asleep, turning over so as to lie on his back, his usual position when
he was sleeping.
After a few hours’ sound and heavy sleep, such as all giants are said to
enjoy, he awoke. Finding {348}that the sun had in the mean time followed
his example and gone to sleep, he remembered that it was supper time,
and as he thought of the delights in store for him he uttered a long and
deep sigh of satisfaction. But something that his long drawn breath had
brought up, suddenly jumped out of his mouth.
[Illustration: 368]
This something was one of the dwarfs; and this dwarf, the boldest and
most intelligent among them all, was called Kreiss.
But in order to make it clear how Kreiss happened to be almost in the
giant’s throat, which was {349}of course only accidentally his home for
a time, we must go back and see what had happened while Quadragant was
asleep.
When the little pigmies found their tree uprooted and their people
scattered in all directions, escaping through every crack and crevice in
the soil, they had rushed into a long subterranean passage, excavated
in days long gone by, by their forefathers. Here they had uttered their
well known cries of distress, resembling the chirp of crickets, and thus
they had finally reached the ruins of an old castle, inhabited by vast
numbers of their people, and chosen as the place of meeting of the
General Council of the dwarfs.
Kreiss happened to have arrived the night before, as one of a numerous
deputation, and he at once suggested the propriety of burying the dead
with all due honors, before anything else was done. After that, they
might go to work stopping up all the holes and openings made by the
tearing up of the sapling, and filling the excavation which it had
produced, so that the rain might not come and inundate their long
gallery, which was their only safe means of communication.
The two resolutions offered by Kreiss were carried by acclamation, and
all, loaded with brush and with stakes, went immediately to work. There
were some ten thousand of them. {350}They thought the giant had left,
but they found him lying full length on the ground and snoring most
fiercely. Their first impulse was to escape, but Kreiss held them back.
He had conceived a bold plan; he proposed to capture the giant. Were
they not already provided with ropes and with stakes? Was there not
strength in numbers? They immediately went to work, and in less than an
hour the murderer, unable as he was to make the slightest motion, was
bound to the soil which he had soaked with their blood.
“What do you say?.... Yes, sir, you are undoubtedly right. This looks
very much like the manner in which Gulliver was treated in the island
of Lilliput. How can we help that? Besides, we must remember that there
have been dwarfs in Germany from time immemorial. If Jonathan Swift
undertook to transfer them to imaginary countries, whose business is
that and who is liable to be charged with plagiarism, I ask you?”
We will not stop to discuss this trifling matter, which is of little
importance. We have weightier matters than that in hand.
When the work was done and with the excitement of the efforts the first
enthusiasm also had somewhat passed away, the question arose what was
to be done with their capture. They looked at each other in great
perplexity. {351}The dwarfs are kind hearted people, who have a great
horror of blood. Besides, it would have been more difficult even, to
dispose of the giant after death than to kill him. Still, if they did
not kill Quadragant he would, as soon as he was awake, go to work and
cry for help lustily; then the other giants would, no doubt, hasten to
his assistance. The disgrace inflicted upon one of their brethren would
in all probability render them furious, and they would proceed at once
to uproot all the trees and to pursue the poor little people of dwarfs
down into the very bowels of the earth.
While these and similar observations were passing in the crowd from one
group to another, Kreiss remained silent and thoughtful, supporting his
head in his hand and his hand on his elbow.
In the mean time the crowd passed from simple talk to grumbling and from
grumbling to threats. There was nothing left but to undo what was done
as promptly as possible, to abandon this ridiculous enterprise and
to restore the giant to liberty in the same way in which he had
been deprived of it--during his sleep. If he should awake before the
operation was over, why, then they might try to appease his wrath by
handing over to him the authors of this fatal project.
Ah! one can see at a glance, that these dwarfs, small as they were,
were nevertheless men, and {352}that it is better not to venture upon
attacking giants!
They were utterly discouraged and demoralized. Calm in spite of all this
excitement around him, Kreiss was still meditating, apparently quite
unmindful of all the invectives that were hurled at him and the little
hands that were threatening him. But when some of them actually began to
loosen the ropes, he suddenly dropped his hands from his elbow and his
brow, and turning sharply upon his aggressors, he said:--
“I acknowledge my mistake and I am ready to atone for it. Go,--my seven
brothers and myself, we will alone set the giant free again. If he
awakes, he shall have to do with us and with us only. Go!”
