St Stephen's Day reading

A dismal damp day here, and us all up at sparrowfart. Himself on airport duty this time as son#1 and my brother depart. Gosh, it went fast but a lovely time was had with far too much food, some eclectic films (Gladiator,The Two Popes and Aeronauts!) and a few bracing walks and swims, plus a lovely skype with the Kiwis who spent Christmas Day on the beach - jealous, not a bit! We did the same on Christmas Eve.

Now, a brief tidy up has been undertaken and we have the fire lit, the Christmas cake being dismantled and are lounging around reading some of our new pressies. The pic is of some of the illustrations in the book I'm currently devouring:  A History of Ireland in 100 Words - kindly given to me by Himself. Rather hilariously I bought the same book for my friend Finola. It's excellent and I especially love the images. Any guesses which words are being illustrated here? 
On the left: gruaig - hair - did you know that in 1297 the English were banned from following the Irish fashion of wearing their head half shaven with long hair tied up behind? Man buns are nothing new then.

In the middle: cróga meaning brave in a rather bloody sort of way, like our hero here Cú Chulainn, shown in the midst of a warp spasm when (apart from quite a lot of alarming things happening) his hair became so stiff and bristly that any apples falling from a tree would get spiked on it

On the right - grá, meaning love.The woman has serc-ball (serc being another name for love, so confusing when you've just learnt hat grá was the main word) - love spots, which make her irresistible!
Fascinating eh?

And it's St Stephen's Day here or the Wran. I was going to venture out to Ballydehob where they were hoping to revive the custom of the Wran but the weather is so foul I suspect they have not go further than the pub. If you haven't a clue what I'm talking about, and why would you, see here. Dingle do a very good one - skip down to the video if you can't be bothered to read everything!

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