Highland Games Trivia
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41 free Highland Games trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Highland games trivia for anyone who has watched a caber turn end over end, marched behind a pipe band, or worn a kilt to a summer gathering. This quiz covers the heavy events first: how the caber toss is scored like a clock face, what the Braemar stone and the open stone are, how the Scottish hammer differs from the Olympic version, the 56-pound weight over the bar, the sheaf toss with a pitchfork and the 'lazy stick' contest from the Isle of Lewis. It then covers the gatherings and their history: King Malcolm III's hill race at Braemar, the ban on Highland dress after Culloden, Queen Victoria's 1848 visit, the Cowal Games in Dunoon with its World Highland Dancing Championship, the huge American gatherings at Grandfather Mountain, New Hampshire and Pleasanton, and the strongmen from Donald Dinnie to Geoff Capes. Highland dancing, bagpipes and kilts each get their turn. Questions range from easy to expert, and every answer was checked against a reference page and carries its source. If you enjoy this quiz, try our Scotland, bagpipes and strongman quizzes next.
30 of 41 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the pouch that hangs at the front of a kilt, standing in for pockets, called?
A sporran
A sporran can even need paperwork: under a Scottish law of 2007, the owner of one made from a protected animal such as an otter may have to hold a licence.
Q 02The Ceres Games in Fife honour villagers who fought for Robert the Bruce at which battle?
Bannockburn
Bannockburn: the games began in 1314 to mark the village men's return from the battle and are still held each June, billed as the oldest free games in Scotland.
Q 03A perfect caber toss is scored as what?
12 o'clock
12 o'clock is the top mark because a toss is read like a clock face from where the thrower stands: the caber must flip end over end and land pointing dead ahead, and one that topples sideways scores 9 or 3.
Q 04The 'Braemar' and 'Open' styles are the two versions of which Highland heavy event?
Putting the stone
Putting the stone keeps a real stone where the Olympics use a metal shot; the Braemar style allows no run-up at all, while the Open style lets the athlete glide or spin.
Q 05The Scottish ball-on-a-rattan-shaft event is the forerunner of which Olympic event?
Hammer throw
Hammer throw kept the Highland name but changed the tool: Olympic rules swapped the rigid shaft for a steel wire, while the Highland hammer still has a stiff handle about four feet long.
Q 06Why do throwers in the Scottish ball-and-shaft event sometimes wear boots with flat blades on the front?
To anchor their feet
To anchor their feet: unlike Olympic throwers they may not turn or step, so the blades are dug into the turf to hold them against the pull of the whirling weight.
Q 07Which dance often seen at Highland games is performed in naval uniform?
Hornpipe
Hornpipe dancers, in the sailor's version seen at the games, act out life under sail: hauling on ropes, manning the yardarm and other shipboard jobs.
Q 08What is the small knife that a kilt-wearer tucks into the top of his sock called?
A sgian-dubh
A sgian-dubh is Gaelic for 'black knife'; Highlanders once carried a similar blade hidden in the sleeve by the armpit, where today's is worn with its hilt showing above the stocking.
Q 09In the sheaf toss, a burlap-wrapped bundle of straw is thrown over a bar using what?
A pitchfork
A pitchfork hoists the sack of straw over a bar that goes up round by round until one thrower is left, the same knockout format as the weight over bar.
Q 10What is the classical solo music of the Highland bagpipe, a theme with elaborate variations, called?
Pibroch
Pibroch comes from the Gaelic for 'piper's art'; pipers also call it ceòl mòr, the great music, to set it apart from the marches and dance tunes played at the games.
Q 11Which event has light and heavy versions, each thrown one-handed with a spin?
Weight for distance
Weight for distance is contested with a 28-pound weight and again with a 56-pound one; a two-handed version of the same throw was twice an Olympic event, in 1904 and 1920.
Q 12Which 11th-century Scottish king reputedly staged a Braemar hill race to find his fastest messenger?
Malcolm III
Malcolm III, the Malcolm of Shakespeare's play, won his throne by killing Macbeth in battle in 1057; the Braemar Gathering still traces its beginnings to his hill race.
Q 13Which novelist staged George IV's tartan-clad royal visit of 1822?
Walter Scott
Q 21The Grandfather Mountain Highland Games, nicknamed 'America's Braemar', are held in which US state?
