To get to my walk for today to the
King’s Cave, I was dropped off at a nearby car park, helpfully called Kings
Cave Car Park. From there I followed the path through a woodland plantation that
eventually took me out on to a steep path that descended down to a rocky and
pebble strewn beach below. There I found
the King’s Cave, which is one of a series of caves in the sandstone cliffs that
were formed during the Ice Age, around ten thousand years ago.
The King’s Cave is the largest of these
caves and the name comes from the legend that Robert the Bruce once took
shelter here when on the run, and that it was in this cave that he met the
famous spider. For those of you not
familiar with the story, Bruce had suffered a heavy defeat by the English army and
was on the run. While taking shelter in
a cave he noticed a little spider trying to weave a web. It would get so far, then fall, but would
climb back up and attempt to start again.
Eventually, after falling numerous times it succeeded in building its
web. From watching this Bruce took the
lesson that ‘if at first, you don’t succeed, try, try, try again’. He then went on to defeat the English army at
Bannockburn. Though the caves are full
of little spiders, it is unlikely that there is any truth to the story or that
Bruce even sheltered here.
Before the cave was known as the King’s
Cave, it was referred to as Fingal’s Cave, after the legendary Irish giant Fionn
mac Cumhaill or Fin McCool, which let's face it is much easier to pronounce. What he had to do with this cave I have no
idea, as all I can remember about him comes from some of the stories we were
told in Primary School. Though what I remember
is not so much the actual stories but more that his size seemed to vary quite
massively from story to story. I’m sure
in one he must have been about five hundred feet tall and in another he was only
about twelve feet tall, which was something that even at six or seven years old
I wanted an explanation for. I wanted to
understand and to make some sort of sense of how he achieved this. Was there some sort of magic involved? Or, like Alice in Wonderland, did he take
potions that made him bigger or smaller?
Unfortunately, no satisfactory explanation was given by my teacher other
than ‘they are just legends, what does it matter?’
After exploring all the caves, I sat on a
rock by the beach and dozed in the warm afternoon sun. Then, feeling lovely and refreshed I got up, left
the Skulferatu that had accompanied me on my walk in the King’s Cave and ambled
off back through the woods.
The coordinates for the location of the
Skulferatu are –
Latitude 55.526129
Longitude -5.353452
what3words: practical.unwanted.boss
I used the following sources for
information on the Kings Caves –
Arran of the Bens, the Glens
and the Brave
by MacKenzie MacBride
1911
The Book of Arran
Edited by J. A. Balfour
1910
