When Women Were Warriors

Book I: The Warrior’s Path

Chapter 23: Giant’s Bones

The next day it was our turn to stay at the farmstead with Donal and Kenit. The farmers were busy this time of year. Even the children had work to do. I would have helped them, but Maara reminded me that I had another responsibility. We were to be ready to challenge travelers and to warn cattle raiders away. While it sounded exciting, what it meant was that we all spent a great deal of time doing nothing.

The weather had turned quite warm, and the byre was stifling, so we set up a camp outdoors, under a sprawling oak tree in the farmer’s yard. Donal and Kenit amused themselves by playing a game that involved tossing sticks onto the ground and finding certain patterns in them that were supposed to mean something. I had seen the game played before, but I’d never learned it.

Maara sat gazing up at Greth’s Tor.

“Giant’s bones,” Donal said to her.

Maara looked at him. “What?”

“Looks like a giant’s bones,” he said. “There’s a knee there.” He pointed to a place halfway up the hill, where a knob of bare rock emerged through the thin soil. “A shoulder there.” He pointed to a similar place higher up. “Teeth there.” He pointed to the craggy hilltop. “My mother used to tell me a story. Let’s see if I remember it. I was never much for storytelling.”

Donal scratched his head and knit his brow. “A giant got hurt somehow. I forget that part. But he lay down to die and pulled a blanket of sod up over him. My mother pointed to the hill behind our house. Looked a lot like that one. ‘And there he died, and there he lies to this very day,’ she’d say, ‘and those crags are his bones.’” Donal chuckled. “Used to scare me silly when I had to go up that hill looking for a lost sheep. I was always afraid the giant might wake and any minute he’d stand up and sheep and I and all would tumble off his lap.”

Donal laughed quietly to himself, a deep rumbling sound that I found comforting.

Maara turned to me. “Do you know that story?”

I shook my head. It sounded like a lot of giant stories I’d heard, but I couldn’t remember any of them well enough to tell just at that moment.

“Do you know any others?” she asked. “Any about giants?”

Her eyes were bright with the eagerness of a child. I would have been glad to tell her a story, but the presence of the men made me shy.

“Well,” said Donal, “will you help us pass the time?”

His voice was so gentle and his eyes so kind that my shyness left me.

In ancient days, when only women were warriors, lived three brothers, herdsmen in a country still half wild. In those days, in that half-wild land, giants walked the earth. They were few and, for all their size, not often seen, but on stormy days they could be heard arguing amongst themselves in their deep rumbling tongue.

One day the eldest of the brothers took his sheep out to graze. He had far to go into the wilderness, and there he spied what he took to be a stone house, built lonely far away from the houses of men. When he approached it, he saw that it was no house, but a huge table made of stone. Two great stones set on end thrust up out of the earth, with an immense stone slab across the top of them.

A holly tree grew in the shelter of the stones, and by climbing it the eldest brother was able to reach the tabletop. There he saw a golden platter that held an entire lamb, roasted to a turn, an enormous silver goblet filled with wine, and a stone the size of his foot.

“Well now,” he thought to himself, “there are no sheep but mine here in this wilderness, and no lambs but belong to my sheep, so this lamb must belong to me.”

He sat down on the tabletop beside the golden platter, cut himself a fat slice of meat, and ate his fill.

“Well now,” he thought to himself, “a little bite of what was mine already hardly makes up for the theft of a lamb, so perhaps I should play with this thief a game of turnabout.”

And the eldest brother tucked the golden platter under his arm, climbed back down the holly tree, and went off home with his sheep.

His brothers admired the golden platter, and when they heard there was still a silver goblet on the stone table, they thought it would be a fine thing to have that too.

The eldest brother had begun to have unquiet thoughts about his theft of the golden platter, so he said to his brothers, “Since I brought the platter back, it seems only fair that someone else should bring the goblet.”

