Tales of Lore and Legend

Today, Kelsey, Elizabeth, Maddie and I decided to go around Dublin and try to see some of the remaining sites. Kelsey and I really wanted to go to the Leprechaun museum so we went there first while the other girls did some souvenir shopping. First, we finally went over the Ha' penny bridge, called that because it used to cost half a penny to cross it.

Ha'Penny Bridge

on the bridge!

The Leprechaun museum was AWESOME! Really, it was the skill of the tour guide but the museum is created in an interactive way. For example, you get shrunk, go through the Giant’s causeway, enter into the Giant’s house (where you get to climb on the enormous furniture), later you can travel by rainbow, go through the woods and watch out for fairy trees. Leprechauns originally wore brown suits and hide under mushrooms, where they cobbled the shoes of the fairies, since all the dancing they did wore them down. They can disappear in the blink of an eye and by Leprechaun law, if they say they’ll tell you the truth, they must (though they tend to not tell you all the truth). So if they say their treasure is hidden in a bush and when you go to retrieve it and get stung by wasps, they just happened to not mention the ‘security detail.’ We learned that when the Vikings (or it may have been the later Normans, I don’t remember which) came over, they fought the fairy folk and won. They agreed to divide the land in half, but did it so that the fairies had the ‘underworld’. Thus, in order to access this underworld, there are ‘fairy trees’ a particular type of tree (Hawthorne I think he said?) which are all alone in the middle of farmers fields (I’ve seen these! it’s true!). That is because the farmers realized they were fairy trees and won’t cut them down to this day for fear of cutting off the fairy’s access to their world, which would make them mad and give the farmers trouble. Apparently, fairies look just like humans, so you could talk to one and not know it. Pretty cool. Our guide also told us about how the Giant’s causeway (located in Northern Ireland) was created. Essentially, the giant in Scotland challenged the giant in Ireland to a battle, but the Irish giant realized that the Scottish one was much larger than he. His wife came up with the brilliant plan to dress her husband as a baby to fool the Scottish one into thinking that if the baby was huge, the father must be even larger. She made two cakes, one with a block of iron concealed within and one without. When the Scottish giant arrived at the Irish giant’s house, he saw the huge (and hairy) baby and was intimidated. He ate some rocks to scare the baby, but the baby ate them too. Then, the wife gave him the iron cake, which broke some of his teeth. Meanwhile the baby ate the cake effortlessly. Then, because the baby had eaten the ‘salmon of wisdom’ in his youth (another folklore of the Irish), he motioned for the Scottish giant to draw near. Then, like every baby does, he went to suck the giant’s thumb. However, he bit it off, which sent the Scottish giant heading back home like there was no tomorrow. He even destroyed the bridge of stones he’d placed across the small sea to get from Scotland to Ireland. This worked because the insight the Irish giant had from the salmon showed him that the other giant was an enchanted man who, if his thumb were removed, would turn back into a man and lose all his strength. Thus, the Irish giant beat the Scottish one by his wits and there are still some stones leading to Scotland that formed the beginning of the bridge. (I’ll have photos of this when I visit Northern Ireland, so they are forthcoming). Pretty funny story when told well – the guide did a MUCH better job than this. Note – the reason much of the Celtic folklore is preserved is because the Romans never went to Ireland, they saw how cold Scotland was (and also had a battalion of troops annihilated by the Celts there) and decided Ireland would be much, much too cold to be worth it, calling it ‘Hibernia’, or land of eternal winter. So the Celts escaped the Roman policy of wiping out native traditions for Roman ones, and thus, we still have many of the original stories of the Celtic people.

awesome poem that can only read in a mirror

the traditional outfit of the Leprechaun

what what?? a tunnel that will shrink you? reminds me of Willy Wonka

resembles the Giant's causeway

sitting on part of the bridge

Honey I shrunk the kids!

Kelsey and I as midgets...

the fireplace opens...reminds me of beetlejuice

interactive map of Ireland

it's raining skittles!

one story tells of how a Leprechaun hid his treasure in a red sock, concealed in plain sight among thousands of red socks...

leprechauns!

        After the leprechaun museum, we met up with the other girls and went to the market because they’d never been and the food is delicious. Best scones I’ve had thus far (and I’ve tried them just about every place that has them). This is the same market I talked about two weekends ago – with fresh bread, jams, cheeses and lots of hot food for lunch. Quite a few places in Ireland have these adorable mini pies, the size of your hand, which are quite delectable. They are quite packed with food, so even though they seem small, they’re really a full meal contained in a cute travel-sized shape. After the market, we went to Dublina, the Viking museum near Christ’s Church. What an awesome museum! It was very well done. There were informative shields along the walls with the answers to common questions inside, there were many interactive exhibits and lots of displays detailed displays. Turns out that horns are not part of Viking helmets, but were parts of ceremonial head displays of peoples before the Vikings. There was no full standing Viking army, most men hunted and helped farm. Cool fact, the Vikings were the first to find America, and the first ‘American’ was a boy named Snorri - we've come a long way in terms of names, I must say.

really cool museum

welcomes you to the museum - Alex could do this

Where the Vikings came from and travelled to

for Alex

what traditional Viking lodgings looked like

Burial

runes around the edge

model of Viking Dublin

cool warrior

bring out your dead!

crowning a young King

for Alex

random Cinderella's coach

            After the Viking museum, I had to go to the train station to retrieve my jacket. What happened is that I bought a rain jacket in Killarney and managed to leave it at the train station, but didn’t realize it until it was too late. After calling the station and not getting ahold of anyone, I had pretty much abandoned the idea of getting the jacket back. Well, my mom worked some magic, emailed someone and they actually had found my jacket. They sent it over to the train station in Dublin and I went to go get it. Though they didn’t tell the people in Dublin so then they tried looking on the wrong train because it wasn’t removed from the right train the first time it arrived. But I only had to wait another ten minutes after we cleared this up because the right train happened to arrive then and I got my jacket. Which has been incredibly useful because it has done nothing but rain since I got it. Apparently, this is an atypical summer, they usually don’t have this much rain. So today was fun!