Legend has it that Finn MacCool, a brave giant from Ireland, lived on the wild north coast and frequently visited the sea, as it was so close to him.

One day he was contemplating the waves when he spotted another giant on Staffa, a Scottish island; his name was Benandonner, better known as the red giant. Benandonner was an extraordinarily ugly, hairy, troublemaker. Noticing Finn MacCool’s presence, he yelled:

“I wish I could fight you, but unfortunately I can’t swim, so we’ll never know which one of us is stronger.”

Finn MacCool never took a challenge lightly, so he collected some huge hexagonal rocks he found on the coast and built a causeway across the sea from Ireland to Scotland.

As Finn started to cross the causeway, he realized that the red giant was much larger than he was and he ran back to Ireland.

“Oh, Oonagh, help me hide,” he said to his wife as they reached their front door.

Oonagh, was a very cunning woman and immediately came up with a plan:

“Do exactly as I ask,” the woman said.

The woman pushed the bathtub into the middle of the room and asked Finn to get into it, covering him up to his eyes with a baby blue comforter.

A few minutes later, Benandonner knocked on the door asking for Finn and Oonagh replied:

“My husband just left, but come in and wait for him if you want.”

As the giant sat down in the hall, Oonagh offered him a cup of tea and a loaf of bread… the cunning woman had baked the loaf with an iron pan inside.

“I just baked this bread for Finn, it’s his favorite.”

When the giant took the first bite, he broke half his teeth on the iron skillet.

– Ay ay ay! The giant cried out in pain.

“I beg you please don’t make so much noise, you’re going to wake the baby in his crib,” Oonagh said.

“In that huge cradle does your baby sleep?” Benandonner asked, looking at the hulk in the middle of the room.

“Of course it does, it barely fits in it.” Oonagh said. Finn will be home soon, sit down and eat these blackberry cupcakes.

Oonagh brought him a plate full of the cakes she had baked, but inside it was an iron plate.

Benandonner took a bite, letting out a screech so loud that all of Ireland shook. The other half of his teeth had been broken when he bit down on a piece of the iron.

“What’s in these cupcakes?” He asked between tears of pain.

Oonagh shrugged.

“These are the baby’s favorites, I make them with butter, sugar, eggs, flour and blackberry jam,” she answered.

And she gave one of the cakes to Finn, who was lying in the crib acting like a baby, but this was a cake like all the others: light and fluffy. Finn swallowed it in one bite.

The red giant watched in amazement and feeling seized by fear thought:

—If that baby is so big and has stone teeth, I don’t want to imagine how big his dad is.

Without saying goodbye, he ran back the way he came, destroying the road to prevent the visit of such a fearsome enemy.

To this day, the two fragments of the causeway remain intact, one on the coast of Northern Ireland and the other on the Isle of Staffa, Scotland.