Gowk stane
local term describing certain menhirs and glacial erratic stones in Scotland, UK
The name gowk stane (English: cuckoo 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.
Etymology
Gowk in Scots means a common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus), but also a stupid person or fool. The word, from Middle English goke, was borrowed from Old Norse gaukr 'cuckoo'.
The word was replaced in 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.
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.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gowk stane” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.