Giants Causeway
The tale of two giants that explains how the Giant’s Causeway in County Antrim, Northern Ireland came about is outlined in short below.
In Gaelic mythology Finn McCool (Fionn mac Cumhail) was the Irish Giant, who lived on an Antrim headland, and the Scot was called Fingal from Fingal’s Cave a sea cave on the island of Staffa in the Inner Scottish Hebrides.
One day around the third century Fingal began to shout insults and hurl abuse from across the channel. In defiance, Finn lifted a clod of earth and threw it at Fingal, which landed in the sea. Fingal threw a rock back at Finn, shouting that he was lucky that he wasn’t a strong swimmer or he’d be over there making sure Finn would never fight again. Finn began throwing huge clumps of earth from the shore, which made a causeway from Ireland to Scotland out of basalt columns and a pathway for the Scottish giant to come and face him. Finn, exhausted by this time, he then devised a cunning plan to fool the Scot. He disguised himself as a baby in a cot and on Fingal’s arrival, Finn’s wife told him Finn was away but showed him his son sleeping in a cradle.
“If the son’s this huge, how big is dad?” Fingal thought as he ran away along the causeway Finn had built, tearing it up as he went, and hiding in a cave on Staffa, now known as Fingal’s Cave. 