Autumnal Rovings. 189 



Ireland that has not? — and equally, of course, there is a 

 grotesque resemblance of plausibility in it if you can get 

 over the A B C of giantology and fairydom. 



The Ulster peasants are not so superstitious as the 

 peasantry of other provinces, but you could offer them no 

 greater insult than by doubting the authenticity of Fin Mac- 

 Coul ; and the redoubtable Fin is the presiding genius of 

 these parts. What more natural than that the giant being 

 Irish and hearing there was over on the Scottish coast a 

 giant as big and bouncing as himself, should be seized with 

 an unquenchable desire to fight him. We are in our ignor- 

 ance prone to think international prize fights a modern 

 institution. Observe how we have ignored the little affair of 

 Fin MacCoul, the Irish pet, and Benandonner, the Scotch 

 chicken. 



Let us, however, cleave to facts — the undoubted facts of 

 history. The Irish giant, wishing perhaps to make the Scotch- 

 man's journey to his own destruction as pleasant as possible, 

 or fearing, maybe, that a sea voyage in the unpretending 

 ships of those days would have taken the gameness out of 

 him, considerately laid down a Causeway from one country 

 to the other. If you doubt the story, how happens it that 

 Staffa possesses the other end of it ? As legends go, this is 

 not unreasonable; and, in truth, the Causeway is a great 

 mystery. No doubt most people who have been to school 

 are aware that the Causeway proper is composed entirely 

 of broken columns. In some places they are of various 

 heights, and in two or three instances you will find one 

 column shorter than the rest, and so surrounded by others 

 . that the recess resembles a chair. Thus we have the 

 Ladies' Wishing-Chair, and one or two other natural seats, 

 to which stories are of course attached. 



There are in the Giant's Causeway level spaces where the 



