Salty Sam’s Fun Blog for Children
Number 600
The Blarney Stone
Hello Everyone
Have you ever known anyone who was very chatty, and someone else said that they must have kissed the Blarney Stone?
You may ask if l have kissed the Blarney Stone because l am very chatty in my blog posts, but l am not sure it applies to writing as well as speaking! This is my 600th blog post so l must be very, very chatty!
The Blarney Stone is a very famous stone that people travel especially to visit.
We call these people pilgrims. That means they go to a place in order to carry out a task in a religious, or almost religious way or view something that has great reverence.
The Blarney Stone has a famous legend that surrounds it.
The legend says that anyone who kisses the stone, will have the gift of being eloquent (speaking well), and also will be able to flatter other people in order to endear themselves to them.
We call this the ‘gift of the gab’.
This ability of communication is always useful to have!
Blarney is now a word we use to describe a special way of talking. lt is witty and charming, and has persuasive powers over others.
The Blarney Stone is incorporated in a wall in Blarney Castle. Blarney Castle is in Blarney about 8km/5 miles from Cork in lreland.
At one time, anyone wanting to kiss the stone was held by the ankles and dangled over the battlements!
Yes, this was very dangerous!
But nowadays, people lean over backwards and hang onto an iron railing in order to reach it.
Although there will be someone there to hold onto you, and also bars to cage you in, you had better not be frightened of heights if you decide to go up there!
There are different stories relating to the origin of the stone. All of them steeped in legend, and come from the mists of long ago history.
One story tells of the builder of the castle, a man called MacCarthy, who was advised to kiss the stone on his way to a court of law and consequently argued his case so well that he won a lawsuit. And this is why he incorporated this special stone into the battlements of the castle.
A different story says it was in Scotland at one time. lt was a stone that had prophetic (telling the future) powers. lt could speak to the people about who would become king. lt was called the Stone of Destiny.
(Nowadays, it is also called the Stone of Scone and it was in the coronation chair in Westminster Abbey in London during Queen Elizabeth ll’s coronation. But then it was kept in the crown room of Edinburgh Castle since 1996; before being brought back down to London for King Charles lll’s coronation.)
Part of this Stone of Destiny was then transported to lreland by way of a token of gratitude after lrish support was given to the Scottish King Robert the Bruce in the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314.
Another story says it is a stone brought back to lreland from the Holy Lands by crusaders. lt has its origins in stories from the Bible.
And then, as an ancient fable has it; the power of the stone was revealed to its owner by a witch to show gratitude for being saved from drowning.
But quite modern investigations by geologists at the University of Glasgow show the stone has local origins. lt was lrish all the time.
The stone was set into the tower in 1446; but some people think that the story of the stone having special powers is really only about 200 years old.
lt is now a great tourist draw, and people come to tour the castle and gardens and kiss the stone.
The owners will assure you that the stone does indeed hold magnificent powers.
Do stones have powers or do they only have powers when we believe they do?
Having kissed the stone you may way feel that you have more self-confidence to speak up and have belief in your powers of eloquence and persuasion.
lf this has happened to you, do let me know.
Bye bye everyone – don’t forget to subscribe to my blog!
Love and kisses
Salty Sam
www.christina-sinclair.com
Bill and Bob’s Joke of the Week
Bob: l can’t find my library book, have you seen it?
Bill: What’s it called?
Bob: My Big Book of Jokes by Joe King
Salty Sam © Christina Sinclair 2015
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of material from this blog without express and written permission from this blog’s author and owner is strictly prohibited.
Links may be used to www.christina-sinclair.com
Picture Gallery
The Coronation Chair with the Stone of Scone
Edinburgh Castle
THE SALTY SAM NEWS DESK
Last weekend, my Auntie Alice and l took the children down to the beach for the day.
She brought the picnic, and I bought all the ice creams.
While we were having our lunch, Bill and Bob mentioned that their parents had been very snappy lately.
Auntie Alice said that they were probably very tired because everyone in Rocky Bay was incredibly busy during the height of the tourist season – and that meant their parents were very busy at work.
Bill and Bob said that their parents had been especially unhappy when, during a game of chase, they had partially pulled the living room door off its hinges.
No surprise there then!
My Auntie Alice and I looked at each other and we had the same idea at the same time.
We decided then and there on the beach to form a rescue team.
The children were going to be in it too, whether they liked it or not.
Luckily, they liked the idea.
Bill said it was going to be like one of those television programmes where a team of people went in to rescue a family in a mess.
Except that in this case, they were the family in a mess and the rescue team at the same time.
Bob said we could film everything – but Auntie Alice said there wouldn’t be time for all that kind of thing.
She said we had to pick a day when we knew both Bill and Bob’s mum and dad would be out and get to work very quickly to do what we had planned to do.
Then we could surprise them with our efforts when they came home.
Bill would find out which day that could be, and he would secretly text Auntie Alice with the intel!
She had a notebook and pen in her bag and we all made a list of what we would plan to do together.
Bill said that the back gate squeaked.
I said that I knew the back garden fence needed painting.
Bob said that there wasn’t much food in the freezer because he had looked in there only the day before for an ice lolly and there weren’t any left.
