time!”
“All methods,” replied the councillors delicately, “have been employed.”
Then the King was angry indeed. He vowed that the common people of his
kingdom could help him better than that, and he issued a proclamation
promising half his ships and half his kingdom to the person who should
find a new way to free him from debt. All who wished to try had but to
come to the castle and give the password, “Fortune favors Kings.” But any
one who spoke the password and failed of his errand, was doomed to exile
on the sea.
Now, exile of that kind did not frighten Dare-and-Do in the least. He
shouted the password at the top of his lungs, and strode by the guard
right into the King’s castle.
In the great hall the King sat on his throne, doing problems in
arithmetic. But the trouble with the examples was that they were all in
subtraction.
Dare-and-Do bowed low. The King looked up and hastily put on his crown.
“Your Majesty,” said Dare-and-Do, “may I make bold to ask you one
question: Why is it that no ship yet has reached the Gold Lands?”
Now, it happened that the King had been thinking of that very matter
himself. So he answered right off, “Why, we’ve never had one long enough,
we’ve never had one strong enough, to stand the storms.”
Dare-and-Do’s eyes gleamed. “Just so, Your Majesty,” he said.
Then he drew a step nearer the throne. “But what would you say,” he
asked, “if I could give you a ship long enough and strong enough to stand
any storm that ever blew?”
“What!” cried the King; and then: “Where?”
Dare-and-Do told him about the giants’ ship. Before he was half through,
Waste-and-Want rushed down his throne-steps, bawling, “Guards! Guards!
Guards! Call together all the builders. Call together all the sailors.
Get all the beams and boards in the kingdom!” And when the King spoke in
that voice, the guards were not slow in obeying.
By the next morning every sailor and every builder in the kingdom was
in line on the sea-beach. As for the piles of beams and boards, they
stretched for miles and miles. All day long every sailboat and rowboat
on the coast plied back and forth, loaded down with beams and boards,
sailors and builders. Then began a hammering and pounding, a planing and
joining, that kept up five months and a day.
[Illustration: In the pulley-blocks were little rooms]
When it was over, even Dare-and-Do opened his eyes wide. From one end of
the ship to the other ran a smooth deck, bridging the great gaps between
the rowing-seats. At the stern was a high platform on which a hundred men
could stand abreast to turn the tiller. Up the mast ran a ladder; and in
the pulley-blocks were carved out little rooms where the sailors could
rest from climbing, over night. To Dare-and-Do as captain, the King gave
his fastest horse, which could do the distance down the deck from stern
to prow in a few hours.
Finally everything was ready. The builders went ashore. The sailors
ranged themselves on board. A hundred hacked in turn at the anchor-rope.
A hundred began to set the sail. A hundred began to turn the tiller.
Dare-and-Do galloped up and down the deck, shouting orders.
At last the anchor rope was cut. The sail flapped slowly out. The tiller
creaked. The wind blew and the ship started forward. All the people
shouted, and as for King Waste-and-Want, he made a bonfire of all his
bills on the beach.
The ship moved along at a terrible rate. But had it not been for losing
sight of the shore, not a sailor on board would have known that it was
stirring at all. Dare-and-Do walked his horse. The crew, in three shifts,
took turns eating dinner and holding the tiller. Catch-and-Kill and
Fear-and-Fly began to plan how the gold should be divided. An open sea,
and the wind behind,—what better luck could be desired?
“Land ahoy!” the lookout’s voice came down. And again, “Land ahoy!”
Dare-and-Do galloped forward. On both sides cliffs began to appear.
Every minute they seemed to grow closer and closer together. Dare-and-Do
measured with his eye the width of the passage ahead. Then he thought
of his ship. A ghastly fright seized him. Suppose the ship should not
get through! It was too late to turn around. The channel was already too
narrow for that. But they must not go dashing on like this.
“Take in sail!” screamed Dare-and-Do. “Take in sail!”
Now, it had taken the crew a day and a night to set the sail; and
although they raced to their posts when Dare-and-Do shouted his order,
it was no easy task to pull the sail in. A hundred of them all together
tugged and hauled with all their strength. Dare-and-Do drew a long
breath. The ship’s prow was safely through the channel—
Smash! Shock! Shiver! Shake! The great ship stopped;—stuck fast between
the cliffs that line the straits of Dover!
It happened that at the very moment when the ship was stopped so
suddenly, the giant Wind-and-Weather awoke, a little early, from his six
months’ sleep. He stretched his big arms and his big legs, and looked
about him. Seeing his children still asleep, he got up softly; and
sitting down on a nearby hill, looked through a kind of glass that he
had, down across England.
