(See also a photo gallery of last year's Highland Games.)

Tossing a sheaf and throwing a Scottish hammer may sound like easy, whimsical sports, but blame it on the verbiage. This is hurling, chucking, sweaty athleticism, and the competitors in the Sarasota Highland Games play at full kilt. Angela Walsh is one of them.

A 41-year-old social worker from Sarasota, Walsh is the only local female thrower participating in the games at Saturday’s 19th annual Celtic Festival. Apart from the sports at the nine-hour event, there will also be authentic eats like haggas and Scotch eggs, Scottish and Irish dancing, live Celtic music, competing pipe bands from area schools, and more than 30 clan gatherings and genealogy stations.

“This festival and these games are really an amazing experience,” says Walsh, a descendant of the MacLeod clan who wears the family tartan to every competition. “The games are not like any other sports. It challenges you as an individual. It makes you feel strong and it’s a great stress reliever.”

There are seven of these “stress relievers” in total: the caber toss (a long, tapered pole hoisted while running); the open stone throw and the Braemar stone throw (both similar to the shot put); the heavy and light weight for distance throws; the Scottish hammer throw (a round, metal ball attached to the end of a shaft that is thrown over the shoulder); and the sheaf toss (a straw-filled burlap bag tossed vertically with a pitchfork).

The Highland Games date back to the 11th century and are reminiscent of a more pastoral way of life when only men competed. Nowadays the games are unisex pursuits, and though the women may throw lighter weights than the men, they are still hoisting 28-pound weights over bars, so it is no small challenge.

Bob Gourlay knows. A native of Dundee, Scotland, the Ocala resident is now the athletic director for the Sarasota Highland Games and judges championships countrywide.

“People will look at what we’re doing and say ‘That looks easy,’ but you’re throwing a 56-pound weight sometimes. A caber just looks like a long log but it’s a very heavy long log. It’s very difficult,” Gourlay says, adding that he anticipates about 50 athletes at Sarasota’s games, ranging in age from 17 to 60.

And not one of them will be “going commando,” Gourlay says.

“At one game, somebody was tossing the sheaf with the pitchfork and the fork caught on the kilt and ripped it off,” he says with a laugh. “When the guy fell over and people discovered he wasn’t wearing anything underneath, we figured, we’d better keep something on.”

Brian Andrews, 56, of Tampa, always does. A senior master athlete in the men’s division, he is a ranger for Hillsborough County parks by day and a Highland competitor by weekend.

“When people come to see you competing, they often think you’re doing a strongman competition, but this is really where that concept started,” Andrews says. “Both sides of my family are Scottish, from the Highlands. Two years ago I was in Glasgow and I was able to compete there for a one-day event and that was pretty incredible. It is just part of the history there.”

That is why Kathy Wilson, the Sarasota festival’s president, is carrying on the tradition her parents (Jim and Sheila Jackson) pioneered in 1994. The family, which is from Carluke, Scotland, owns Scots Corner (a Scottish specialty shop), and funnels the festival proceeds into the nonprofit Scottish Heritage Society of Sarasota, Inc. About 8,000 people attended last year’s event.

“In Scotland, the Highland Games were a huge part of life. It warms my heart to be able to extend the culture and the heritage to people who have never experienced it,” Wilson says. “There’s nothing that brings goose bumps to your arms more than when the bands come together to play ‘Amazing Grace’ at the end of the games. It takes your breath away.”

So does throwing a 56-pound weight with one hand.

Sarasota Highland Games and Celtic Festival

9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday

Sarasota County Fairgrounds, 3000 Ringling Blvd., Sarasota.

$10 in advance, $12 at the gate, children ages 12 and younger get in free

There will also be a related Celtic rock concert from 6 to 10 p.m. Friday at the fairgrounds for $5.

365-0818; sarasotahighlandgames.com.