"They met beside the stormy sea, those giant kings of old…
Then up arose each giant king, and took a mighty stone,
They laid the quay; they piled the rocks—ere morn the work was done."
— The Giant's Causeway, Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Like some sort of fantasy video game, hexagonal pillars of black rock stacked next to each other form towering stepping stones, rising from the foot of rolling green hills and steep cliffs to create a cascading path into the crashing white caps of the sea.
If Giant's Causeway (Clochán an Aifir in Irish) sounds like something out of a fairy tale, well, that just depends on who you ask. Talk to many of the locals in the area, and they'll tell you the legend of Fionn Mac Cumhaill (or Finn McCool), the Irish giant of lore. Keen to confront his Scottish rival Benandonner, Finn tossed chunks of rock into the ocean to form a path to Scotland. Upon arriving and seeing the Scottish giant, however, our Irish hero thought better of his plan and beat a hasty retreat. Pursued by Benandonner, Finn was saved thanks to his cunning wife (of course), who disguised him as a baby — Benandonner, seeing the giant child, figured the father must be truly massive and fled back to Scotland.
Photo courtesy of Philippe Croo.
Although it looks like a tidy man- (or giant-) made pavement, this Northern Ireland marvel is in fact all the work of Mother Nature. Fifty to sixty million years ago, molten basalt lava flows inched toward the coast and cooled when they hit the sea, forming a lava plateau. According to most theories, the lava cooled quickly, causing the plateau to contract and crack, first in irregular fractures, and then forming regular polygonal patterns as the fractures penetrated deeper into the material. The result: roughly 40,000 columns 15-20 inches in diameter and up to 82 feet tall, arrayed along 330-foot tall cliffs. Since the surreal spot was first documented in 1693, it has not only drawn countless fascinated visitors but has also proved invaluable to the development of the earth sciences and our understanding of Earth's geological history.
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Photos courtesy of Atlas Obscura.