[Illustration: Looked through a kind of glass that he had, down across
England]
Just then there was a great stirring among the giant children. They
began to wake up and stretch the sleep out of their cramped bodies.
“Oh, father,” wailed Mutzen and Putzen.
“Oh, father,” wailed all the others. “Oh, father, our ship is gone!”
Old Wind-and-Weather was not disturbed in the least.
“Indeed?” he said.—“_I_ see it.”
“Oh, where?” cried all the children.
“Over the little hills, over the little valleys, over the little fields,
over the little forests,” said Wind-and-Weather, “I see the mast against
the sky.”
“Oh, _there_!” cried Handsig, and “There!” cried Grandsig, and “_There!_”
they all cried together.
With one leap they started, plunging down across England. From hill to
hill, from valley to valley, over field, farm, and forest they raced,
stubbing their toes against towns and jumping over villages when they
happened to see them. Wind-and-Weather strode along after them, a mile at
a step; and was at the seashore as soon as they.
Now, the three hundred sailors aboard the giants’ ship were hardly over
their fright at having their big craft stuck between the cliffs when they
were thrown into a much greater panic at hearing the giants’ footsteps
beating down across England. They huddled in the stern; they hid behind
the mast; they scuttled this way and that. They tussled and scrambled and
scrimmaged and scratched, each one trying to get behind his neighbor.
Finally, as they saw Wind-and-Weather’s huge form bearing down upon them,
every mother’s son of them took a wild leap and plunged recklessly into
the sea.
Dare-and-Do and Catch-and-Kill did not jump. They had been in plenty of
panics before, and it was always their policy to stay by the ship. So,
they sat, one on Fear-and-Fly’s head, the other on his feet, and waited
the coming of the giants.
[Illustration: They plunged into the sea]
Wind-and-Weather’s great eyes made them out at once. He picked them all
up with one scoop of his big hand and stuffed them into his pocket. Then
he stepped into the ship. With a single kick he sent the platform under
the tiller flying a hundred miles across Europe. With a stamp of his foot
he smashed the decks between the rowing seats, one after the other.
“But oh!” cried Mutzen; and “Oh!” cried Putzen; “our ship is stuck
between the rocks! How shall we ever get it out again?”
“_I_ know!” cried Grandsig. And putting her hands into her apron-pockets,
she drew out two immense cakes of soap, which she had brought to wash the
children’s faces.
She took one. Handsig took the other. And they went to work with a will,
soaping _Mannigfual’s_ sides. Then Wind-and-Weather pulled and all the
children pushed. The ship creaked and scratched; then slipped and slid
straight out into the English Channel. But the soap, which they put on
rather thick, came off on the rocks, and that is why the cliffs of Dover
have ever since been white.
With a good wind it did not take long, I can tell you, for the giant
children to sail up around the British Isles, back to the Up-and-Down
Country. There sat Sun-and-Sea just as usual, weaving on a kind of loom
that she had.
“Oh, mother, mother!” cried the children. “See what father has brought
you.”
Wind-and-Weather held out the little men on the palm of his hand.
“They are just what I need,” said Sun-and-Sea, “to keep my threads
straight.” So she took the bold pirates Dare-and-Do and Catch-and-Kill,
and set them on her loom.
Wind-and-Weather put Fear-and-Fly back into his pocket. “For,” he said,
“he can polish my glass for me and keep it bright.”
Whether the giant children ever found another running-place I cannot say.
But I fear not. For, years afterward, the great-limbed men who followed
the giants in the Up-and-Down Country, were still sailing the seas in
search of new lands.
—_Based on Norse legends._
[Illustration: The cliffs of Dover have ever since been white]
[Illustration]
III
How the Giants Got the Best of Thor
Swift as the tempest comes terrible Thor,
Heaving his hammer behind and before;
Roaming folk, homing folk, careful be ye!
Only the giants are stronger than he.
_Seymour Barnard._
III
How the Giants Got the Best of Thor
In the misty time when the gods walked about the earth, Thor, the
strongest of them all, set out one day for Giantland. In his hand he
carried his hammer which could batter down mountains; and around his
waist he wore his magic belt which made him twice as strong as before.
For he was going to humble the giants.
