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Thursday, February 19, 2015

Blarney Stone Legend of Ireland

Among the forty shades of green Ireland, in its southern part, not far away from the city of Cork, stands a castle. It is a very special castle as it is known for a mysterious stone. And it’s not only the mystery surrounding the stone, but also its location, which take us to the legend.

A very long time ago, Queen Elizabeth ruled the green lands of England and Ireland. She was a smart Queen, but when she demanded something, she simply had to have it and would take no for an answer.
At the time, Lord Cormac MacCarthy was the owner of the Blarney Castle. Nevertheless, the Queen demanded the Lord to surrender his castle as part of the peace agreement between England and Ireland.
The Lord desperately searching for a possible reason to hold on to his castle was not able to sleep for many nights. He wasn’t a man of many words. He wouldn’t know how to charm or convince the Queen to let him keep the castle.
One night, in order to clear his mind he wandered into the woods surrounding the castle. As soon as he stepped onto the path leading deep into the woods, there right in front of him stood a stone, not small, not big, just the right size to sit on it. Surprised Lord wondered, “Who would put this here, blocking the path.” He looked around, “It’s not possible for it to roll down from any direction.”
As the stone was blocking the narrow path, he simply sat on it. The moment he did that and rested his heavy head on his right hand, a fairy appeared out of nowhere. Startled, he raised his head, hearing the words, “Don’t worry about the castle, go inside it and have a good night rest. With the first light come back to this stone and kiss it. After that you will never have to worry about choosing the right words.”
The Lord slept well, the first sun rays falling right on his eyes woke him up. Suddenly, he remembered the stone and rushed to the woods. The stone was still there. He looked around. Nobody was nearby, so he kissed the stone. In a blink of an eye, the words started pouring into his mind what to say to the Queen and how to present it.
But before his trip to appear in front of the Queen, he had to do one more thing. He didn’t want anybody else to find the stone, so he embedded it at the top of his castle’s barricades in such a way that it was almost impossible to reach it.
Meanwhile, the Queen was growing inpatient. Cormac without any further delay rushed to see the Queen and with his ‘fair words and soft speech’ would make one promise after another. But he kept none of them.
After a few empty promises, the enraged Queen declared, “This is all blarney; what he says, he never means.” Thus a new word entered the English language.
The Lord kept the castle and the stone stands atop it until today. And people found the way to reach it and kiss it.

Source: Ireland by Max Caulfield

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