The Highlands is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots language replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands. The term is also used for the area north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, although the exact boundaries are not clearly defined, particularly to the east. The Great Glen divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands. The Scottish Gaelic name of A' Ghàidhealtachd literally means "the place of the Gaels" and traditionally, from a Gaelic-speaking point of view, includes both the Western Isles and the Highlands.
John Brown was a Scottish personal attendant and favourite of Queen Victoria for many years after working as a gillie for Prince Albert. He was appreciated by many for his competence and companionship, and resented by others for his influence and informal manner. The exact nature of his relationship with Victoria was the subject of great speculation by contemporaries.
The River Avon is a river in the Strathspey area of the Scottish Highlands, and a tributary of the River Spey. It drains the north-eastern area of the Cairngorm Mountains and is largely contained within the Cairngorms National Park
A ghillie suit is a type of camouflage clothing designed to resemble the background environment - such as foliage, snow or sand. Typically, it is a net or cloth garment covered in loose strips of burlap (hessian), cloth, or twine, sometimes made to look like leaves and twigs, and optionally augmented with scraps of foliage from the area.
Highland games are events held in spring and summer in Scotland and other countries with a large Scottish diaspora, as a way of celebrating Scottish and Celtic culture, especially that of the Scottish Highlands. Certain aspects of the games are so well known as to have become emblematic of Scotland, such as the bagpipes, the kilt, and the heavy events, especially the caber toss and weight over bar. While centred on competitions in piping and drumming, dancing, and Scottish heavy athletics, the games also include entertainment and exhibits related to other aspects of Scottish and Gaelic cultures.
The River Spey is a river in the northeast of Scotland. At 98 mi (158 km) it is the ninth longest river in the United Kingdom, as well as the third longest and fastest-flowing river in Scotland. It is important for salmon fishing and whisky production.
Loch Shiel is a freshwater loch situated 20 kilometres (12 mi) west of Fort William in the Highland council area of Scotland. At 28 kilometres long it is the 4th longest loch in Scotland, and is the longest to have retained a natural outflow without any regulation of its water level, being 120 m (393 ft) deep. Its nature changes considerably along its length, being deep and enclosed by mountains in the north east and shallow surrounded by bog and rough pasture in the south west, from which end the 4 km River Shiel drains to the sea in Loch Moidart near Castle Tioram.
In the United Kingdom, a gamekeeper is a person who manages an area of countryside to make sure there is enough game for hunting, or fish for fishing, and acts as guide to those pursuing them.
Highland dance or Highland dancing is a style of competitive dancing developed in the Scottish Highlands in the 19th and 20th centuries, in the context of competitions at public events such as the Highland games. It was created from the Gaelic folk dance repertoire, but formalised with the conventions of ballet, and has been subject to influences from outside the Highlands. Highland dancing is often performed with the accompaniment of Highland bagpipe music, and dancers wear specialised shoes called ghillies or pumps. It is now seen at nearly every modern-day Highland games event.
Auchlyne is a small hamlet in Stirling, Scotland. It is located approximately five miles west of Killin on Loch Tay, off the main A85 road that runs from Perth to Oban.
Clan MacBean, is a highland Scottish clan and is a member and historic sept of Clan Chattan.
Clan MacMillan is a Highland Scottish clan. The Clan was originally located in the Lochaber area of the Scottish Highlands during the 12th century. The clan supported Robert the Bruce during the Wars of Scottish Independence, but later supported the Lord of the Isles in opposition to the Scottish Crown. During the Jacobite rising of 1745 the clan was divided with some supporting the Jacobites and others not taking part in the rebellion.
Ledgowan Forest is a deer forest in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland. It stands in Wester Ross to the southwest of Achnasheen. Ledgowan Forest is the location of Carron Bog, the starting point of the River Carron.
The River Carron is an east coast river in Sutherland, in the Highlands of Scotland.
In Scottish folklore the Ghillie Dhu or Gille Dubh was a solitary male fairy. He was kindly and reticent, yet sometimes wild in character. He had a gentle devotion to children. Dark-haired and clothed in leaves and moss, he lived in a birch wood within the Gairloch and Loch a Druing area of the north-west Highlands of Scotland. Ghillie Dhu is the eponym for the ghillie suit.
Kiltarlity is a small village in the Highland council area of Scotland. It is 12 miles (19 km) west of Inverness and 2.5 miles (4.0 km) south of Beauly, on the south bank of the Bruiach Burn. It has a population of under 1,000 people, and a local primary school, Tomnacross Primary. Lovat Shinty Club play at Kiltarlity, on a pitch beside the village's main street, Balgate Drive.
The Highland Clearances were the forced evictions of a significant number of tenants in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, mostly in two phases from 1750 to 1860.
John Gregorson Campbell was a Scottish folklorist and Free Church minister at the Tiree and Coll parishes in Argyll, Scotland. An avid collector of traditional stories, he became Secretary to the Ossianic Society of Glasgow University in the mid-1850s. Ill health had prevented him taking up employment as a Minister when he was initially approved to preach by the Presbytery of Glasgow in 1858 and later after he was appointed to Tiree by the Duke of Argyll in 1861, parishioners objected to his manner of preaching.
Ardverikie House is a 19th-century Scottish baronial house in Kinloch Laggan, Newtonmore, Inverness-shire, Scottish Highlands. The house was made famous as the fictional Glenbogle estate in the BBC series Monarch of the Glen.
Glas-allt-Shiel is a lodge on the Balmoral Estate by the shore of Loch Muick in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. In its present form it was built in 1868 by Queen Victoria, who called it Glassalt, to be what she called her "widow's house" where she could escape from the world following the death of her husband Albert. It is now a category B listed building owned personally by Charles III. Adam Watson considers that "Glas-allt-Shiel has undoubtedly one of the most spectacular situations of any lodge in the Highlands."
