2017-01-15 (Giant’s Causeway)

Giant’s Causeway

Why is it called the Giant’s Causeway? Legends says it might have to do with some giant’s fights

Quoting from Wikipedia…

According to legend, the columns are the remains of a causeway built by a giant. The story goes that the Irish giant Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn MacCool), from the Fenian Cycle of Gaelic mythology, was challenged to a fight by the Scottish giant Benandonner.

Fionn accepted the challenge and built the causeway across the North Channel so that the two giants could meet. In one version of the story, Fionn defeats Benandonner. In another, Fionn hides from Benandonner when he realises that his foe is much bigger than he. Fionn’s wife, Oonagh, disguises Fionn as a baby and tucks him in a cradle. When Benandonner sees the size of the ‘baby’, he reckons that its father, Fionn, must be a giant among giants. He flees back to Scotland in fright, destroying the causeway behind him so that Fionn could not follow. Across the sea, there are identical basalt columns (a part of the same ancient lava flow) at Fingal’s Cave on the Scottish isle of Staffa, and it is possible that the story was influenced by this.

In overall Irish mythology, Fionn mac Cumhaill is not a giant but a hero with supernatural abilities. In Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1888) it is noted that, over time, “the pagan gods of Ireland […] grew smaller and smaller in the popular imagination, until they turned into the fairies; the pagan heroes grew bigger and bigger, until they turned into the giants”. There are no surviving pre-Christian stories about the Giant’s Causeway, but it may have originally been associated with the Fomorians (Fomhóraigh); the Irish name Clochán na bhFomhóraigh or Clochán na bhFomhórach means “stepping stones of the Fomhóraigh”. The Fomhóraigh are a race of supernatural beings in Irish mythology who were sometimes described as giants and who may have originally been part of a pre-Christian pantheon.

But anyway, the Giant’s Causeway is the result of an ancient volcanic eruption. It is just amazing to see places like this on Earth, especially that it is completed sculptured by nature.

   This place makes me feel like I am on some alien plants. The area the covers this kind of rocks is actually not that huge. Pretty the picture here already shows most of the coast that covers with the rocks. The rock looks like they were manmade, but they all come in different sizes. Some were worn off by the waves from the ocean. 

Last Destination of the Day – Dunluce Castle

Dunluce Castle is located on the edge of the north Atlantic coast and used as a filming location for Game of Thrones. It is just the remnant of a castle that no longer exists. We can only take pictures from afar.

I learned this from the Conan O’Brien show… Taytos!