The Giant's Causeway: Bridge of Giants

Hello Friends!

I've recently returned from Ireland, where I've stood in the footsteps of Giants!  One of Ireland's biggest legends is Finn McCool or Fionn mac Cumhaill, a bigger than life hero!  Fionn has left his mark all over the Causeway! There's a camel that was given to him to ride home from a visit in the middle east, you can see his dear old Granny who is said to look out for Fionn (or scold him or drink a bit too much whiskey) and the chimney stacks of Fionn's house!  Fionn also plays the pipe organ, they say if you stand alone at 6 AM on Christmas Day you might be able to hear Fionn play!

But the greatest mark Fionn left was the Giant's Causeway itself, a bridge of basalt columns that stretched all the way to Scotland.  Finn built it to challange the Scottish giant Benandonner (in some versions of the tale in America say it's Cucullin and some say he's Scottish while some say he's Irish but to the people and literature in Ireland it's Benandonner and he's definitely Scottish).  Benandonner had a magic finger and kept a lightning-bolt that he'd flattened like a pancake in his back pocket!  Legend has it, Fionn challenged and challenged

Fionn's Shoe!

Benandonner but as Fionn got closer to Scotland and realized how big Benandonner was he high-tailed it back to Ireland and his home on Knockmany Hill.  He went so fast that he left his shoe behind!

Fionn took his troubles to his wife, Oona (Oonagh, Leona).  Oona consulted her fairy connections and came up with a plan.  She made Fionn get into the baby's bed and began making cakes, slipping some skillets into half of the cakes.  In the meantime, Benandonner had made his way to Knockmanny to challenge Fionn!  When he banged on the door Oona answered and told Benandonner that Fionn was out and wouldn't he have tea with her and the baby until he got back?  Benandonner agrees and Oona gives him some of the cakes she made.  As soon as Benandonner bit down, he screamed in pain (for he'd bitten into the skillets!).  What kind of cakes were these? Benandonner demanded to know.  Oona gave a the rest of the cakes (without skillets) to Fionn in the baby's bed, who swallowed them happily.  Now Benandonner got a good look at the baby, wondering nervously how big the father must be if the baby could be that big!  And what mighty teeth a baby must have to eat those tough cakes!  Benandonner wanted to get a look at those teeth so he peeked into the baby's mouth with his magic finger and Fionn bit down, pulling off the finger and robbing Benandonner of his magic!  Benandonner was so scared that he high-tailed it back to Scotland ripping up the causeway behind him.

The Giant's Causeway is still considered magic to this day! In the Giant's Gate you'll see many an old, worn and corroded coin embedded in the crags of the rocks.  People make wishes on the coins and then embed them in the rocks!  It's truly amazing, you can feel the magic in the air and the power of the wishes all lodged in the stones of the Giant's Gate.  I left two there, here's to seeing them come true!



Resources:

Jacobs, Joseph. "A Legend of Knockmany". Celtic Fairy Tales. Collector's Library: London, 2011. Print.

Pritchard, David. Haunted Ireland. Real Ireland Design: Kilcoole, Ireland, 2014. Print.

Scottish Sgeulachdan - The Bride Who Out Talked the Water Kelpie

I recently got my hands a book of Scottish folklore collected by Sorche Nic Leodhas that I'd been trying to find for awhile, Thistle and Thyme.  Thistle and Thyme is full of sgeulachdan (skale-ak-tan), a Scottish word for tale, told by master story-tellers.  Sgeulachdan were told at celebrated events like weddings and Christenings and often held a moral or lesson for the listeners and "in the old days, the high point of the entertainment was the sgeulachdan" (Leodhas 9).  My favorite tales from this collection are The Stolen Bairn and the Sìdh, The Bride Who Out Talked the Water Kelpie and The Fisherlad and the Mermaid's Ring. 

