Blarney Stone
The Blarney Stone is one of the state regalia of the United Kingdom. It is kept in the throne room of Buckingham Palace, cemented into the ceiling. Only the monarch is permitted to touch it. The invincible power of the British Empire is said to be founded on it.
It is named for Blarney Castle, a prehistoric earthwork in the exact geographical centre of Ireland, where it resided for many centuries. Irish bards were crowned on it at the annual eisteddfod, and deposed if they could not keep a straight face while reciting their rubbish. Raiders under Robin Hood carried it off to England in 1055, and unable to sell it they eventually threw it into the Thames, where the royal decorators found it.
The Blarney Ceremony[edit | edit source]
Every 38th of July the Queen performs an action with the Stone whose exact nature is unknown.
Access is by a rope ladder, which by tradition the monarch must ascend upside-down, saying the while "Polly want a cracker, Polly want a cracker". This solemn ritual is conducted in the presence of both Houses of Parliament, all three houses of the General Synod of the Church of England, the surviving dons of Oxford and Cambridge, the crew of the Ark Royal, the cast of The Royle Family, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Chief Rabbi, the Keeper of the Imperial Corgis, the oldest Chelsea Pensioner, and two members of the general public selected by ballot. All of them, without exception, have grimly refused to divulge what they witnessed. Over 3000 kg of various cleaning fluids are delivered to the Palace over the course of the following week, together with a new hedgehog.
Thus Britain is saved from bankruptcy and failure in the Eurovision Song Contest for another twelve months.
History[edit | edit source]
Travels through space?[edit | edit source]
While no scientist has ever been permitted to examine the Blarney Stone, Sir David Attenborough at his investiture did manage to sneak up close enough to film it through a telephoto lens and an atomic mass spectrometer, and it was found to consist of at least 70% kryptonite. Scratches on it are consistent with rapid ejection from the surface of a giant planet and a passage through the Oort Cloud more than a hundred million years later. Optical thermoluminescence testing on some of the inner grains reveals the presence of chondrites, tiny symmetrical baubles normally formed only by deposition by flatfish such as plaice. Rotation resistance therapy suggests it warps gravity slightly and came from the south side of the hill.
In the Ark of the Covenant[edit | edit source]
The recorded history of the Stone begins in the month of Tishposh in 5774 BCE, when Moses of Galilee had gone up to the top of Mount Sinai to see where they were, as some of the Hebrews were starting to complain. They asserted that they had been through a particular bit of sea four times already, and one even insisted that he had found his own flip-flop, lost on a previous passage when Moses' faith had briefly wavered. Moses waved away the objection, saying all flip-flops look alike, but privately wanted to get up a bit higher just to be sure.
Waking up with a stunning headache, and a lump on his nut the size of a balloon, he found he was lying near a fiery rock which was largely intact though ten smaller pieces had broken off, emitting faintly greenish smoke. Also, he had grown tentacles. Also, Mount Sinai was about to erupt. He was dragged to safety by a passing hobbit.
Although he never showed anyone but his brother-in-law Aaron the actual pieces, because Aaron knew a bloke in the priest business and thought they could turn a prophet, the work of deciphering the strange squiggles in them occupied the next seven years. He kept the pieces he wasn't working on in a box in one corner of his room, and anyone who came in while he wasn't there glowed blue, died choking, and their corpse shrivelled up and blew away into the sands of the desert.
The Cattle Raid of Blarney[edit | edit source]
No-one is entirely sure how the Blarney Stone got from Palestine to Ireland, though Venetian ships did ply the trade routes looking for tin, ivory, and vanilla from Cornwall, and the Venetians were notorious gamblers and drinkers once they got into a port.
The Irish treated the Stone with awe and veneration, and never touched it or desecrated it in any way, unless they got drunk. Then they would have great games throwing it around to each other, sitting on it saying "Look at me, I'm king!", and kissing and licking it. In many places the Stone as it is today has worn down to near transparency and has the appearance of amber.
Because of a drunken interpreter, the English thought that the Irish had a sacred cow (the Irish for 'stone' is cú), and it was a wish-giver (Ir. uis-gebeagh). Robin Hood and his Merry Men were given their assignment in a sealed scroll from Cardinal Wolsey, head of the Norman secret police, which self-destructed after it was read.
Thefts from London[edit | edit source]
The Stone has been stolen twice from Buckingham Palace, once by Scottish adventurer and polar explorer Captain Haddock in 1664 as a bet, and later by Manchester University students in 1953 to celebrate the Coronation. In both cases it was pawned to pay for beer, and recovered when the Archbishop of Canterbury happened to go in to pawn his mitre for sherry.
Syphilis[edit | edit source]
Due to rampant oral fixations, the stone is the number one spreader of syphilis in Ireland. Tourist come to kiss the stone and bring the sexy disease back to their home land. It would be advisable to carve your name on it.