A Stone's Throw

Dying of his injuries, he crawls to the banks of the River Lee, and there he lies upon a large flat stone and waits to die. Now his identity has been lost to time, but not so for the woman who finds him by the river. She was the Queen of the Fairies, a woman of immense power. For many years she had doated on this chieftain, but she had been unable to win his love. As his blood ran onto the stone at the river's edge, she wept for him,

her tears mixing with the blood upon the rock. She kissed the stone as well, and with the gesture her powers sank into the mineral itself. Countless centuries later, in the fifteenth century, Kormick Lardit McCarthy, ninth, Lord of Muskery, was facing a dilemma. He was to appear before Queen Elizabeth the First to make an appeal to keep his ancestral lands. On the eve of this appearance, he prayed

to the pagan goddess Cleona. That night he would be visited by this very same Queen of the Fairies, and she told him that there was a stone in his castle that had absorbed her magic. If he was to kiss that stone, any problem he had would be resolved. And of course he followed her advice, and after he kissed that stone, he was able to eloquently argue his

case against the Queen and keep his land. This is one of the many legends that circulate around a particular castle in Ireland, or, more specifically, a part of that castle's battlements, a block of limestone set into the tower sometime around fourteen forty six. What makes this block so special has been shrouded in myth and fanciful history. There's not a single part of the story that everyone agrees on, up to and including the ways in which Cormick, Lord

of Muskery, learned of its special powers. One myth says that Cormick rescued an old woman from drowning in a river, and the woman, revealing herself to be a witch, informed him of this magical stone that existed in the foundations of his own castle. A more historically grounded tale says that this stone was a gift from Robert the Bruce to Cormick in thanks for aiding him in battle during

the First War of Scottish Independence. This would imbue the stone with great significance, having been gifted from Scotland to Ireland. The legend even claims that this stone is from the same bed as the Stone of Scoon, the traditional stone used in the ceremony to crown Scottish and later British monarchs. It's an appealing tale of solidarity, although the geology tells

a very different story. You see, the Stone of Scon is red sandstone, while the Stone of Cormick Lardit McCarthy's castle is three hundred and thirty million year old limestone, more similar in composition to the rock in the south

of Ireland. This also cast out on another of the stone's fanciful origin stories, that it was the stone the biblical figure Jacob slept on in the Holy Land, the resting place that gave him a vision of the latter to heaven, which would henceforth be known as Jacob's Ladder. Some have maintained that this stone was retrieved during the Crusades and eventually made its way back to Ireland, where McCarthy installed it in a place of honor upon his castle. Oh and the name of that castle, by the way,

is Blarney Castle. The stone itself is known as the Blarney Stone, and it said that if you kiss it, it will bestow upon you the fabled gift of the gab or, a special eloquence and charm. Over the years, many famous figures had traveled to Blarney Castle to receive this particular blessing, including most famously Winston Churchill. A countless number of taurusts have followed in his footsteps. Kissing the Blarney Stone may sound trivial, but it's not the easiest

thing to do. In order to reach the stone, you have to lie on your back and lean out over the castle's battlements. If you have a fear of heights, it would be a literal way to face your fears. But in the end it just might be worth it.

Whether you're partaking in the blessing of the God of Jacob and Irish, which the Queen of the Fairies, or simply linking yourself to the history of Robert the Bruce and his fight against the English, you are taking a moment to connect yourself with the past in a very tangible way that at the very least will give you something curious to talk about. Randy was roughly four days into the experiment when he started to think that he

had made a terrible mistake. The high school student from San Diego was out for a midnight's stroll when he saw something that just about broke his brain. As he approached an intersection with a pedestrian crossing sign at the corner, the stick figure man at the center of the sign moved. Randy froze and rubbed his eyes. Now the stick figure man was sliding down the signpost. He reached the pavement, turned and strode away across the intersection, whistling as he went. Randy,

of course, almost ran, screaming in the opposite direction. Fortunately, his friend Bruce was on hand to calm him down. When Randy described later what he had seen, Bruce explained that it wasn't real. The man and the sign had not moved. Randy was just hallucinating, but he wasn't on psychedelics. The only drug in his system was the caffeine from the Coca colas that he had downed. The seventeen year old, you see, hadn't slept in over four days, and unfortunately

he still had seven more to go. It was December of nineteen sixty three, and at that point the record for the longest time spent awake was eleven days or two hundred and forty hours. Randy and Bruce had decided to try and break the record as part of an experiment for their school science fare. Randy lost the coin toss to determine who would stay awake, which meant that Bruce and their friend Joe would take turns monitoring him.

Even before they began, though, the experiment started attracting attention, Randy was interviewed by a San Diego newspaper and contacted by scientists who offered to monitor his recovery after the experiment was complete. Meanwhile, his parents deliberately tried to convince him to choose another project. They had a good reason to be concerned too. At that point, no one knew the impact of staying awake so long, but a few years earlier, scientists had conducted an experiment where some cats

were kept awake for fifteen days straight. In that case, there hadn't been any long term side effects to study, because the cats all died from stress. Despite this potential danger, Randy and his friends were determined to go through with their plan. The first thirty six hours passed with only minor changes. Randy had difficulty focusing his eyes and he

stumbled over tongue twisters, but otherwise he felt okay. The next day, though, his body temperature dropped and he struggled to concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes. He also grew increasingly irritable, which made monitoring him a lot less fun. It wasn't until the hallucinations began on day four that the boys started to worry, and things got more serious from there. On day five, Randy spent

several hours convinced that he was a famous football player. Later, he screamed at Joe to turn off the radio because he thought the DJ was laughing at him. Even when Randy was not hallucinating, he was always at risk of falling asleep. Bruce or Joe had to accompany him to the bathroom out of fear that he would pass out

while on the toilet. They kept him alert through frequent walks or games of basketball, and while these distractions worked temporarily, Randy would always start to fade once again when he was back home. By the final day, Randy was a zombie. His speech became slurred, and he couldn't complete basic math problems or recite the alphabet without forgetting what he was doing. Oddly, his basketball skills kept improving, though, probably thanks to all

the practice. On January eighth, Randy finally crossed the finish line. After setting a new record for two hundred and forty six hours awake. He passed out and slept for fourteen hours straight. His brain waves were monitored by those scientists who had volunteered to help, and what they found was startling. It seemed that different sections of Randy's brain had been taking turns shutting down for brief periods, so while he had never been completely asleep, parts of him had literally

been dreaming. To everyone's surprise, Randy's sleep patterns were back to normal within just a few days with no signs of any lasting side effects, and as you'd imagine, his story became a national headline. While the data that Bruce and Joe had gathered was circulated throughout the scientific community. Randy's swift recovery in nineteen sixty four seemed to suggest that people were capable of staying awake for long periods without suffering long term side effects. At least that's what

they thought at the time. By twenty seventeen, though, Randy Gardner was once again lying awake each night, although this time it wasn't by choice. Fifty three years after beating the world record, he had developed a horrible case of insomnia. Perhaps it was his brain having revenge on him, or maybe Randy's body had simply gotten use to staying up later than most. Either way, the boy who dared to

stay awake was now desperate to fall asleep. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore which is a podcast, book series, and television show and you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.