The giants and the boys

As soon as he left, she pulled off his brother’s penis, and then killed him. The lad heard his brother’s cries, and knew what had happened. He kicked the buckets to pieces, and then went back to the house, where he called, “Give me the arrows! I see a grouse on the water trail!” She gave him the arrows. He broke them to pieces, and then ran away. As he did not return, the giantess went to see what was keeping him so long. When she saw the buckets and arrows broken, she called to her husband, who came back and started with a spear in pursuit of the boy. The boy hid in a crevasse of a glacier, where ice was piled up. The giant was too large to enter, and he could not break the ice: so he poked in the hole with his spear, thinking he could thus kill the boy. The boy rolled up his blanket and put it to one side. The giant thought this was the boy, and kept stabbing it. The boy hit his own nose and made it bleed, and rubbed the blood on the spear-point. The giant thought he had killed the boy, so he left his spear there and went home. He told his wife, “You killed one for me yesterday, and I have killed one for you today.” She had already cooked the boy’s privates and his body, and now the couple ate all except the bones.

The giant told his wife, “We will shift camp to where the other boy is, and eat him next. When they reached the ice, he told his wife to crawl in and bring out the body. She crawled in, and found nothing but blood-stains. The giant said, “His body is certainly there. Where are your eyes?” His wife then pointed out the broken spear, and they knew that the boy had escaped. After feeling around in the hole, the giant started in pursuit.

The boy reached a place at a large lake where there was a large camp of people fishing. They made ready all their weapons, and sharpened many sticks. When the giant arrived, he asked, “Has my grandson come here?” and the people answered, “Yes, he is here.” The giant said, “His grandmother weeps for him, and I have come to get him.” He asked the boy if he would come back; and the boy answered, “Yes.” The people invited the giant in, asked him to be seated, and gave him fish to eat. After eating, the giant asked the boy to louse his head. The boy loused his head. The people stuck the sharpened sticks into the ground all round, and the boy tied the ends of the giant’s hair to the sticks. While the boy was lousing his head, the giant thought of eating the boy, and pierced his leg with a bone. The boy jumped away, and the giant reached out to catch him. As he did so, he found that his hair was tied to pegs all round, and that he could not arise. The people then attacked and killed him.

The giant had told his wife to follow him. The people made a new camp on the way she was to come, and prepared to receive her. They cooked the fat from the stomach of her husband, and had it ready for her. When she arrived, she was carrying a bundle, and pretended that it was a baby. She herself cried, imitating a baby. Then she would say, “The baby is not crying: I am doing this to fool the Indians.” She asked where her husband was, and the people told her he was at the camp beyond, but would soon be back. She answered, “My husband is not in the habit of going to other camps.” The people had already told her the camp she was now in was made by her husband especially for her. They assured her that her husband would be back soon, and said to her, “Sit down, and we will give you something good to eat.” She sat down on the pretended baby. The people asked to see her baby; but she said, “It cries when anybody looks at it.” The people gave her husband’s fat to eat. She said it had a bad taste, and they told her it was perhaps a little old. She began to eat again. Some of the people went behind her, and tied the ends of her hair to the neighboring willow-bushes while the others spoke to her and entertained her. When all was ready, they began to laugh at her, and said to her, “That was your husband’s fat you ate.” She got angry and opened the sack she carried, in which were stones for throwing at the people. The people attacked and killed her. When they opened the bundle to look at the baby, they found only the bones of the boy she and her husband had eaten.

Running and expanding this site requires resources: from maintaining our digital platform to sourcing and curating new content. With your help, we can grow our collection, improve accessibility, and bring these incredible narratives to an even wider audience. Your sponsorship enables us to keep the world’s stories alive and thriving. ♦ Visit our Support page