VI
CELEBRATED KISSES
Kissing the Blarney Stone.—About 1446 Cormac McCarthy built the Castle of Blarney, in County Cork, Ireland. It is a fortification of immense strength, with walls more than eighteen feet thick. When besieged by the Lord-President, McCarthy temporized by promising to surrender the fort to an English garrison. Day after day his lordship looked for a fulfilment of the agreement; day after day the Irish chieftain temporized with honeyed promises, until at last the Englishman became the laughing-stock of the English court. From this comes the belief that "kissing the Blarney Stone" endows its kisser with a sweet, persuasive, and wheedling eloquence, which is in turn called blarney.
The real Blarney Stone, if you seek to kiss it, may be found only by allowing yourself to be lowered from the northern angle of the lofty castle for some score of feet. There you will find the stone with the Latin inscription:
cormac mc carthy fortis me fierifect,
a. d. 1446
For those who are skeptical as to the aerial Journey clinging to a rope, there is another stone on the summit, likewise called the real
