like you wouldn't believe.
These two - Kody, handled by Steve Atkinson of Muddy Creek Farm in Virginia Beach, and Whitney, handled by Carol Calhoun of Dixie Meadows in Elizabeth City, N.C. - were both black and white, the typical border collie colors, and looked to weigh about 60 pounds.
They had those five short-haired sheep doing whatever they pleased - that is, whatever their handlers told them to do, with voice or whistle commands.
And they do it all NOT by barking but by body language and intimidation. Kody was more free moving, crouching and darting back and forth, Whitney more deliberate. Both had what sheep herders call ``the eye.'' It looks like they're hypnotizing the sheep, but it's actually a sign of their intense concentration. Intimidation.
I wish I'd had Kody or Whitney or maybe both the other night when a big masked desperado of a raccoon got loose in my house. I do wonder how they'd do as 'coon dogs. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo on page B1 by HUY NGUYEN, The
Virginian-Pilot
Let the games begin!
Heather Pinsky, 9, hands off her sunglasses for safekeeping before
taking the practice stage with Cailine Drummond, far right, at the
Tidewater Scottish Festival in Chesapeake on Saturday.
Photo by HUY NGUYEN, The Virginian-Pilot
Michael Wilcherd, left, attempts to hoist the log used at the junior
division of the caber toss as his friend and competitor Seth
MacKenzie watches. A smaller log was used after the boys tried
unsuccess-
fully to lift the one used in the adult division. by CNB