The Bride Who Out Talked the Water Kelpie

Now I loved this story from the very title because it featured a kelpie and at the time I read it, I had found very few stories about kelpies.  According to Leodhas this sgeulachdan was told at a wedding and I'm sure holds a lesson for newly weds about living together and putting up with eachother, but all I could focus on in this story was the  kelpie.  And this kelpie didn't live in a stream or a loch like most kelpies, this kelpies had some special digs, it lived in a well.  Another thing about this kelpie is that it didn't try to trick anyone into riding on it's back or shape-shift into a man to seduce a young lady.  The kelpie of this story cast a spell so that a young woman would not be able to speak. Not one peep.  A soldier falls in love with her and marries her, glad that she is not chatty as other lasses he's met.  However her silence eventually unnerves him and the couple goes to see a woman of the second sight who tells them that the maiden has offended a kelpie by dropping her comb in his well.  I can understand the kelpie's frustration since wells aren't that big to begin with, imagine all the room that comb took up!  So the maiden took back her comb, but being wickedly mischievous, as kelpies are, the kelpie put another spell upon the lass so that she would not shut up! The solution to this turned out to be leaving the chatty lass at the well for a whole day, chatting away to the kelpie.  The kelpie replies to everything the lass says in a rather echoey well-like way.  When the soldier returns for his wife the kelpie is tired of having listened to her chatting all day and so:
"she called down the well. 'I bid you good day, kelpie.  'Tis time for me to go home.'  There wasn't a sound from the well for a moment.  Then in a great loud angry voice the kelpie shouted. 'GO HOME!' " (Leodhas 97).  From then on the lass did not speak too much or too little and they all lived happily ever after.

Scottish Sgeulachdan - The Stolen Bairn and the Sìdh

I recently got my hands a book of Scottish folklore collected by Sorche Nic Leodhas that I'd been trying to find for awhile, Thistle and Thyme.  Thistle and Thyme is full of sgeulachdan (skale-ak-tan), a Scottish word for tale, told by master story-tellers.  Sgeulachdan were told at celebrated events like weddings and Christenings and often held a moral or lesson for the listeners and "in the old days, the high point of the entertainment was the sgeulachdan" (Leodhas 9).  My favorite tales from this collection are The Stolen Bairn and the Sìdh, The Bride Who Out Talked the Water Kelpie and The Fisherlad and the Mermaid's Ring. 

The Stolen Bairn and the Sìdh

 One of the first things that struck me about this sgeulachdan was that the Sìdh did not actually "steal" the child.  There are many tales where the faeries steal people away, especially sneaking babes from their crib but in this story the faeries happen upon the bairn alone.  The two faerie women look about them, and seeing no one, "the first woman of the Sìdh spoke and she said, 'What no one comes to be claiming is our own'" (Leodhas 47).  Arguably, the Sìdh rescued the child when it had been separated from it's mother after she had accidentally fallen off a cliff.  I also love how the mother never gives up the search for her child, Leodhas notes that this sgeulachdan was probably told at a Christening because it focuses on the mother's love in her persistence and determination to find her lost bairn (Leodhas 10-11).

The second thing about this tale that stuck with me is how the mother gets her bairn back.  According to the gypsy grandmother that instructs her on how to reclaim her bairn from the Sìdh, "'For all their wisdom, the Sìdh have no art to make anything for themselves,...All that they get they get they must either beg or steal.  They have great vanity and desire to possess a thing which has no equal.  If you can find something that has not it's like in all the world you may be able to buy your bairn back with it.'" (Leodhas 52).  So the mother weaves a cloak of feathers and creates a harp with golden strings using her own hair.  I was captivated by the way the mother created two unique objects by putting a bit of herself into the objects, a cloak made by her own hands and her own hair into the harp.  The feather cloak especially since I have never seen a feather cloak and would love to own one as it would be super unique, no wonder she was able to get into the Sìdhean, the most exclusive Sìdh party.  I had never thought of the fae as being in capable of creating things before this story.  It showed the unique ability that makes us human, our creativity.  We have the ability to create unique one of a kind objects that have no equal with the power on invention and the willingness to put a bit of our selves into our creations, an attribute of humanity that other beings could desire and envy.  And it won the mother her wee bairn back from the Sìdh!