I have to confess that I did not kiss the stone, but my sister-in-law and one brother did. (I’m eloquent enough??)
You're positively effusive, Louanne.
My mother kissed the stone when she was in Eire, but it didn't seem to affect her much.
Speaking of local legends of elocution, I used to travel to Phoenix every year, crossing the Hassayampa River just west of there. I recalled something H. Allen Smith* wrote about it:
"The Hassayampa is a river in Arizona, and there is a legend which says that if you drink from its waters, you will never tell the truth again. I didn't ever get near it, though I know there are some niddering idiots who will say that I am fair bloated with its waters."
Since there wasn't a drop of water in the "river" whenever I crossed it, I must paradoxically assume that whoever told him that must have drunk their share of it.
*Smith was a well-known and successful humorist and travel writer in the previous century, although he seems to be almost unknown today. The quote is from
We Went Thataway, about his tour around the US. He also wrote
Waikiki Beachnik, about pre-statehood Hawaii, and
Two Thirds of a Coconut Tree, whose title came from a building code in Tahiti that specified the limit of the height of a building.