The former conspirators were well content to accept the proposition, and
without bestowing a thought upon their murdered brethren, they escaped
as fast as they could. In the dim twilight of the last hour of the day
one might have seen them running nimbly through the tall grass and under
the cupolas of mushroom, arousing in their hurry the beetles and moths,
or even mounting upon their backs in order to reach by their aid all the
more quickly their safe retreat in the ruins of the old castle.
When all were gone save Kreiss and his seven {353}brothers, he said
to them: “Now that we are alone, we alone shall reap the glory of the
enterprise! So far from regretting what I have done, I mean on the
contrary, to enlarge our project in a manner which shall redound to the
eternal glory of our race.”
[Illustration: 373]
The dwarfs are not only skillful metallurgists, but they are also most
expert carpenters and builders.
Hence the good people of the Rheingau are {354}convinced that they have
built all those ruins of solid old castles, in which they are still
living and which they have so cunningly repaired and propped up that
they will last forever.
[Illustration: 374]
Now Quadragant was sleeping with his mouth wide open, as all large
people are apt to’ do. Kreiss slipped boldly into this vast and spacious
cavity, armed with a long spear which was equally sharp and pointed at
both ends. He took care to rest at first most cautiously only upon
the projections of the teeth, which formed, so to say, a double row of
parallel battlements. By such assistance he passed from one end of the
abyss to the other, without troubling the slumbers of the giant by the
{355}slightest awkwardness in his movements. For a case of emergency
Kreiss held his spear firmly in his hands, ready to fasten it so between
the two jaws as to prevent their closing upon him.
[Illustration: 375]
His brothers were in the meantime busily engaged in preparing posts,
pins, and rafters, which they handed to him as he needed them. One of
them even went with him to assist him.
They fixed strong piles between the two rows of teeth, and strengthened
the piles by beams, which secured them to each other. The work was by
no means an easy one, for in the mouth of the giant it was as dark as
night, and there reigned in it a heat equal to that of an oven. Moreover
Quadragant had dined that day on a deer and several {356}hares, and
as he liked his game high, like every good judge of fine dinners, the
perfumes of his breath increased the inconvenience caused by the heat
and the darkness.
Kreiss’s brother was all of a sudden taken ill, and had to leave to join
the others outside. They, however, continued work on the scaffolding,
and watched the giant carefully.
Quadragant was absolutely in the hands of the eight dwarf brothers.
They had passed up a lantern to Kreiss, which he hung upon one of
the transverse beams, and he now continued his work alone resolutely,
although he was every now and then compelled to stop his nose.
His work was at last completed, and he was just about to leave this
damp, pestiferous abyss, when the giant awoke, and his first sigh
carried off the brave pigmy, as a gust of wind would have carried off
a dry leaf from a branch, and hurled him senseless into space. He fell
heavily upon the chest of the colossus.
As soon as he recovered from the shock, he looked around carefully, and
saw, to his great satisfaction, that the bonds which held the giant
were beyond doubt strong enough to hold him a prisoner. Then he crept
cautiously all along the neck as far as his ear, and by its aid climbed
up the chin, after having crossed the cheek in its whole {357}length.
When he had found a convenient restingplace, he drew himself up to his
full height, and raising his feeble voice as loud as he could, he said
to the giant:--
“Murderer of our brethren, you are our prisoner, and you must die!
Commend your soul to God.”
[Illustration: 377]
The giant tried to see the tiny being who was speaking to him so boldly,
and cast down his eyes. At first he could distinguish nothing but a
feeble glimmering light at the extremity of his nose; but the nose
itself completely concealed the speaker.
Kreiss then advanced a few steps from the chin towards the mouth of the
colossus, and the latter now perceived a kind of little man, dressed in
a cloak of mouse skin, which he grandly wrapped around him, as Hercules
did with the skin of the Nemean lion.
In his hand, however, he held not a club, but a lantern, in which a
firefly did service as candle.
