It is reported in numerous books and Highland games programs, that King Malcolm Canmore, in the 11th century, summoned contestants to a foot race to the summit of Craig Choinnich (overlooking Braemar). Some have seen in this alleged event the origin of today's modern Highland games.
There is a document from 1703 summoning the clan of the Laird of Grant. They were to arrive wearing Highland coats and "also with gun, sword, pistill and dirk". From this letter, it is believed that the competitions would have included feats of arms.
Following the repeal of the Act of Proscription, various Highland Societies, beginning in the 1780s, began to organize around attempts to retain or revive Highland traditions. It was these early efforts that eventually led to the Highland Games as we know them today.
This modern revival of the Highland Games received an enormous boost with the visit of King George IV to Scotland in 1822, although events were held in the years just prior to that. In 1819, for example, the St. Fillans Society organized a full scale Highland games with piping, dancing, and athletics. The City of Inverness Highland Games was first held in 1822.
In the 1840s, in Braemar, Games began as a fund raising effort by local artisans to support a "Friendly Society" and their charitable activities. Soon thereafter, Queen Victoria who, together with her consort Prince Albert, had made Balmoral Castle their special retreat, began to patronize the Games. The Queen first attended the Braemar Games in 1848 and the following year, they were moved to the grounds of the Castle itself. Later,in 1868, the first in a series of "Highland Memoirs" excerpted from Victoria's Journals, would be published.
Together with the earlier 1822 event, Queen Victoria's patronage of the Games constituted one of the most significant factors in the popularization of the Games and what some have called the Highlandification of Scotland.
Among better-known games in Scotland are the ones held at Braemar, Inverness, Cowal, Lonach, Ballater and Aboyne. The Aboyne games have been running since 1867 without a break apart from the two world wars.
In the latter part of the 19th century, the Highland games played a role in the development of the Olympic movement. As part of his efforts to organize the first games, Baron Pierre de Coubertin visited a number of athletic competitions in order to determine which sports should be included in the forthcoming Olympic Games, to standardize rules, and to examine the technical aspects of running such a competition. Among the events he visited for this purpose were a Highland Games event organized in conjunction with the Paris Exhibition of 1889. That event, in addition to what we today would call track and field events, also contained wrestling, tug-of-war, cycling, as well as competition in piping and dancing.