Only a Few More Days of Hunting Left This Year...

That's right. If you were hoping to win "a two night luxury break at the Gleneagles Hotel including breakfast and use of the sumptuous leisure facilities at The Club." you had better get "bloody cracking", "havering" or whatever they say in Scottland. 'Cause the season on Marag fabulosus is about to end.

The prey:





The History:

According to Ossian’s Encyclopaedia Eccentrica, the first historical document to mention the haggis is an account of the Roman invasion of Scotland written by Iocus. The noted scholar relates that as the Roman and Caledonian forces faced each other before the battle of Mons Graupius in 83AD a wandering Pictish holy man called Goileam saw a “small round creature revered by the tribes” dart from
the heather and run toward the invaders. Goileam turned to the Scottish army and, baring his breast, promised that this was an omen of victory and led a headlong charge against the forces of Agricola. Within an hour, Iocus tells us, more than 10,000 Caledonians lay dead, their army defeated, their land conquered. The Picts blamed the appearance of the small brown omen for the terrible defeat and sought to exact retribution on the creature that had so betrayed them. The haggis hunts began out of a desire for vengeance. It was then that the unfortunate creatures got their name – “haggii” comes from the Latin for “harried ones”. Before that fateful day, the haggii had been plentiful in Scotland. Like the Dodo, they did not fear man, while man basically left the odd looking animals alone. When the Picts unleashed their vengeful feud on the haggii, the small creatures were all but wiped out. But there was more to the events of that year than the persecution of an unfortunate beast by warriors feeling the pain of defeat. It was a time which saw one of the greatest culinary discoveries since fishermen first noticed that oyster shells could be opened.
The Scottish harvest of 83AD was particularly poor and the people were forced to find food anywhere they could. As they were hunting haggii anyway, the Picts started to eat them. To their great surprise, they discovered that haggises were delicious and named the animals’ main breeding area naidheachd bhreugach (place of plenty). Thus it was that the haggis became the staple food of Scotland. But so hunted were the haggii that it was nearly 100 years before they were seen in any great numbers again.

Try your luck!

P.S. ...One of these days, during the hunt, I'm going to stand in front of Haggis cam #10 in Times Square and flash the Haggis T-shirt that I won a few years ago.