Fionn and the Giant’s Causeway

Before you read

The coast of County Antrim, and the island of Staffa

The Giant’s Causeway, on the north coast of County Antrim in Northern Ireland, is made of about 40,000 interlocking columns of black basalt, most of them with six sides, like a giant honeycomb. A similar set of columns appears across the sea at Fingal’s Cave on the Scottish island of Staffa. It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986.

The folk tale: Fionn mac Cumhaill, who in Ulster stories is a giant, was challenged by the Scottish giant Benandonner. He built a causeway across the sea to fight him. But when he saw that Benandonner was far bigger than he was, he ran home, and his wife Úna (Oonagh) dressed him as a baby and put him in a cradle. When Benandonner arrived and saw the size of the “baby”, he thought: if the baby is this big, how big is the father? He ran back to Scotland, tearing up the causeway behind him, so that only the two ends are left.

The science: about 50 to 60 million years ago, the area was covered by volcanic lava. As the thick lava cooled and contracted, it cracked into regular columns, in the same way that mud cracks into shapes when it dries in the sun. The same lava flow created the columns of Staffa. Both explanations are told at the visitor centre today: the geologist’s and the storyteller’s.

A clever mind can beat a big body.

The story

Retold for this lesson from the Ulster folk tale of Fionn and Benandonner, as told along the Antrim coast.

Long ago, when giants lived in Ireland, the biggest and strongest of them in Ulster was Fionn mac Cumhaill. Across the sea in Scotland lived another giant, Benandonner, and every day the two of them shouted insults at each other across the water. One day Fionn grew so angry that he tore great columns of rock from the cliffs and pushed them into the sea, one after another, until he had built a road all the way to Scotland. “Now come and fight me!” he shouted.

But as Benandonner came striding across the causeway, Fionn saw him clearly for the first time, and his heart sank. The Scottish giant was twice his size. His head was in the clouds, and each step shook the sea. Fionn turned and ran home as fast as his legs would carry him, and burst into the house. “Úna!” he cried to his wife. “He’s coming, and he’s enormous! What can I do?”

Úna was the cleverest woman in Ulster, and she did not panic. She dressed Fionn in a nightgown and a baby’s bonnet and put him in a huge cradle by the fire. Then she baked a batch of griddle cakes, and into some of them she put iron griddles. When Benandonner banged on the door, she opened it with a smile. “Fionn isn’t at home,” she said. “But come in and wait. Have a cake. And please be quiet: the baby is sleeping.”

Benandonner bit into a cake and broke two teeth on the iron inside. “These are the cakes Fionn eats,” said Úna sweetly, and gave a cake without iron to the “baby”, who ate it happily. Benandonner looked at the enormous baby in the cradle, and Fionn bit his finger so hard that he cried out. “If this is the baby,” thought Benandonner, “then how big is the father?” He ran out of the house, back across the causeway, tearing up the rocks behind him so that Fionn could never follow. And that is why today there is a causeway in Antrim and another in Staffa, and only the sea between them.

Talk and write

Discussion and writing

Two explanations. In pairs, one of you tells the folk tale, the other the scientific explanation. Use comparatives, so… that and the passive.

Discuss. 1. Why do people invent stories to explain natural wonders? 2. Is it good that the visitor centre tells both the science and the legend? 3. Which natural wonder in your country has a legend?

Write (100–120 words). A postcard from the Causeway. Describe the Causeway to a friend: what it looks like, the legend, and the science.