Wicklow Mountains

One of the big days for travel was today with my family. We had planned an eight-hour tour of the Wicklow Mountains, which I was not mentally prepared to be in a bus again for that long, but woo! We met our tour guide at 9-ish by the Molly Malone statue, which I hadn't seen or at least noticed until we actually got there, and it just breaks my heart every time I see her because of the wear on her statue, on very specific parts. After that, and briefly talking to my dad about the statue and more of its history, we set off with the remainder of the group to the bus to start the tour. We started out going about an hour out of Dublin to Glendalough, where we did a short tour of the seven churches area. It was really cool to see some of the older architecture again, more towers and older buildings from another lifetime ago, which is a crazy thing to think about. We talked about Vikings and their influence on the area and the architecture as well, and then we stopped in front of a rock that was shaped like a bowl of water. The guide explained to us that this was called a Deer Stone or a Rock Basin, and the story behind it was; "The stone derives its name from a legend associated with St Kevin. The legend hold that the wife of one of the saint’s workmen died giving birth to twins. The workman came to the saint to ask for help. St Kevin  set about solving the problem and having prayed to God for help  a doe came to a certain spot and everyday shed milk into a hollow in a stone while the workman sat on a nearby boulder. Legend has it that the man’s finger prints caused the hollow in the boulder  which was hence forth known as the ‘Deer Stone’." (https://pilgrimagemedievalireland.com/2013/06/03/the-deer-stone-a-19th-century-pilgrim-station-at-glendalough/)  I really loved this story, I usually enjoy hearing things like this from old religions and histories just because of how beautiful they can be. I thought about it the rest of the time we spent there, we got to walk around the lakes and the forests on a trail and it was so bright in greenery and wildlife, no deer though...

The second part of the tour was going deeper into the mountains, which was a bit nerve wrecking because the guide had just showed us something his friend sent in the Sally Gap which was absolutely destroyed with snow, but yay he decided to skip it and just take us to a viewing point to see Guinness Lake from above. Since it was starting to rain a bit more than it was in the beginnging of the trip, the whole area was foggy so it gave a mysterious and eerie look to the mountains and the lake below. It was another type of beauty that you can only imagine in books and movies and it made me so happy. It made me think of that kind of mysterious and dreamlike feel that I get from reading the Stolen Child by Yeats, he creates that kind of image when you read through that one and that was the first thing that I thought of when I was thinking of a poem to use, but also because that poem reminds me of one of my favorite books that's pretty relevant now that I'm really thinking of it, gotta love the fantasy books man.