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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