Snow Hill Celtic Festival

A fine fall Sunday afternoon it was. We drove about 1/2 hour up north to Snow Hill, then onward to Furnace Town. Furnace Town is a historical site with an old iron smelting furnace. This weekend it hosted the annual Celtic Festival. Apparently there are many local folk descended from Irish, Welsh, and Scots immigrants.

We were greeted by this fellow piping a greeting to all comers.

There was a set of craft booths displaying jewelry and Celtic gifts. They were accompanied by this booth making available kilts, sporrans, and kilt pins (at $150, they were moving a bit slowly).

A variety of Gaelic edibles were there. This was kind of homespun fare.

We tried a meat pie, a pastie, and a bit of colcannon. Colcannon is basically mashed potatoes with a bit of green stuff in it. Our had cabbage. Lunch was accompanied by a heather ale and a draft Harp.

The day was really about the exhibits and activities, though. The historical site is about iron and the surrounding activities. It is located where water power could add value by helping to blast air through the furnace. The furnace is a huge brick structure with a ramp to take visitors up to the top.

At the top you can see tubes used to blast in air. There is a mirror to show the center of the furnace. Not much there but cinders, though.

Next to the furnace was an exhibit of how the site prepared charcoal. A central green trunk was surrounded by a stack of small wood to form a chimney. Then more wood was packed in all around before piling on dirt and leaves. The dirt and leaves sealed off the wood after it was successfully lit. (Charcoal is made in an air-poor environment.)

The festival activities were continuous on several small stages and areas. They included a little that was not very Celtic in origin and a lot that was. A group of medieval martial artists was demonstrating how to brawl in armor. Nobody got hurt.

Apparently some guys get two sticks, while others get a shield and one stick. This guys liked to fight from the ground for some reason. Go figure...

There was a full complement of junior high school girls dancing Irish jigs and step dances. Can't get too excited about toe dancing or dancing with heavy shoes, though.

The music was pretty good. These guys were from the Ocean City Pipers. We enjoyed them quite a bit.

This little girl (12) sang Amazing Grace in Scots Gaelic. Then she sang some other ditties, forgetting the words to several of them. Maybe she forgot some of the first song, too, but we couldn't tell (it was in Gaelic; are you paying attention here?)

Some of the more unusual activities were more interesting to me. This guy in the skirt was showing off his smart sheep dog (Border Collie, I guess). The dog was really obedient and moved the sheep around effortlessly. It was fun to watch.

Did I mention this was Southern Baptist country? As we were walking around we were talking to a dude just by chance. As we got done he handed me this. Just in case I was forgetting one of them, I guess. Hmmmm, which one?

For me, the best was the last. There was a display of Scottish "heavy" events. I hated to crop this down. It doesn't do justice to how low he was squatting with that giant rock.

This dude was the announcer. Here he was busy throwing a 50-odd pound weight up in the air, then getting the hell out of the way before it came down. Apparently if you are under 40 years old you throw this weight around. If you are older you get the 42 pound weight to throw. This also showed us that these cheaters wear shorts under their kilts.

This stuff could be construed as farm-oriented. The next one certainly was. A bag weighing 20-30 pounds gets stabbed with a pitchfork. The pitchfork MUST have 3 tines only. The dude then takes a couple swings for momentum and throws the bag way the hell up in the air (like throwing a hay bale into a barn window?)

That left only the caber toss.We hadn't realized this is an accuracy game, not brute force. You have to get the caber's bottom end to go over the top, making it land as close as possible to your 12 o'clock after the toss. There are a bunch of ways to judge misfires and close calls. Come to find out, you can actually throw it in any direction. It just depends on which way you get comfortable with the tree. You have a judge that has to get directly behind you to judge your throw. How in the hell did they get started throwing a 20 foot tree around?