The middle brother claimed his right to be the next to seek adventure, and in the morning he took his sheep out to graze in the wilderness. He found the stone table without difficulty, but when he drew near to it, he saw that the holly tree had been torn out of the ground, roots and all, and lay some distance away.

The middle brother was both strong and clever. He dragged the holly tree back to the stone table, leaned it up against one of the upright stones, and clambered up it to the tabletop. There he found the silver goblet filled with wine and a stone the size of his foot. He drank as much of the wine as he could hold and reluctantly spilled the rest onto the ground. Then he took the silver goblet, climbed back down the holly tree, and went off home with his sheep.

The two brothers hid their treasures away, for they had little use for them in the simple life they led. From time to time they would take them out to admire them and congratulate themselves on their adventures. Then they would put their treasures carefully away again.

Now the two older brothers believed their youngest brother to be a little simple, and one evening they decided they would have some fun at his expense. They took out their treasures, the golden platter and the silver goblet, and cleaned and polished them until they shone brighter than the sun and moon together.

“What a shame,” the eldest brother said, “that our youngest brother should not have had an adventure and gained a treasure for himself.”

“What a pity,” the middle brother said, “that our youngest brother should be such a poor man, while both his brothers are men of wealth.”

They went on in this way until the youngest brother felt a little sorry for himself. He decided that he would go and find the stone table, to see if there might be a treasure there for him.

The next day the youngest brother took his sheep out to graze in the wilderness. He found the stone table without any trouble, but the holly tree that his brothers had told him of had been broken in two as a man breaks a kindling stick over his knee. One part lay a great distance to the east, and the other lay a great distance to the west. Even if he could have dragged both pieces back to the stone table, neither piece was long enough to reach the tabletop.

The youngest brother despaired of ever being able to discover if there might be another treasure on the stone table. Then the earth beneath his feet began to tremble, and he saw, striding toward him, a giant whose head seemed to touch the clouds and whose shadow blocked out the sun. The giant appeared to move quite slowly, but the length of his stride more than made up for the slowness of his gait. The young man stood where he was, as if his feet had grown roots that held him there, and in as little time as it takes to tell, the giant stood before him.

The youngest brother had heard of giants, of course, but he had never hoped to see one, yet here one was, and he rejoiced in his good luck.

“Hail, giant,” he called out to the giant, who towered above him. “Will you lift me onto this stone table, so that I may see if my brothers have left a treasure behind for me?”

The giant bent down and picked the young man up, as a father picks up his child, and set him upon the tabletop. The youngest brother looked around him and saw with disappointment that the only object on the table was a stone the size of his foot.

“Young man,” the giant said to him in a voice so deep that the youngest brother felt his heart tremble in his chest. “If your brothers have taken a golden platter and a silver goblet from this table, they are thieves, for those things belong to me.”

The young man’s heart fell.

“I must indeed be as simple as my brothers think me,” he said to himself, when he understood his plight. Still, he was determined to do what he could to save his life.

“Friend giant,” he said, “my brothers and I never meant to do you harm. I will bring what is yours back here tomorrow, if you will let me go.”

Now giants aren’t as stupid as people believe them to be, although they may appear to be a little slow, and this giant knew that once the young man was safely home, he would have no reason to return with the golden platter and the silver goblet.

“I will let you go,” he said, “but you must swear you will return with what belongs to me, and when you do, I will reward you with a gift that is worth much more than gold or silver.”

“I swear I will return with your treasures in the morning,” said the youngest brother, greatly relieved that the giant wasn’t going to kill him. He leaped down from the stone table and ran all the way home, leaving his sheep to follow as best they could and growing more excited by the minute at the prospect of receiving a gift more valuable than gold or silver.

The young man told his brothers of his meeting with the giant and of the giant’s promise, but his brothers only laughed at him.

“Such a silly boy,” said the eldest brother.

“Such a foolish boy,” said the middle brother.

“To think that we would be taken in by such an obvious trick.”

