Critic's Pick: Middle Tennessee Highland Games and Celtic Festival

By the bonny, bonny banks where the Cumberland meets Old Hickory Lake, the annual Middle Tennessee Highland Games and Celtic Festival returns with two packed days celebrating Scots and Celtic heritage. If you aren’t deeply versed in or connected to these cultures, the weekend’s events are a great entry point to their expansive history. You’ll find an array of vendors selling goods, food and drink. There are two stages featuring traditional and contemporary music — groups like SYR and Tuatha Dea bring the heavy rock end of the spectrum, while venerable Nashville group The Secret Commonwealth showcases Celtic music’s connections to string-band music — plus competitions in piping, drumming and traditional dance. There’s also a kids’ area, a haggis toss and a Bonniest Knees competition. And there’s a full slate of traditional athletic competitions to watch as well. They’re astonishing feats of strength that also sound kinda metal, including the caber toss, in which competitors throw a 20-foot wooden pole as far as they can with bare hands; the sheaf toss (using a pitchfork, they must chuck a huge sack of straw over a high bar); and weighted throwing sports including the hammer toss and open stone throw. 

Sept. 12-13 at Sanders Ferry Park

513 Sanders Ferry Road, Hendersonville