Trifter

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The island of Staffa, part of the Inner Hebrides, lies off the West coast of Scotland.

Measuring only one km by half a km, this rugged, uninhabited island got its name from the Vikings. Staffa means stave or pillar.

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From volcanic origins this Island, ‘discovered’ by Sir Joseph Banks in 1772 and later visited by Samuel Johnson amongst others, amazes, with its rising columns of three to six sided basalt columns.

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These were formed by the cooling lava shrinking and cracking vertically. Weather and sea erosion now leave us with what appears at first glance to be man made columns.

Image source.  Clamshell Cave

There are several caves on the island amongst which are Clamshell Cave and Cormorant Cave.

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MacKinnon’s Cave, in a list of the world’s longest sea caves (by Dave Bunnell and Bob Gulden) is shown as being the twentieth longest at 180 meters long.

Image source  MacKinnon’s cave

But perhaps the best known of all the caves on Staffa is Fingal’s Cave.

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This cave was known in Gaelic as An Uamh Bhin meaning the melodious cave because of the sound of wind and waves. It inspired Mendelssohn in his Hebrides Overture.

Other visitors included William Wordsworth, who wrote of it. We saw, but surely in the motley crowd. Not one of us has felt, the far-famed sight: How could we feel it? Each the others blight, Hurried and hurrying volatile and loud.

William Turner was also influenced to paint ‘Fingal’s Cave’

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The geological traits seen on Staffa can also be seen in other places in the surrounding area.                  

From the nearby rocks of Am Buachaille

Image source  The Island of mull,

 
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 Across to the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland

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The last words I’ll leave to John Keats, who, in his poem ‘Staffa’ wrote

Not Aladdin magician
Ever such a work began;
Not the wizard of the Dee
Ever such a dream could see;
Not St. John, in Patmos’ Isle,
In the passion of his toil,
When he saw the churches seven,
Golden aisl’d, built up in heaven,
Gaz’d at such a rugged wonder.
As I stood its roofing under…

Other articles about places of interst and events by this author:

A Cultural Landscape: Yorkshire Sculpture Park 
Carnival: Dirty Jenny in Aalst! (Carnaval: Voil Jeannetten En Aalst!)
Hilarious Flashmob Craze is Spreading Around the World
Diary From a Greek Island