Thanks to this phosphorescent sheen, which seemed to surround Kreiss
as with a halo, Quadragant could examine him at leisure, and he asked
himself how such an embryo could have flown out of his mouth, and how
he, Quadragant, could have become his prisoner? {358}The contemptuous
glance which he threw at the dwarf made Kreiss aware of what he was
discussing in his mind.
“You think you are not captured yet,” he said. “Very well, try to get up
and walk, if you can!” Quadragant did try, and found that he was firmly
fastened to the ground by ropes and chains, by each single hair of his
head, by every hair on his body. He tried to speak to the pigmy, and he
could not, by any effort of his, move his jaws in the slightest way.
“As to the manner of your death,” Kreiss went on, “if the wolves and the
vultures do not hasten your end, hunger will do the work.”
At this thought of dying of hunger, a mode of death which he had always
looked upon as the most terrible of all, Quadragant’s heart gave way,
and he began to cry piteously. Two torrents of tears flowed down his
cheeks, and after turning around the prominence of his lips, ran over
from his chin.
Kreiss was compelled to leave his position, so as to avoid the double
current.
Although quite firm in his resolution, he was naturally kind-hearted.
These many tears of such unwonted size finally touched ‘him, but his
sympathy made him only the more determined to render his vengeance as
useful as it was complete. {359} “Listen to me, giant. You can buy your
life, if you choose.” Quadragant’s tears ceased to flow. Here was life
offered to him, and with that life he saw first of all a good supper
in store for him, and if his mouth had not been held so tight by the
scaffolding erected in it by Kreiss, his big face would have grinned
from ear to ear.
[Illustration: 379]
“But,” continued the dwarf, “you will Tiave to devote your life and
your liberty, if we restore both to you, to the service of our decimated
people; do you hear? You must understand me clearly; you will not be our
protector, but our servant; you will unhesitatingly perform every kind
of work which may be required of you for our safety or our comfort.
First of all you will replant that oak tree, {360}under which the dwarfs
of this district were living in peace, and you will water it every
morning until it has taken root again. Now, close your eyes, if you mean
to accept our conditions!”
Quadragant opened and shut his eyes quickly ten times in succession.
Kreiss made with his lamp a kind of telegraphic signal; his brothers,
all seven dressed in garments of mouse skin or mole skin, and carrying
each one a lantern with a firefly inside, climbed in an instant upon the
face of the giant, which now looked quite brightly illuminated.
Three of them took their station on his forehead; two others by the side
of each eye. The last two held each a long thorn in their hands, which
they seemed to use as a dagger.
Kreiss, who had remained at his place, said again to the giant:--
“If, after you have been set free, you dare utter a sound to call for
help, you lose both of your eyes instantly. Mind the warning!”
Armed with his double pointed spear, he then went once more into
Quadragant’s mouth, and loosened one of the transverse beams which
formed the ceiling. The giant assisted him with his tongue in the work
of demolition; then, after drawing a long sigh of relief, he closed his
mouth and crushed between his formidable jaws all the timber, posts,
{361}and beams, as if they had been a bundle of matches, and swallowed
the whole in anticipation of his supper.
[Illustration: 381]
After that he swore an oath which binds the giants as firmly as the
invocation of the Styx pledged the s of Greece.
“By the earth, which is my mother, by the mountains, which are her
bones, by the woods and forests, which are her hair, by the brooks, the
streams, and the rivers, which are the blood of her veins, I, {302}the
giant Quadragant, declare that I am the slave of the dwarfs.”
At sunrise Quadragant was up again, carrying his new masters between
his fingers, which he twisted together in the shape of a cradle. In
less than five minutes he reached, in obedience to their orders, the
old castle in ruins, where a ‘solemn meeting was held, not only by the
fugitives of the day before, but also by the principal representatives
of all the dwarfs of that part of Germany.
When the sentinels announced the arrival of the giant, all thought their
last hour had come and endeavored to escape, hoping to find a refuge in
the lowest depths of the old building. Kreiss, however, had ordered the
giant to put him down in front of the cellars of the castle, and now
entered the great Meeting Hall, assuming like all great conquerors, an
air of extreme modesty.
Then he informed them that the giant was their slave!