“To think that we would give him our treasures so that he could keep them for himself and bring us back who knows what worthless thing.”

“To think we would believe that he had met a giant.”

“A giant would have eaten him on the spot.”

And the two elder brothers went on in this way until the youngest brother gave up trying to argue with them and went to bed.

But the young man couldn’t sleep, because he had sworn to return what his brothers had stolen and he meant to keep his word. He waited until he was certain his brothers were asleep. Then he took the golden platter and the silver goblet from their hiding place and went by the moon’s light out into the wilderness.

By night the wilderness was quite a different place. The wind rattled the bare branches of stunted, twisted trees. Unseen things made strange noises in the dark. Misty wraiths swirled around him and twined their tendril fingers in his hair. The young man was trembling with fear by the time he reached the giant’s table. He crept beneath it to wait for morning, and there at last he fell asleep.

When the young man awoke, it was daylight. The golden platter and the silver goblet were gone. Beside him lay a stone the size of his foot, the very stone that he had seen on the giant’s table.

“I must indeed be as simple as my brothers think me,” the young man said to himself, and he feared their anger when they discovered their treasures gone and that he had brought home to them only this worthless stone.

For a long time his brothers were angry with him. They called him a thief and other unkind things, until his tears convinced them that he had not taken their treasures for himself. For a longer time they called him foolish for allowing a stupid giant to deceive him, and for yet a longer time they teased him about the stone he kept on a shelf beside his bed. But the time came at last when they forgot they had once been rich men, and they were content to live the simple life they had always led.

One night, long after his foolishness had been forgotten, the youngest brother felt drawn to the giant’s stone. It was an ordinary stone, blue-grey in color, worn very smooth. When he picked it up, it felt warm in his hands, as if it were a living thing. On a whim he placed it under his pillow.

That night the young man dreamed. His dream took him to a crossroads, and there, beside a stone seat where weary travelers could stop and rest, he found a purse filled with gold coins. When he woke the next morning, the dream seemed so real to him that he went to the crossroads to see what he might find there.

Beside the stone seat he found the purse of gold coins, just as it had happened in his dream. He took the purse to his eldest brother and said, “Now I can make amends to you for losing your golden platter.”

His brother thanked him and forgave him and went by way of the crossroads to live in a town, where he soon became a wealthy merchant.

Not many days later the giant’s stone called him again, and the young man placed it under his pillow. Again he dreamed. His dream took him to an abandoned house that lay in ruins, and there, among the tumbled stones, he found a purse filled with silver coins. The next morning he went to that ruined house and found the purse where he had found it in his dream.

He took it to his brother and said, “Now I can make amends to you for losing your silver goblet.”

His brother thanked him and forgave him. He rebuilt the ruined house into a very grand house indeed and went to live there.

At first the young man found life more peaceful without his brothers, but as time went by he was troubled more and more by loneliness. One night he picked up the giant’s stone. It grew warm in his hands, and he placed it under his pillow.

That night he dreamed. His dream took him to the marketplace, where he saw a beautiful young girl. From the moment he first saw her in his dream, the young man loved her. The next morning, when he went to the marketplace, he found her there. For half a year he courted her, and in the spring he married her. On their wedding night, the young man placed the dreamstone beneath their pillow, and both he and his young wife dreamed of children and grandchildren, blooming gardens, thriving flocks, and every good thing that fills the heart with joy.

After I finished, I thought it might not have been the best story to tell to a band of warriors. Donal looked quite wistful, as if he had been lost in a dream of a life he had left far behind him and could never hope to live again. Kenit was still too young to want the life the young man had dreamed for himself, but he might have been thinking of the home he left, as I was thinking of my own home, our gardens and our flocks, and the love I’d known there. I wondered why I had been so impatient to leave that life behind.

Only Maara was smiling. She gazed up at the giant’s bones on Greth’s Tor and said, “I like stories about giants.”

Read Chapter 24...