Original Size — Medium-Size
“At the time I speak of there was one particular giant who had for a long while been remarkably troublesome. Not only was his appetite more insatiable than that of his brethren, but he was endowed with a spirit of mischief, which rendered him an especially disagreeable neighbour. If he met a man he generally gave him a kick, which sent him off fifty yards up in the air, and in most instances proved fatal. He never passed a cottage without sitting down on the roof, or kicking the wall down, and would walk away from a farm with a couple of haystacks, one under each arm, simply for the love of plunder, and when he really did not require the hay for his own purposes.
“You will hardly require much argument in order to convince you that this giant was a most obnoxious person, and was consequently held in great detestation by all the poor creatures who had the misfortune to dwell near him. By these he was generally called by the euphonious name of ‘Old Bramble-Buffer,’ although the title by which he was known among his own kith and kin was probably quite different, and has not been handed down to posterity. For many years he tyrannized over the country round, and the story which I am about to tell you will show how great his fame and physical strength must have been, and thus remove any surprise which you might otherwise possibly have felt at the power of one monster to keep a whole neighbourhood in subjection.
“When their houses had been again and again destroyed, the wretched inhabitants began to seek shelter in holes in the caves and rocks, in which they hid themselves, their wives, families, and effects, and only issued forth by stealth at night, or when they had reason to believe that their terrible oppressor was away from home. In consequence of this state of things, our friend the Daddyroarer found his fun somewhat diminished. He seldom encountered a man now, the opportunities afforded him for kicking down houses were comparatively rare, and he began to think life in the country, under such circumstances, rather tedious. It was in vain that he occupied himself in mountain-building with some of his fellow-giants, snowballing was cold work, and became tiresome after a time; and when he once tried to amuse himself by baling out my river, he found the task too great for even one of his gigantic strength. He kept on at it for some time, being too stupid to understand that my river, being well supplied at its sources, and aided by many a tributary stream and mountain torrent, was in no sort of way affected by the abstraction of the few millions of gallons of which his puny efforts robbed it, and his exertions only caused intense mirth to my elves and demons, without for a moment lessening the volume of water in the river, or in any way diminishing the strength and rapidity of the current.
“So when Master Bramble-buffer became tired of all these occupations and amusements he had few resources left. Persons of his description are not given to literary or intellectual pursuits, and in all probability both reading and writing were accomplishments entirely unknown to the ordinary class of giants. Eating, drinking, and sleeping appeared to be the chief objects for which these creatures existed, except to make themselves generally disagreeable to their neighbours, which was an object in which it is quite true that they rarely failed to achieve complete success. So when the excellent Bramble-buffer had found out that the task of emptying the Rhine was beyond his powers, and cared not to fall back upon the old pastimes, of which he had had his fill, he took to the practice of taking long walks, and journeying into other countries wherein he might find fresh people to terrify, new fields to destroy, and a wider scope for the exercise of his vast strength and malevolent disposition.
“He marched over a great extent of ground, and did a vast deal of mischief during these excursions. Such was his size and weight, that the commonest action on his part was sometimes fraught with the most unexpected results and the direst consequences to mankind. For instance, if he carelessly slung his walking-stick as he moved along the road, the implement, being of the size and thickness of a well-grown fir-tree, brushed off the heads of trees—and of people too, for that matter, if it came in contact with them,—-just as a stick in the hand of an ordinary mortal knocks over poppies and thistles if employed for that purpose. Then if he sat down on a small hill to rest, it was as if a man had jumped with his full weight on a mole-hill of which the earth was newly thrown up and consequently soft. The ground trembled beneath his weight as if with the shock of a sudden earthquake; and very often squashed under him so as to jut out on either side, and cause sudden and most inconvenient alterations in the fields and woods on each side of the hill, more especially so in those cases in which dwellings happened to have been erected thereupon. And woe betide the owner of ponds or wells when the Daddyroarer happened to be thirsty as he passed by them. It was no unusual thing for him to empty a pond at a draught, and I have known a whole village affected with drought for weeks together because old Bramble-buffer had taken a fancy to drink of the wells by which it was supplied with water.
“In his journey at last the old fellow came to the seashore, and having never before visited the blue ocean, he was abundantly delighted at all he saw. Even the coarse and blunted nature of a giant cannot fail to be struck with admiration at the first sight of the glorious sea. The waves breaking with regular and solemn force upon the shore, as if protesting ever against their enforced restraint within prescribed limits: the foam dancing lightly upon the water far away out at sea; the bright rays of the sun reflected in varying lights upon the shifting waters; the ships riding at anchor, or merrily cleaving the waves asunder in their onward course; the sea-birds skimming along the bosom of the sea, ever and anon with shrill scream dipping their long wings in the spray of the wave, and mounting again in high air with joyous flight; the huge fish showing his scaled form for an instant in the light of day, and the next moment burying himself fathoms deep in the world of waters below; all these things, passing before the eye at the same moment with the rapidity of thought, strike the beholder, be he giant or man, with mingled awe and wonder.
“In the case of old Bramble-buffer, however, neither feeling lasted long, and after a very short space of time the spirit of mischief arose within his breast, and tempted him to try his powers of doing evil under the new circumstances before him. Placing himself in a recumbent posture, and supporting his huge frame upon his two stalwart arms, he began to blow violently down upon the sea below, with all the force of his mighty lungs. The effect was instantaneous. The bosom of the deep was troubled as with a terrible hurricane. The waves reared up their heads, the foam danced higher than ever, the sea-birds shrieked more loudly, and the fishes were astonished at the wondrous commotion which had arisen upon the surface of their watery home. The poor mariners, who were taken totally unawares by the extraordinary suddenness of the storm, were, as may well be supposed, in considerable trouble. Their ships were driven from their moorings, masts were snapt asunder, sails and rigging rent and injured irreparably, and several men and boys blown overboard by the violence of the terrible blast. Indeed, more than one vessel was lost, and an immense amount of property utterly destroyed; and all because of this mad freak of the mischievous old giant.