The Singing Cave
Review by Jim
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In Barrinish on the wild coast of Connemara in the west of Ireland there is a niche in a cliff that is known locally as “the singing cave”. On the day after a great March storm, Pat, the narrator, hears the cave begin to sing: “It was a long deep ringing sound, as I have often imagined the bells of drowned ships must ring under a swelling sea.” He discovers an inner chamber in the cave and in that chamber the skeleton and tomb of a Viking warrior, but when he visits the cave again the next day the Viking and his hoard have disappeared. Who has stolen this treasure - and why? Pat has told nobody about it but his grandfather and the local amateur archaeologist, Mr Allen. With the quest for the missing Viking and his tomb, an exciting and perilous adventure begins for Pat and for his friend, Tom Joyce, in whom he confides the story - an adventure that is to take them on a lobster boat as far as the Breton port of Kerronan and back again to Connemara. Before the fate of the Viking is finally decided, Pat encounters good and evil, pride and greed, generosity and cunning in the people of Barrinish and Brittany. For readers aged 9 to 13. |
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| Copyright © 1998 by
Jim |
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