In spite of his wonderful strength, Thor was but little larger than a
man; and the giants, by their very size, annoyed him. When he hurled his
hammer through the clouds, the sky rocked, the sea shook, but the giants
did not tremble. And when his chariot-wheels struck out swift streaks of
fire across the sky, they only smiled in their big way as if it were some
game of fireflies. Now he was bound to show them that however big the
giants might be, Thor was stronger, and that a little trembling now and
then might not be out of place.
With Thor went the hungry god Loki, and the swift runner Thialfi. All
day long they walked together through sunny mists across the bare, green
uplands, and just at nightfall they came to a wide moor. As far as they
could see, there was not a house, nor a shed, nor any kind of shelter.
Not even a tree broke the soft horizon. Thialfi ran ahead; and Loki, who
was ravenous, walked furiously. Only Thor did not notice. He was planning
how he would put the giants in their place.
It grew darker and darker. The mist which had played about them all day
in gentle clouds, rose in a damp, gray fog. It filled their throats and
their eyes. They lost sight of Thialfi altogether. Loki stepped back,
groping to make sure that Thor was there behind him; and plunged on
again, sullen and dripping.
Somewhere through the fog there came a shout. It was Thialfi far ahead.
“Halloo!” he cried. “Halloo-oo-oo! Shelter!”
Thor and Loki answered, walking faster. Thialfi’s voice was louder now,
and plainer. “Here!” he cried. “Here! Here!”
It seemed as if they must be close upon him. But the fog ahead grew no
brighter. “Where is the house?” shouted Loki. “Hasn’t it a light?”
[Illustration: With Thor went hungry Loki and swift Thialfi]
But even as he spoke, they stumbled across a wide threshold. Above them
through the thick grayness they could make out a low ceiling. They put
out their hands, groping for the door-arch, and met only empty air.
There seemed to be no doorway at all; or rather, there was nothing _but_
doorway,—a great entrance, like the mouth of a cave, as wide as the
building itself.
Thor struck his hammer on the floor. “Who’s here?” he thundered. But
there was no reply,—only soft echoes, “Here—here—here!”
Thialfi found them. “There is no one here,” he said. “I’ve shouted
before. It’s a ruined palace, I think, with all one side gone. This part
is a great hall; and beyond, there are five narrow wings. Come, I’ll
show you.”
But Thor and Loki yawned, tired out with their day’s journey. And
throwing themselves down on the floor, they all three fell fast asleep.
About midnight Thor started up. The floor trembled, and the whole palace
quaked. The wide roof above them shook till it seemed ready to fall. Thor
roused the others. “Run into one of the wings,” he cried. And picking
up his hammer, he himself went to sit in the great doorway to guard the
house.
All night long the strange rumblings continued. There would be a great
heaving sound, a silence, and then another sound louder than before. Thor
clutched his hammer and waited.
At dawn the noises suddenly ceased. The fog thinned, and Thor looked out
across the country. In the distance he could make out a bright hill, and
amid the shrubbery on the side, two lakes gleaming through the morning
mists. He started to walk toward them when all at once the whole hill
stirred.
Thor stopped, motionless with surprise. For a moment he could hardly
realize that what he had taken for a hill was a giant’s head, and that
the lakes fringed with shrubbery were his eyes gleaming beneath his
bushy brows. Even the rumblings were explained, for they were the
giant’s snores.
When the giant spied Thor, he laughed. “Well, well, my little fellow,
you’re an early riser!” he cried. “And perhaps you’ve seen something of
my glove. I had it yesterday, and I must have dropped it about here last
night. Oho! There it is now!” And with that, he stooped and picked up the
palace.
“Take care!” cried Thor, gasping. “Take care! People inside!”
He was just in time. Very gently, the giant took the glove by the fingers
and shook Loki and Thialfi out into his tremendous hand.
When the giant heard how they had mistaken his glove for a ruined palace,
and the finger places for wings, he roared till the ground rocked, and
Thor had to skip about to keep his balance.
“Ho! Ho! Ho!” gasped the giant, wiping his eyes. “This is a rare meeting
indeed. And now what do you say to some breakfast with the giant Skrymir?”
Setting Loki and Thialfi carefully on the ground, he untied a huge wallet
which he had slung over his shoulder, and laid out small hills of bread
and cheese in a wide semi-circle about him. The gods sat down opposite
and opened their lunch-bag. A very merry breakfast they had of it. For
between his tremendous mouthfuls, Skrymir told the biggest jokes in the
world.
Finally he got up, and shaking out of his lap three or four crumbs, the
size of an ordinary loaf, said that he was ready to start along. “And
where are _you_ bound?” he asked.