North Carolina
North Carolina's games were founded in 1956 by Agnes MacRae Morton and Donald MacDonald, who modelled them on the Braemar Gathering he had watched in Scotland two years earlier.
Q 22Which Scottish dish is hurled for distance in a novelty contest held at some Highland games?
A haggis
A haggis is hurled in a sport that began as a practical joke in the 1970s and caught on anyway: a throw of 180 feet from 1984 stood as the record for over twenty years.
Q 23Which 19th-century strongman from Aberdeenshire gave his name to Scotland's most famous pair of lifting stones?
Donald Dinnie
Walter Scott filled Edinburgh with tartan pageantry and put the king himself in a kilt, worn over pink tights; the show did much to make Highland dress a national costume.
Q 14The ban on Highland dress followed the Jacobite defeat at which battle?
Culloden
Culloden was followed within months by laws that outlawed the kilt for civilians and broke up the clan gatherings; the games revived only after the dress ban was lifted in 1782.
Q 15Which monarch first attended the Braemar Gathering, starting a royal tradition?
Queen Victoria
Queen Victoria came in 1848 and reigning monarchs have attended regularly ever since; in 1866 she granted the organising society the right to call itself Royal.
Q 16Europe's only private army is based at which Scottish castle, home of the Atholl Gathering?
Blair
Blair Castle's Atholl Highlanders are a duke's ceremonial bodyguard and no part of the British Army: a man can join only at the Duke of Atholl's personal invitation.
Q 17The Cowal Highland Gathering, one of the world's largest Highland games, is held in which town?
Dunoon
Dunoon was an easy trip by Clyde paddle steamer, and on games weekend its pier became the gateway for thousands of visitors to an event first held in 1894.
Q 18Which world championship is decided each summer at the Cowal Gathering?
Highland dancing
Highland dancing's world title is settled at Cowal each August, and the qualifying rounds pull in dancers from as far away as Australia and New Zealand.
Q 19In Pixar's Brave, Merida wins her own hand at the Highland games by beating her suitors at what?
Archery
Archery is the contest Merida picks herself: as her own clan's first-born she claims the right to compete, then outshoots the three clan leaders' sons lined up to marry her.
Q 20The Scottish Highland Gathering and Games, held since 1866 and billed as America's oldest, takes place in which US state?
California
California's games, founded by San Francisco's Caledonian Club, carried on through the 1906 earthquake and two world wars, and have missed only one year, 2020.
Donald Dinnie is said to have carried both boulders, 733 pounds between them, across the width of a bridge with his bare hands in 1860.
Q 24What is fixed to each of Scotland's most famous lifting stones so they can be gripped?
An iron ring
An iron ring is set into each boulder; a local strongman is said to have carried the pair, 733 pounds in all, across a nearby bridge bare-handed in 1860, and lifters still come to try them.
Q 25Which strongman won world Highland Games titles in Nigeria and Scotland?
Geoff Capes
Geoff Capes won world heavy-events titles in Lagos and at Carmunnock in the 1980s; away from the arena the giant bred prize budgerigars and became president of the Budgerigar Society.
Q 26What are a Highland bagpipe's three single-note pipes called?
Drones
Drones, two tenor and one bass, sound without a break because air flows from the bag continuously, which is why a piper can never play a moment of silence between notes.
Q 27Which Highland-games dance is a comic parody in which the dancer may play a furious washerwoman?
Irish Jig
Irish Jig is a Scottish send-up of Irish dancing: in a red and green costume instead of a kilt, the dancer acts out a temper, aimed at her husband in some tellings of the story.
Q 28What does the name of the dance 'Seann Triubhas' mean in Gaelic?
Old trousers
Old trousers: the word 'trousers' itself comes from the Gaelic triubhas, and a popular story has the dance's sweeping kicks as a Highlander shaking off the hated trews.
Q 29The Sword Dance performed at the games is also known by what Gaelic name?
Ghillie Callum
Ghillie Callum is said to have begun as a victory dance: in the legend a Scottish warrior laid his own sword across his slain enemy's and danced over the crossed blades.
Q 30In the Highland Fling, the dancer's raised arms are said to represent what?
A stag's antlers
A stag's antlers: the Fling is reputed to have begun as a shepherd boy's imitation of a stag on the hill, and it is still danced on one spot from start to finish.