Stones in a Haystack

The Isle of Skye Part 6 - Cho laidir ri Cuchullin - As Strong As Cuchillin From Place Names Of Skye, As Strong as Cuchullin, a complimentary term used. "Cuchulainn Carries Ferdiad Across the River", illustration by Ernest Wallcousins  from Charles Squire,  Celtic Myths and Legends , 1905 The final installment of this look at stone lifting and associated gubbins on Skye, we're going to take a look at the final stone of the "original five" from the Peter Martin list and with it take a glimpse into Gaelic folklore with a mighty hero, a warrior woman mentor, a grisly spear which is thrown from the toes and some tragedy along the way - Shakespeare eat your heart out. Whilst I draw an initial line (for now) under the Skye series we'll also take a look at a few other stones and potential stones of interest, from those only a giant could lift, to our canine companions making an appearance and the different ways trial could be interpreted - anoth...

Gaelic Strength Culture Across The Atlantic Relevant geography update if you're like me and relatively unfamiliar with Canada other than that Toronto is in the east and Vancouver in the west. Nova Scotia is a province (equivalent of county if you're also from the U.K) and covers all the yellow bits in the image from Wikipedia. Cape Breton is part of that, and is the bit on the upper right corner of the image - shaped a bit like a leaf split in two. Right now I had planned to be finishing off the final installment on Skye, as my trip to the Misty Isle looms. I was researching further for Clach Mhor Na Saothraich, and came across a website called "Cape Breton's Magazine"  and a scanned image from page 26 of "D.N. MacLennan's History of Grand River", which seems to be an ongoing (I think? by that I mean, was ongoing too) published article in a newspaper. The date on the page suggests the article is from 1977.   Grand River is a town on the s...