Escape Game : Celtic Legend

Celtic Legends

ESCAPE GAME

THE MISSION

You are a group of tourists who are visiting Dunluce Castle in Ireland.

You are looking at carvings on a mysterious stone - called the Ogham stone - when suddenly a thick wooden door slams behind you ! You are trapped !

To escape, you will have to find your way through various rooms, solving enigmas to collect the secret escape code.

Are you ready ?

THE map of the castle

Room 1

To unlock the door you have to press on the right animal.

Watch the video below and fill in entry 1 of the mystery grid : it will give you a clue to open the door.

THE map of the castle

Room 2

The door opens onto a tiny cell. As soon as you have entered, the door slams shut. There is an audio recorder on the floor. Play it and discover the beginning of an Irish legend...

Ask your teacher for the audio.

Room 2

Listen to the recording and fill in entries 2 to 4 of the mystery grid.

How old will the son be when he is claimed ? This is your clue to open the next door and to find the secret escape code.

Ask your teacher for the audio.

THE map of the castle

Room 3

You enter a dark bedroom where a fire has been lit. A book is open on the floor.

Read it and fill in entries 5 to 7 of the mystery grid.

Then solve the puzzzle on your worksheet. This is your clue to open a secret passage in the fireplace and to find the secret escape code.

When the time comes, the father doesn’t want to give his son to the seamaiden. At his son’s request, he asks the blacksmith to make a sword. With the sword and his father’s black horse, the son ventures out into the world. On his way, he meets a black dog, an otter, and a falcon, arguing over the carcass of a sheep. After the young man has divided the prey for them, they all pledge (1) their help to him when needed. The son becomes a cowherd (2) for the king, but the land where he grazes the cows belongs to two giants.

On the next day he went grazing with the cows; and at last he came to a place exceedingly grassy, in a green glen, of which he never saw the like. But about the time when he should drive the cattle (3) homewards, who should he see coming but a great giant with his sword in his hand? “HI! HO!! HOGARACH!” says the giant. “Those cattle are mine; they are on my land, and a dead man art thou.” “I know not that,” says the herd; “there is no knowing, but that may be easier to say than to do.” He drew the great clean-sweeping sword, and he neared the giant. The herd drew back his sword, and the head was off the giant in a twinkling (4) . He leaped on the black horse, and he went to look for the giant’s house. Into the house went the herd, and that’s the place where there was money in plenty, and dresses of each kind in the wardrobe with gold and silver, and each thing finer than the other. At the mouth of night he took himself to the king’s house, but he took not a thing from the giant’s house. And when the cattle were milked this night there was milk. He got good feeding this night, meat and drink without stint, and the king was hugely pleased that he had caught such a herd.

1. swear 2. someone who keeps the cows 3. bétail 4. en un clin d’oeil

THE map of the castle

Room 4

You enter a mysterious room guarded by a selkie ! She will give you a clue to open the door if you tell her a story.

Listen to the third episode of the story and fill in entries 8 to 12 of the mystery grid.

Then give a short oral account of the events to your teacher. If you're convincing, you will obtain a clue.

Ask your teacher for the recording.

Room 4

The third clue for the secret escape code is the number 3.

THE map of the castle

Room 5

You arrive in a room where pieces of parchment are scattered on the floor.

Read them and put them in the right order to discover another episode of the legend.

Then decipher the secret formula on your worksheet.

fill in entries 13 to 16 of the mystery grid and reveal the secret password below the grid. You can now click on the key.

1 2 3 4 5 6

Then the princess played again, and stopped till the sea-maiden put him up to the waist. Then the princess played and stopped again, and this time the sea-maiden put him all out of the loch, and he called on the falcon and became one and flew on shore. But the sea-maiden took the princess, his wife.

The king’s daughter was now mournful (1) , tearful, blind-sorrowful for her married man; she was always with her eye on the loch. An old soothsayer (2) met her, and she told how it had befallen her married mate. Then she told her the thing to do to save her mate, and that she did.

(1) sad (2) devin

“In the island that is in the midst (3) of the loch is the white-footed hind (4) , and though she be caught, there will spring a hoodie (5) out of her, and though the hoodie should be caught, there will spring a trout out of her, but there is an egg in the mouth of the trout, and the soul of the sea-maiden is in the egg, and if the egg breaks, she is dead.”

(3) middle (4) biche (5) cape

She took her harp to the sea-shore, and sat and played; and the seamaiden came up to listen, for sea-maidens are fonder of music than all other creatures. But when the wife saw the sea-maiden she stopped. The seamaiden said, “Play on!” but the princess said, “No, not till I see my man again.” So the seamaiden put up his head out of the loch.

Her man was mournful, tearful, wandering down and up about the banks of the loch, by day and night. The old soothsayer met him. The soothsayer told him that there was no way of killing the sea-maiden but the one way, and this is it:

They were now married, and everything went on well. But one day, and it was the namesake of the day when his father had promised him to the seamaiden, she came and took him away to the loch without leave or asking.

Room 5

Choose the secret password to go out of this room.

THE map of the castle

Room 6

You go down a strange staircase and you arrive in front of a door. A scary creature is guarding it. In exchange of a story, it will give you a valuable parchment...

Imagine and write the end of the legend in a short paragraph. Submit it to your teacher to obtain the last clue to escape.

THE map of the castle

Do you have the secret escape code and the parchment ?

Go into the last room only if you do!

Room 7

You are now standing in front of the Ogham stone. But you have a problem: there are two doors and they are both locked. If you open the wrong one, you may stay locked in the castle forever !

Room 7

Use the parchment you won in room number 6 to decipher the message on the Ogham stone and obtain a clue.

Then look at the poems which are engraved above the doors to obtain another clue.

Now choose which door you want to open...

Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,

For I would ride with you upon the wind,

Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,

And dance upon the mountains like a flame.

W.B. Yeats, “The Land of Heart’s Desire”

A mermaid found a swimming lad,

Picked him up for her own,

Pressed her body to his body,

Laughed; and plunging down

Forgot in cruel happiness

That even lovers drown.

W.B. Yeats, “A Man Young and Old”

Room 7

What is the secret escape code to open the door?

203203

202033

203023

You've managed to escape and are free now.

Congratulations!