The Giant's Causeway - eighth wonder of the world

 

The Causeway is a mass of stone columns standing very near together. The tops of the columns form stepping stones leading from the cliff foot and disappearing under the sea. Over the whole Causeway there are 40,000 of these stone columns. The tallest are about 42 feet (13 m.) high.

 

Visitors in modern times have been told that the Causeway is a strange geological feature - the result of volcanic action. The ancient lrish knew differently, however. Clearly, this was giants' work and, in particular, the work of the giant Finn McCool, the Ulster soldier and commander of the armies of the King of All Ireland.

 

Finn was extremely strong. On one occasion, during a fight with a Scottish giant, he picked up a huge piece of earth and threw it at him.

 

The earth fell into the lrish Sea and became the lsle of Man. The hole it left filled with water and became the great inland sea of Lough Neagh.

 

People said that Finn lived on the North Antrim coast and that he fell in love with a lady giant. She lived on an island in the Scottish Hebrides, and so he began to build this wide causeway to bring her across to Ulster.

 

Susan Sheerin, Jonathan Seath, Gillian White: Spotlight on Britain; Oxford University Press, 1985, page 109

 

 

Write down a legend or myth of your country or local area. If you don't know any legends or myths, make up a story to explain a geographical feature in your country.