The name gowk stane (English: cuckoo stone or fool's stone) has been applied to certain standing stones and glacial erratics in Scotland, often found in prominent geographical situations. Other spelling variants, such as gowke, gouk, gouke, goilk, goik, gok, goke, gook are found. [1]
Gowk in Scots means a common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus), but also a stupid person or fool. The word derives from the Old Norse 'gaukr', a cuckoo. Other explanations and origins for the term are also found. [2] The word derives from Anglo-Saxon (Old English) 'gouk' and was replaced in the south and central England by the French loan word 'coucou' after the Norman Conquest. The cuckoo family gets its English and scientific names from the call of the bird.
The Scottish Gaelic names for a Cuckoo are Coi, Cuach, Cuachag (poetical name) and Cuthag. [3] The Welsh for cuckoo is cog.
Celtic mythology in particular is rich in references to cuckoos and the surviving folklore gives clues as to why some stones were given the gowk name.
The term gowk is perhaps best known in the context of the old Gowk's Day, the Scottish April Fools' Day, originally held on April 13 when the cuckoo begins to call, and when children were sent on a gowk hunt, a harmless prank involving pointless errands. [4]
Gowk meant both cuckoo and fool; the latter were thought to be fairy-touched. The call of the cuckoo was believed to beckon the souls of the dead, and the cuckoo was thought to be able to travel back and forth between the worlds of the living and the dead. [5]
It was once commonly thought that the first appearance of a cuckoo also brought about a "gowk storm", a furious spring storm. [6]
Cuckoos were said to have the power of prophesy and could foretell a person's lifespan, the number of their children and when they would marry. [7]
It has also been suggested that the gowk or fool originated in the Dark Ages as a name for the Britons, given by the Saxon invaders, and carried some of the meaning of the Devil in the context of an arch foe, who is likened to the fool. [8]
In the Outer Hebrides a cuckoo's call heard when a person was hungry was bad luck, but the opposite was true if the person had recently eaten. [9]
The use of the term gowk at these sites suggests a link with springtime and some of the surviving legends associated with standing stones do have a link with the heralding of spring by the first cuckoo of that season to arrive. In the churchyard at Nevern in Wales is an old stone cross, carved with intricate knotwork. Villagers of Nevern would wait for their "harbinger of spring" and on 7 April, St Brynach's feast day, the first cuckoo of the year would arrive from Africa, alighting on the cross and singing to announce the arrival of spring. [10]
A local belief of the Gaelic-speaking community on the Isle of Lewis was that when the sun rose on midsummer morn, the "shining one" walked along the stone avenue at Callanish, his arrival heralded by the cuckoo's call. [11] [ relevant? ]
The cuckoo traditionally sends forth its first call in spring from the gowk stone at Lisdivin in Northern Ireland. [12]
A few cuckoo stones are present at sites in England and Cornwall.
The various gowk stones often had other functions, such as acting as boundary markers or meeting places in what may have sometimes been featureless landscapes. The gowk stone at Whitelee may have been used as a pulpit of sorts by ministers preaching at conventicles held on this remote spot in Covenanting times. [13]
The Islands of the Firth of Clyde are the fifth largest of the major Scottish island groups after the Inner and Outer Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland. They are situated in the Firth of Clyde between Argyll and Bute in the west and Inverclyde, North Ayrshire and South Ayrshire in the east. There are about forty islands and skerries. Only four are inhabited, and only nine are larger than 40 hectares. The largest and most populous are Arran and Bute. They are served by dedicated ferry routes, as are Great Cumbrae and Holy Island. Unlike the isles in the four larger Scottish archipelagos, none of the isles in this group are connected to one another or to the mainland by bridges.
Great Cumbrae is the larger of the two islands known as The Cumbraes in the lower Firth of Clyde in western Scotland. The island is sometimes called Millport, after its main town.
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Stanecastle was a medieval barony and estate in North Ayrshire, Scotland, first mentioned in 1363 and now part of the Irvine New Town project. Its nearest neighbours are Bourtreehill and Girdle Toll.
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The Grannie or Granny stone is either the only surviving part of a stone circle or a simple glacial erratic. It lies in the River Irvine below the Rivergate Centre in Irvine, North Ayrshire, Scotland. The Grannie Stane is clearly visible when the water is low. The GPS co-ordinates are 55°36.768′N4°40.180′W.
Cronberry is a small hamlet situated north-east of Cumnock and one mile north-east of Lugar, in East Ayrshire, Scotland.
Waterside is a village in East Ayrshire, Scotland, situated about five miles north of Galston on the Craufurdland Water in the Parish of Fenwick. It lies a few miles north of Moscow on the A719 and had a population of 141 in the Census of 2001.
Shewalton House and estate were composed of the 'Lands of Shewalton' and the laird's dwelling, originally a tower castle and later a mansion house on the River Irvine in the Shewalton area, two miles from Irvine and west of Drybridge village, East Ayrshire, Dundonald Parish, Scotland. In 1883 the Boyle's estate of Shewalton was 2,358 acres in extent in Ayrshire and was worth at that time £2,708 a year.
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Lawthorn is a hamlet near Perceton in Strathannick, Irvine, North Ayrshire, Scotland. The settlement lies on the old Irvine to Stewarton toll road.
