British Folklore

The Hebridean Island of Skye

Neolithic and Bronze Age remains and the folk stories that accompany them, Skye, Inner Hebrides, Scotland.

A giantess threw rocks against her counterpart on the island of Raasay and left many small islands in the sea between them.

The Scottish Hebrides are by no means barren of standing stones, dolmens and other megalithic structures. Neither are they devoid of the legends that go with them. The land once abounded with tales of the adventures of Fionn mac Cumhaill. Cattle and horses can emerge from the waters of a loch to graze and return to the world beneath the water at sunset.

At those places on the Hebridean island of Skye with megalithic monuments and which also have an association with the legendary Fionn mac Cumhaill, he and his comrades are considered to have been giants.

Skye itself had a giantess, called Grein, who threw rocks, it is said, against her counterpart on the island of Raasay and left many small islands in the sea between them.

All this, recorded by Otta Swire in the 1950s.

Folk stories recounted from: Swire, Otta F. and Black, Ronald (Ed), 1952 reprinted 2006. Skye: The Island and its Legends. Birlinn Limited, Edinburgh.

See for yourself

Isle of Skye – Wikipedia

Fionn mac Cumhaill – Wikipedia

Stone Circle – Wikipedia

Na Clachen Bhreige – The False Stones, Kilmarie, Skye.

Standing Stones – Borve, Skye.

Giants

Central Line

megalithic dolmen
standing stone montage

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