Auntie Alice said that she could make some home-made ice lollies.
She still had some packets of frozen vegetables from her garden crops from last year that needed eating up. She could make some home-made, ready-made meals to put in the freezer as well.
And we all now knew about the living room door hinges!
So we made a long list of what we would do and everyone chose the jobs they wanted to do and any jobs left over were given to me.
I don’t know how that happened!
We made a list out of who should do what – and also in what order.
It was a plan of campaign – sometimes called a ‘critical path’.
You can’t wash sheets until they have been taken off the beds; you can’t do the ironing until the washing has dried enough – and so on.
So, three days later, we all sneaked round to Bill and Bob’s house – a bit like commandos; but I don’t think they do housework, well not on manoeuvres anyway.
As far as Bill and Bobs parents were concerned, all the children would be spending the day at Auntie Alice’s house like they usually did in the school holidays.
Auntie Alice had the front door key.
She went in first, and when she saw the shoes strewn all over the hall floor, Bill and Bob’s clothes all hung up on their bedroom floor, and the terrible mess in the kitchen, she said she wondered how Bill and Bob’s mum hadn’t given up and left home by now!
So we tidied and deep-cleaned the house from top to bottom.
Everyone was rushing round so much and crashing into each other that the children got a fit of the giggles at one point.
Auntie Alice said to be careful that they didn’t break anything in their rush.
More haste, less speed!
Auntie Alice put everyone’s list of things to do on the dining room table so people could keep referring to their list and not forget where they were. But first, we had to clear the dining room table!
Bill and Bob said that nobody was allowed in the home office in the attic, and we agreed that we would not touch any paperwork in there.
Auntie Alice and the children worked in the house and I sorted out all the problems in the garden – oh, and of course the broken hinges on the living room door.
I had made a shoe rack for the hall with my woodworking skills, and that tidied the place up enormously, and Henry did help me with weeding the rockery before I mowed the lawn and got started on the painting.
Henry hoed the weeds in the front garden all by himself.
Emily pulled the sheets off all the beds.
Auntie Alice and Bill and Bob set to work on the mess in the kitchen, and Auntie Alice was constantly feeding the washing machine at the same time with everything Emily was bringing downstairs.
Auntie Alice did a lot of laundry, and Bill and Bob knew where to put everything away once the ironing was done.
Luckily it was a hot and breezy day – good for drying washing – and fences!
Emily liked dusting, plumping up cushions, folding and piling up newspapers and folding the ironing as Auntie Alice finished it. Then she had to run upstairs with it and give it to Bill and Bob to put away. She also helped Auntie Alice clean the bathroom.
Auntie Alice and Emily remade the beds together with sheets they found in the airing cupboard – because it is easier when you have two people doing it together.
Bill and Bob tidied their toys away and washed the kitchen floor.
It turns out that Henry is a whizz with a vacuum cleaner. Auntie Alice showed him how to spot clean a carpet – so he was up-skilled that day!
Lastly, Auntie Alice put an enormous pizza in the oven for dinner and Bill and Bob made a large salad to go with it.
Everything went really well.
When Bill and Bob’s mum came home – she cried.
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Quick Quiz
Sometimes, people get confused with these words. Do you know the difference in meaning?
- coincidence and consequence
- continuous and continual
- incredible and incredulous
- to remember and to remind
- redundant and obsolete
- tip and titbit
When you hear an alarm bell ringing continuously,
you should evacuate the building
lt’s the Weekend!
HOW TO MAKE A RAPUNZEL TOWER
You will need a cardboard tube from a stack of crisps.
Measure the height of the tube and the circumference.
You can use a ruler to measure the length, but you will need a tape measure to measure around the tube.
If you don’t have a tape measure, use a piece of string to wrap around the tube and then put the length of string along a ruler to take that measurement.
Don’t use anything too stretchy like yarn, otherwise you won’t get an accurate measurement.
Then cut a piece of paper to cover the tube; but give yourself another 1 or 2cm overlap.
The height of the paper will be about 21cm, and the circumference will be about 24cm. Check on the tube you have.
Draw a picture on the paper and colour it in before you wrap it around the tube. Use sticky tap to secure it in place.
You will probably want to draw some bricks or stones to create the walls and flicks of green felt tip to create blades of grass around the bottom.
Of course you will need to draw a window in the centre of the paper to position it at the front – and a door at the bottom.
Cut a semicircle of card to create a cone roof for your tower.
Keep the lid for next week’s project.
Please note that the material on this blog is for personal use and for use in classrooms only.
It is a copyright infringement and, therefore, illegal under international law to sell items made with these patterns.
Use of the toys and projects is at your own risk.
©Christina Sinclair Designs 2015
Quick Quiz Answers
- coincidence and consequence – two things happening at the same time that are not related but seem to be and something happening only because something else has happened first
- continuous and continual – something continuing without stopping and something happening frequently and sporadically (from time to time)
- incredible and incredulous – a situation that seems unbelievable and the way someone feels when they find it hard to believe something
- to remember and to remind – a thought coming back into your head and telling someone else they have to remember something
- redundant and obsolete – something not wanted anymore and something that is out-of-date
- tip and tit bit – a piece of advice and a little treat
