Have you heard the story about Finn MacCool picking a fight with the Scottish Giant Benandonner?
Well I'll tell you a synopsis of the story but if you want to read it told well I recommend this website Giants Causeway
Finn was an Irish giant who hated the Scottish giants so much that he decided to build a road way from Ireland to Scotland so that he could go and fight the Scottish giants. Finn build the road out of six sided cobble stones and laid his road down so that he could get to Scotland. After Finn had built the road he yelled and challenged the giant Benandonner to a fight. But as Benandonner came closer and closer to Ireland Finn realized that Benandonner was much bigger than he was and realized he was in over his head so he ran home and told his wife what he had done and about that time Benandonner got to the Maccool's house. Finn's wife was smart enough to have Finn hid in the baby carriage and tell Benandonner that Finn was out hunting and would be back later. She then preceded to tell Benandonner that Finn was huge by saying that trees
and boulders and all sorts of different things were Finn's weapons and rocks for playing catch with. Well when Benandonner realized how big a giant Finn's wife was describing he ran away and tore up the causeway that Finn had built to connect Ireland and Scotland.
This is a picture (above) of giants cause way that I took when I went on a trip to Ireland to see where my ancestors and more specifically my great grandfather lived. Now Giants Causeway is and interesting area the rock formations as you can see are extremely well formed into a tight pattern of stone. The story of Finn Maccool is an interesting way in which people used in my opinion a more sophic way to say how the rock formation had formed.
The real way that these rocks formed though is this, "Formed 50 to 60 million years
ago, during the Paleogene Period, the Giant’s Causeway resulted from successive
flows of lava inching toward the coast and cooling when they contacted the sea. Layers of basalt formed columns, and the pressure between these columns sculpted them into polygonal shapes that vary from 15 to 20 inches (38 to 51 cm) in diameter and measure up to 82 feet (25 metres) in height. They are arrayed along cliffs averaging some 330 feet (100 metres) in elevation." (Encyclopedia Britannica)
The way in which we figure out how something is formed is a process that I find quite interesting. We have learned to question things and to attempt to figure out how things were made. It is always interesting when we finally discover an answer to a question that we did not know and through the Mantic way of learning we can really begin to figure out some interesting things in life. Learning is not only restricted to science though there are questions that science can not answer yet but we are able to figure out answers to many of lifes profound questions not with Mantic learning but with what we are able to feel rather than show a tangible, hold it in my hand, proof.
That is the coolest picture I have ever seen! The Giant’s Causeway looks like something from a dream world. No wonder such fantastic stories were thought up to explain its existence! Even after reading the scientific reasoning behind it, I still couldn’t envision these incredible columns being formed naturally. I’m willing to trust the experts when they say that it was formed by lava, sea and pressure, but I can’t help but wonder if someday, someone else will come along with a better explanation and that entry in the encyclopedia will have to be changed…
ReplyDeleteI wonder if you may have mixed up your terms Montana. The mantic obtains his knowledge from above (such as through revelation or feelings) while the sophic gains knowledge through logic and reasoning. Perhaps you meant it the other way around?
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ReplyDeleteI'm currently taking Geology right now and we just learned how crystals/minerals form and this post definitely sparked my interest. This was a fantastic post to read. I love old legends/folk stories like these. It reminded me of a story I once read when I was little where they squeezed a rock to get water out of it. I tried looking for that story, but alas was unable to find it.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, I definitely agree it is very interesting to learn how things are formed. I actually thought of how our U.S. government was formed. You can figure out a lot about our country by learning how our country's government was formed.
Like this story, it reveals a bit of the country's history.I think that learning the process of how things started and began are beneficial to understanding the current state of things as well.
This post was really fun to read! Like Shuan I really like reading folk tales, I think its a really good insight into a peoples cultural values, traditions, morals, and creativity and the like, which goes along with what you guys were saying about understanding how things to are formed.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting post, and it brings a lot of different things together, the passing down of oral traditions, the sophic findings of experts in geology, cultural stories...not at all what I would have expected from a story about giants and big rocks!
ReplyDeleteIt really has been an eye-opening experience as we've discussed folk knowledge. I didn't realize how much of what I know has been passed down for so many generations.
ReplyDeleteAlthough a majority of what I am learning now is based on reading texts, when I reexamine all that I gained throughout my life, folk knowledge is a big part of it.