They at once threw themselves at his feet and expressed their desire to
proclaim him Emperor of the Dwarfs.
Kreiss, however, having heard of a recent experiment of that kind,
was far from believing such sudden enthusiasm to be either deep or
permanent.
[Illustration: 383]
From that day the giant abandoned his {363}old name of Quadragant, and
assumed that of _Ptitskuchen,_ which at that time meant Friend of
the Dwarfs, but which, translated into modern German, represents our
_omelette soufflee_.
[Illustration: 385]
{365}At first all went well; but at the end of three weeks Putskuchen
looked sad and melancholy; Putskuchen only took half a dozen meals a
day; Putskuchen was slowly fading away; Putskuchen was in love, in love
with a young giantess, who taunted him with having become the servant of
these wretched pygmies and reproached him with his poverty. The unhappy
creature fell off more and more, the _omelette soufflee_ fell down flat,
and Putskuchen was a mere lath of thirty feet in length.
Kreiss had always felt a certain tenderness for him, and hence, after
having asked the consent of all the other chieftains, he placed in the
giant’s hands a large heap of gold scales such as the dwarfs were in the
habit of collecting in the neighboring mountains.
It was enough to buy three wives, instead of one.
The fact had no sooner become known than all {366}the happy giant
fathers of the country desired him as a son-in-law, and when they saw
how liberally his services had been rewarded by his new masters, they
were all eager to become the serfs of the dwarfs.
Thus, thanks to Kreiss, the giants gradually came all, one by one, and
entered the service of the dwarfs.
Certain skeptics have maintained that the whole story is symbolic.
According to their interpretation the giant fastened to the ground and
muzzled by the dwarfs, is the people, the people always kept down
and always held in subjection, in spite of its gigantic strength. The
dwarfs, who lived under the oak, the sacred tree of all nations of
Celtic origin, are the priests.
We say: Shame upon people, who would change a legend into an apologue
and our friend Kreiss into a Druid!
When the dwarfs became reconciled again to men, they compelled the
giants to execute for them great works of public utility, such as
bridges and highroads, which were afterwards generally ascribed to the
Romans.
The belief in little dwarfs continues to this day to exist in most of
the Northern countries. They still live in myriads in the subterranean
regions {367}and in the rocks in Westphalia, in Sweden, and in Norway,
and they are still hard at work amassing vast treasures.
[Illustration: 387]
[Illustration: 391]
XV.
{371}Wizards and the Bewitched.--_The Journey of A sa-Thor and his
Companions.--The Inn with the Five Passages.--Skryinner.--A Lost Glove
found again.--Arrival at the Great City of Utgard.--Combat between
Thor and the King’s Nurse.--FREDERICH BARBAROSSA AND THE
KYFFHAUSER.--Teutonia! Teutonia!--What became of the Ancient
Gods.--Venus and the good Knight Tannhauser.--Jupiter on Rabbit
Island.--A Modern God._
Hear! hear! New and greater marvels still! But, unfortunately, we shall
be under the sad necessity of returning to our giants once more, much as
we have already spoken of them, from giant Ymer down to Quadragant, and
there may be too much even of the best things in this world. But let
the reader take courage; this time my giants are not real giants; or at
least they are giants of a very peculiar species. But instead of losing
time with limitations and explanations, let us begin our story.
It was in the days when the Scandinavian gods were still in the full
enjoyment of their power.
One fine day the god Thor, curious to see certain distant lands of
which they had told him most marvelous stories, set out on his travels,
accompanied by Raska, Tialff, and Loki. Leaving Sweden and Norway
behind, they arrived at the sea-shore and crossed over by swimming. A
mere trifle, of course, for people of their kind. On the opposite shore
they found a vast plain, and as night was approaching and they began to
feel that rest would be acceptable, they looked out for a shelter. In
this vast and deserted plain they see but one single building; a huge,
ill-shapen, and abandoned house, {373}rather broad than high and of
altogether exceptional appearance. It has neither doors nor windows,
nor even a roof; but the night fog may possibly conceal a part of the
edifice. The travellers enter and find a square, low vestibule, and at
the end of it five long passages; each of the travellers takes one of
these passages, looking for a door or a bed in the dark. As they find
neither bed nor chamber, they resign themselves and lie down on the
floor, with their backs to the wall.