Thor told him a little sheepishly.
“That’s my direction too,” said Skrymir good-naturedly. “Come along with
me; I’ll show you the road and carry your bag.”
And picking up their wallet with his thumb and forefinger he tucked it
into a corner of his big one, which he tied up securely and slung again
over his shoulder.
So they set off, Skrymir walking as slowly as he could, and the gods
running like terriers at his great heels in a desperate effort to keep up
with him.
At nightfall they stopped under a towering oak-tree, and Skrymir seeming
suddenly tired out, stretched himself full length upon the ground. But
Loki, who since breakfast had thought of nothing but supper, cried out to
him that he had their bag.
Sleepily, he took his big wallet from his back and laid it on the ground
beside them. “Take anything from it you wish,” said he; and, with that,
fell fast asleep.
In a minute Loki had climbed to the top of the sack and begun to tug at
the huge ropes that bound it. Thialfi sprang after him. But the harder
they pulled, and the redder and hotter they grew, the more firmly the
knots seemed to stay in place. Then Thor, tightening his magic belt,
leaped up and pulled too. But the knots remained as securely tied as
before.
“Skrymir! Skrymir!” shouted Loki.
A huge snore that nearly shook them off the sack was the only answer. By
that time the gods were desperate with hunger, and Thor, who had never
before failed in a trial of strength, was bursting with rage. Dashing
down off the wallet, he took up his hammer and hurled it with terrific
force at the giant’s forehead.
Skrymir turned a little in his sleep. “Did a leaf fall?” he murmured
drowsily. “I thought I felt something on my head.” In another minute he
was snoring again more loudly than ever.
Thor shrank back, astounded. Never before had his hammer failed to
kill. Trembling and exhausted, he lay down beside Loki and Thialfi on
the ground. But it was no more possible to sleep than it had been to
get something to eat. The oak-tree rocked as in a wild hurricane; the
leaves dashed together, and the ground quaked with the giant’s snores. It
sounded as if a hundred vast trumpets were blaring at once.
By midnight Thor could stand it no longer. He sprang up, determined to
put an end to Skrymir once and for all. Tightening his magic belt three
times, he swung his hammer about his head and dashed it straight and sure
into the giant’s temple.
Skrymir’s eyelashes flickered. “How troublesome!” he grumbled, raising
his head. “These acorns dropping on my face!”
Thor held his breath. Minute after minute passed, and Skrymir did not
begin again to snore. Would he never go to sleep? Thor clenched his fist
till his fingernails bit deep into his hand. Somehow he must get one more
chance with his hammer. It was maddening, unbelievable, that there was a
giant who could withstand it.
Finally, just at dawn, Skrymir’s wide bosom began to move up and down, up
and down, like the high waves at sea. At the first snore Thor was ready.
He gripped his hammer with both his mighty hands, and hurled it with a
force to kill a hundred men. With a thundering crash it sank deep into
the giant’s forehead.
Thor ran exultingly to drag it out. But Skrymir, brushing his hand
drowsily across his brow, swept it gently to the ground.
[Illustration: A tremendous palace, all of ice]
“Just as I got to sleep!” he growled. “To have a twig drop on me! There
must be birds building a nest in the branches above here. Are you awake,
my little gods? Well, Thor, you _are_ up early! What do you say to
starting on?”
And with that, Skrymir stretched his great arms and sprang up as if
nothing had happened. As for his forehead, it was as sound and firm as
ever.
Thor leaned back weakly against the oak. “Yes,” he gasped, “let us be
going.”
So Skrymir shouldered his great wallet again, and set off whistling
across the field, with the gods following limply after. At the meadow’s
edge Skrymir stopped and waited. Beyond a line of trees stretched a hard,
bright road, gleaming like a sea of white marble in the sun.
Skrymir pointed along it. “This road,” said he kindly, “takes you to the
palace of the giant king. My way lies over the hills so I must be saying
good-by. Many thanks for your pleasant company, my little friends. You
will be well received in Giantland. Only remember your size, and don’t
get to boasting, my tiny gods. Here’s your wallet now; and good luck go
with you.”
As he spoke, Skrymir took his great sack from his back and plucked it
open with one pull at the huge knot. Picking out the wallet of the gods,
he laid it on the ground; and flourishing his enormous cap about his
head, by way of good-by, he went leaping off toward the hills. The gods
watched him, speechless, till he was out of sight. One moment his huge
form rose clear against the blue sky as he jumped over a mountain range;
the next, it was lost to view on the other side.
