Comrie Flambeaux Procession
At the stroke of midnight on Hogmanay, selected villagers carry ten-foot birch poles topped with burning tarred rags through the streets of Comrie, led by the pipe band, before hurling the spent flambeaux into the River Earn in a custom believed to date to pagan or Pictish times.
A well-kept conservation village on the Highland Boundary Fault, punching above its size with a genuine Mackintosh building in the main street, strong community character, and enough cafes, pubs and walking trails to fill a half-day comfortably.
Cottages, B&Bs and hotels near Comrie, Perth and Kinross.
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"Wades Park at Aberfeldy hosts its games beside the same River Tay that Robert Burns immortalised in verse, where the Birks of Aberfeldy rise behind the field and the games serve as the climax of the town's summer show weekend in the heart of highland Perthshire."
Aberfeldy Highland Games
"Market Park in the town that was once the largest cattle market in Scotland and the southern end of the drove roads from the Highlands hosts its gathering each August, where the Knock hill rises above the ground and the games feel rooted in a landscape that shaped the character of the entire Highland cattle trade."
Crieff Highland Gathering
"Scotland's premier sheepdog competition over four days at Letham Farm in the Ochil Hills, where the nation's finest handlers qualify for the International and the once-every-three-years World Trial."
Scottish National Sheepdog Trials
"A secluded Perthshire glen games in the hills above Blairgowrie, where the heavy events take place on a field ringed by heather moorland and the highland dancing stage backs onto birch woodland."
Strathardle Highland Games
"Amid Shakespeare's Birnam Wood you can watch the gloriously daft World Haggis Eating Competition alongside the caber and the Mad Kiltie Dash."
Birnam Highland Games
✦ Weird and Wonderful"Games in the heart of Perthshire soft fruit country the weekend after Braemar, when the season's competitors make one of their final gatherings of the year on Bogles Field."
Blairgowrie Highland Games
"Lauder's Common Riding is one of the most intimate of the Borders festivals, with a mounted Cornet leading riders along the ancient marches of this small market town on the edge of the Lammermuir Hills."
Lauder Common Riding
"Coldstream's civic week climaxes with the Coldstreamer leading a mounted rideout to Flodden Field, honouring the Borderers who fell in the 1513 battle in one of the most moving riding ceremonies in Scotland."
Coldstream Civic Week
"A man encased head to toe in sticky burrs walks the town for nine hours, a fertility custom of unknown but ancient origin."
Burryman's Parade
"One of Scotland's oldest music festivals brings Gaelic nights, ceilidhs, pipe bands and distillery tours to a remote Kintyre town at the road's very end."
Mull of Kintyre Music Festival
"One of Scotland's most distinctive gatherings, the Lonach sees kilted clansmen march twelve miles carrying pikes before the Highland Games begin at Bellabeg in the upper Don valley."
Lonach Highland and Friendly Society Gathering
"Four days of traditional music on an Hebridean island reachable only by ferry, workshops, open sessions, ceilidhs in the island hall, and the Atlantic on all four sides."
Ceol Cholasa: Colonsay Folk Festival
Villagly Award · Hardest to Reach