But even the walls seem to be elastic, and so does the floor; perhaps
a layer of straw or of moss was spread over them and gave them the
softness of felt, rather coarse, to be sure, but not unpleasant. The
travellers felt that they could sleep there comfortably and warm. So
they did.
At daybreak Thor rubbed his eyes, stretched his arms and proposed to
take a turn in the country, to stretch his legs and to shake off the
heaviness of sleep. Through the white mists which were still hanging on
the tops of high hills he thought he saw a huge mass of disheveled hair,
and then he discovered in the centre of that head two eyes. At first
he thought this head and these eyes were simply a rock covered with
shrubbery and two small pools of water shining in the rays of the
rising sun. But soon the disheveled head began to move, bent down to
the ground, and turned now {374}to one side and now to another. In the
meantime the mists had risen and Thor found that he was standing before
a giant of such enormous size that those whom he was generally engaged
in hunting down would not have reached to his knee.
The giant advanced toward him, always looking here and there, and still
with his eyes fixed on the ground, as if he were looking for something
he had lost.
Thor, who was easily incensed by the sight of a giant, went straight up
to meet him and said in an arrogant tone:--
“What are you doing here? What is your name? Who are you?”
“My name is Skrymner,” replied the other. “Did you not know? As for me,
I have no need to ask you any such question; you are the god Thor, one
of those under sized gods who live with Odin on the ash tree Ygdrasil.
Have you seen my glove? I have lost my glove; yes! yesterday,” he
added in the most indifferent manner possible, and as if he were solely
occupied with his search.
“I have found nothing of the kind,” replied Thor, who was always in bad
humor, and now regretted that he did not have his hammer at hand.
“And do you travel quite alone?” asked Skrymner. {375}
“I have three companions.”
“I do not see them.”
“They are all three still asleep in that house there, in which we have
spent the night.”
And with his finger he pointed at the house, which they had used as an
inn for the night.
Skrymner looked both surprised and delighted. “My glove!” he cried,
“that is my glove! I have found it.” He hastened to pick up this
apparent house with its five long passages, and took it up, but not
before he had shaken it, holding it close to the ground, and showing
thus that he was not without a feeling of humanity.
Loki, Tialft, and Raska tumbled out upon the grass, rather terrified
by their sudden ascension and the sudden somerset which they had been
forced to make. But as soon as they had recovered from their first
surprise, and especially from the discovery that they had spent the
night in a glove, they thought of continuing their journey.
The country was unknown to them, but Skrymner offered to act as guide
and even to carry their baggage. So much obliging kindness and courtesy
drove all aggressive thoughts out of Thor’s mind, especially as he now
had his hammer.
At the first stopping place, and just when they were getting ready for
breakfast, the giant left them, although only after having pointed out
to {376}them the road they ought to take. Thor, however, found he was
unable to open the knapsack in which they carried their provisions; all
the strings and small chains by which it was fastened, were in knots.
They had to proceed on their journey without having had any breakfast, a
necessity which is most disagreeable to travellers, and even to gods.
As hour after hour passed and the plain remained deserted and sterile,
their hunger became tormenting. They listened with all their might,
hoping they might hear the roaring of a bear or the lowing of a cow,
determined as they were to dine upon the one or the other; but the dull
rumbling of a storm and the distant roll of thunder was all they heard.
Thor was furious at the idea that any one should venture to thunder
without having obtained permission from him, the god of thunder, and
rushed forward. Following the direction of the noise, he reached a rocky
defile, overshadowed by a few oak trees, where he found Skrymner lying
at full length between two hills and snoring furiously. This snoring it
was which the travellers had taken for the roaring of a storm.
“No doubt,” said Thor to himself, “the wretch is at work digesting the
provisions of which he has robbed us. No doubt it was he who tied all
those knots in the strings of our knapsack, in order to {377}conceal his
theft; but he shall pay for it dear! Besides, did he not speak of me as
an undersized god?”
With these words he seized his hammer and threw it at the head of the
sleeping giant, who did not stir, but only passed his hand over his brow
as if a dead leaf falling from a tree had tickled him a little.