Loki turned trembling to the other gods. “Let us turn back,” he cried. “I
am not going on to be laughed at in Giantland.” Then his eye caught the
wallet. Diving for it, he tore it open, and the starving gods fell to.
There was only a mouthful apiece, but it gave them new courage.
Thor brandished his hammer. “Go back? Never!” he cried. “On we travel to
Giantland. They shall yet learn to know the great god Thor!”
Thialfi sprinted ahead along the marvelous white road, and Loki, more
ravenous than ever, pelted after.
Suddenly, the road turned sharply upward. The gods climbed, panting.
There in the distance, beyond the hill-top, gleamed a tremendous palace,
all of ice. Immense icicles made its pillars, and its frosty pinnacles
glittered above the clouds. In the sunlight it shone with a thousand
rainbows.
Thialfi stopped. Straight before him flashed the palace gate, each great
icicle-bar blazing back the sun. For a moment he paused, dazzled. Then he
saw that wide as the huge bars were, wider still were the spaces between
them. He walked through, arms outstretched, without touching on either
side. Thor and Loki followed along the glittering ice-roadway to the
palace.
Up and down in front paced two giant sentinels, their heads erect and
their great eyes peering out through the upper air. The tiny gods slipped
unnoticed by their very feet, and into the great hall of the giant king.
Around the sides sat giant nobles on benches as high as hills, and at the
end the king himself on his towering throne. Blinding light flashed from
the floor, the ceiling, the walls. But the gods did not quail. Proud and
straight, they passed unremarked down the center of the hall.
Before the throne Thor stopped, and dashed his hammer on the floor. The
vast hall resounded and the giants rose to look.
Thor drew himself up. “I am the great god Thor,” he cried, “whose hammer
cleaves the clouds and shakes the sky. I come to demand the homage of the
giants.”
Like a burst from a hundred volcanoes at once, the giants’ laughter came
booming down the hall.
The giant king smiled. “The giants welcome the gods,” he said kindly,
“but we can bow only before proofs of greater power than our own.”
At that, Loki who was nearly starving, could stand it no longer. “Greater
power!” he shouted. “Greater power! Let any one here eat food faster than
I!”
The giants clapped their hands with a noise like waves smiting the beach.
“Hear! Hear!” they roared.
“Have my cook Logi bring a trough of meat,” called the giant king.
Setting the trough before the throne, Logi sat down at one end, and Loki
at the other.
“Ready!—Start!” cried the king.
Click-clack! Loki’s little jaws were at it before Logi got his great
mouth open. Click-clack, click-clack, they kept on while Logi’s great
tongue swept down the trough. Squarely in the middle, their heads bumped,
Loki’s little head against Logi’s big one.
“A tie!” cried Thor. And so it seemed. But while Loki had eaten every
morsel of meat from the bones, Logi had devoured meat, bones, trough and
all.
Thialfi stepped forward, flushing at Loki’s defeat. “Who will race with
me?” he cried.
“Hugi! Hugi!” shouted a dozen giant voices.
Hugi walked out, a slender young giant, and led Thialfi to a race-course
covered with marble-dust, just behind the palace.
The giant king gave the signal, and off they dashed. Thialfi smaller and
quicker, was off first; but Hugi, with his long legs, covered an immense
distance at a single bound. Before the course was half finished, Thialfi
was running like a tiny hound at the heels of a deer. As they drew nearer
the goal, Hugi with a sudden urge, sped forward and crossed the line
before Thialfi was three-quarters of the way around.
[Illustration: The contest between Loki and Logi]
“Bravo, Hugi! Well run, Thialfi!” cried the giants kindly.
But Thor blazed with wrath from head to foot. His muscles quivered and
his throat was dry. “Bring out your largest drinking-horn,” he thundered,
“and see how Thor will empty it.”
The giants trooped back into the hall, and Logi brought a horn as deep as
a well, filled with mead.
“With us, Thor,” said the king, “a giant is thought a good drinker if he
can empty the horn at a single draught; a moderate drinker does it in
two, and any giant can do it in three.”
Thor gave his magic belt a quick twist. Instantly his little form began
to expand; and he stood before them, a god of majestic size, half as big
as the giants themselves, and with muscles greater than their own. Taking
the horn in one of his mighty hands, he breathed with all his force and
drank till it seemed as if the vessel must have been emptied twice over.
Triumphantly he raised his head and looked within. But the mead still
brimmed to the horn’s edge.