Fifty years of athletics

FIFTY YEARS OF ATHLETICS 21
followers took part. Malcolm II. started at one of
these " hunts," the first recorded " Games " by offering
as a prize a sword and a purse of gold to the first man to
reach, in a race, the summit of Craig Choinneach. Two
McGregor brothers were favourites, but a third and younger
brother, who was late in starting, won after a terrific struggle.
It was not, however, till 1832 that the first organised
Braemar Gathering took place. Queen Victoria was keenly
interested in these sports, and in 1889 invited society to
Balmoral. Later, the Duke of Fife gave the present Princess
Royal Park, where the meeting is now held. The clansmen
f
ather at the spot where the Jacobite standard was un-
urled in
1
715—which event is commemorated in " The
Standard on the Braes o' Mar "—and march to the sports
ground.
Since the year 1314 without a break, except during
the Great War, the Ceres Games, founded to celebrate the
return of the victorious Fife villagers from the battle of
Bannockburn, have been held annually. It is remarkable
that the name of the Fife agricultural village, Ceres, is
that of the Latin goddess, Ceres, the protectress of
agriculture and in whose honour great sports were in-
stituted.
Carnwath, in Lanarkshire, holds annually a meeting of
great antiquity. The Red Hose race is the principal event,
and popular and local tradition has it that in the event of
the Carnwath estate becoming heir-less, the latest winner
of the " Hose " would become proprietor !
Under the shadow of the Duke of Argyll's stately castle
at Inverary, a gathering of the western clans' representative
pipers, strong men, and runners has been held for centuries.
Running was a feature of this meeting, for the chiefs
of old encouraged their
Billie-ruith
or running foot-men,
to excel in the
Geal-ruith,
or running and leaping games.
Among great athletes in Scotland the two whose names
were, and still are, in the mouths of every one, were Captain
Barclay of Ury and Donald Dinnie. The former was a
great and up-to-date landed proprietor in Kincardine-
shire. Sprung from an ancient and physically powerful
family, he lived during the latter part ofthe eighteenth century
and the first half of the nineteenth. Educated at Cambridge,
he early joined the army and served as A.D.C. to the
G.O.C. of the ill-fated Walcheren Expedition. He was,
though of little more than ordinary size, possessed of great