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The name gowk stane (English: cukoo stone or fool's stone) has been applied to certain standing stones and glacial erratics in Scotland, often found in prominent geographical situations. Other spelling variants, such as gowke, gouk, gouke, goilk, goik, gok, goke, gook are found.
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Etymology
Gowk in Scots means a common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus), but also a stupid person or fool. The word derives from the Old Norse 'gaukr', a cuckoo. Other explanations and origins for the term are also found. The word derives from Anglo-Saxon (Old English) 'gouk' and was replaced in the south and central England by the French loan word 'coucou' after the Norman Conquest. The cuckoo family gets its English and scientific names from the call of the bird.
The Scottish Gaelic names are Coi: Cuach: Cuachag (poetical name): Cuthag. The Welsh for cuckoo is cog.
Cuckoo folklore
Celtic mythology in particular is rich in references to cuckoos and the surviving folklore gives clues as to why some stones were given the gowk name.
The term gowk is perhaps best known in the context of the old Gowk's Day, the Scottish April Fools Day, originally held on April 13 when the cuckoo begins to call, and when children were sent on a gowk hunt, a harmless prank involving pointless errands.
Gowk meant both cuckoo and fool, the latter were thought to be fairy-touched. The call of the cuckoo was believed to beckon the souls of the dead, and the cuckoo was thought to be able to travel back and forth between the worlds of the living and the dead.
It was once commonly thought that the first appearance of a cuckoo also brought about a "gowk storm", a furious spring storm.
Cuckoos were said to have the power of prophesy and could foretell a person's lifespan, the number of their children and when they would marry.
It has also been suggested that the gowk or fool originated in the Dark Ages as a name for the Britons, given by the Saxons invaders, and carried some of the meaning of the Devil in the context of an arch foe, who is likened to the fool.
In the Outer Hebrides a cuckoo's call heard when a person was hungry was bad luck, however the opposite was true if the person had recently eaten.
The gowk stones
The use of the term gowk at these sites suggests a link with springtime and some of the surviving legends associated with standing stones do have a link with the heralding of spring by the first cuckoo of that season to arrive. In the churchyard at Nevern in Wales is an old stone cross, carved with intricate knotwork. Villagers of Nevern would wait for their "harbinger of spring" and on 7 April, St Brynach's feast day, the first cuckoo of the year would arrive from Africa, alighting on the cross and singing to announce the arrival of spring.
A local belief of the Gaelic-speaking community on the Isle of Lewis was that when the sun rose on midsummer morn, the "shining one" walked along the stone avenue at Callanish, his arrival heralded by the cuckoo's call.
The cuckoo traditionally sends forth its first call in spring from the gowk stone at Lisdivin in Northern Ireland.
A few cuckoo stones are present at sites in England and Cornwall.
Other uses
The various gowk stones often had other functions, such as acting as boundary markers or meeting places in what may have sometimes featureless landscapes. The gowk stone at Whitelee may have been used as a pulpit of sorts by ministers preaching at conventicles held on this remote spot in Covenanting times.