The Giant's Tale

NOTE: A retelling of "Jack and the Beanstalk" from the giant's point of view.

As I sprawled, my big head ringing with a massive headache, at the foot of a beanstalk that collapsed on me, I knew I should have seen this coming. What did I know? I was only a child. But I should have remembered.

No one trusts Giants who live in big, scary, drafty castles. How do I know? I am one.

You’ve read all the papers: “Giant ‘Stalks’ Local Boy, Falls To Own Death,” “Tearful Mother’s Plea: ‘Mr. Giant, let my boy go,” “Jack the Giant Killer: ‘He said fee fie foe fum and I knew I was dead.’”

You’ve even read the fairy tale that they wrote, relying, of course, on the boy’s point of view. I’m sure his mother was right there, giving interviews, posing for photos, and reveling in the fame she never would have had otherwise as a poor widow in a backwater village, her husband killed in some war or plague or other.

That will teach her to scold the boy for accepting magic beans in exchange for a useless cow. Why, anyone will tell you anything magic is worth more than money.

Don’t get the idea that I am a rich brute. I was rich and had a castle, yes, because everyone expects big oafish Giants to live in drafty, cold castles with cobwebs as the décor. I had a goose, but how was I supposed to know she laid golden eggs?

All right, you caught me there. I did know. See, I’m a horrible beast and a liar.

I’ll tell you though, that bird hadn’t laid so much as a scrambled egg in years. Suddenly, when that boy came around, it was as if the cat, the goose and I awoke from a Sleeping Beauty/Snow White-type sleep.

I can’t comment on Beauty or Snow. I don’t interfere in other people’s business. The only person I ever gave advice to was the witch who kept Rapunzel safe. The witch got an undeserved reputation, as witches with nose warts and broomsticks tend to do. It was a case of a witch who wanted a child, who could give the girl a better future.

Not that I would know anything about mothers, irresponsible or otherwise. Oh, I like my parents well enough, but Giants don’t tend to have quality time together. Not like Humans. Sometimes Humans have so much quality time they can’t stand each other. That was probably the case with Jack and his mother…

I suppose the best way to begin this story is at the beginning with the obligatory...

ONCE UPON A TIME.

* * * * *

I woke up from a slumber when I heard Ossa, my wife, bellow my name.

By the bye, my name is not “Giant.” It’s...

“Wenceslas!”

Ossa threw open, and I do mean threw, luckily without breaking, the door to our bedchamber and stood with arms crossed, frowning at me.

“Wenceslas Pontus Macfarlane, you lazy lout, our son has run off!”

Ossa, my not-so-blushing bride, shook her braided black hair for emphasis.

I yawned and belched at the same time, an impressive feat, I thought. What did I know? I was only 120 years old. Barely a young adult, not even of an age to be married to a beautiful Giantess and to have a son. Even if I’d been 300 with the accumulated wisdom and experience, no one had taught me anything about how to be a man, a father, a husband.

I just lied in the previous paragraphs. Again. I said Giants don’t have quality time. It wasn’t a lie, really. I thought I’d be different from my parents. I thought I’d have a close family with a wife and child, maybe even two. Giants don’t usually have more than one child at a time, with the same person, anyway. I wanted to be different. I was going to be a homebody.

“Wenceslas!”

I pushed aside the fur blankets and stood with ease. I went to give Ossa a kiss, but she pushed me away.

“Hmph! Kisses, is it? When you’ve been sleeping the morning away and now Manaan has gotten away again.”

I washed and dressed in the blink of a Fairy’s wing. I spritzed myself with essence of musk ox after I scrubbed my face and body with loamy pine-smelling soap. Giants are far cleaner than humans.

“Now, now, Ossa, no need to fuss. The imp’s just hiding. Playing with the swans.”

“The swans, is it? Lazy birds like you. Only thing lazier is the goose. We ought to have a nice roasted goose for dinner.”

“Now, Ossa, you know Manaan loves his pet.”

I tiptoed across the bearskin rug past Ossa. She folded her arms as thick around as our bedposts.

“Mind you tell him to keep that bird away from me or I’ll have it in the oven nicely done to a golden brown.”

Outside the wind gently kissed my cheek as I walked on hard-packed earth.

Cloudinium, like any other place inhabited by magic folk, isn’t in the clouds. Whoever heard of walking on a cloud? Only angels can do that. Cloudinium was just past what we call the Twilight Door. It’s invisible to most Humans. They look up and they see sky or storms or sun or whatever. The Twilight Door is...

I don’t know what it is. Or what it looks like. I’d never been through it before Jack.

But on that day I knew where Manaan would go. The Twilight Door.

The sky is much bigger than Humans know. Animals and birds know it. The geese and the swans pass through with ease, and they can show off the magical powers they conceal on Earth. Everything is magic here. The sky is home to Unicorns, Dragons, Goblins, Gnomes, Trolls, Sprites, Kelpies, Kraken, Ogres, Fairies, Elves, Dwarves, and Giants like my family.

I scented the wind and followed the faint aroma of orange marmalade. Manaan loved marmalade and was forever running about with a fairy cake and marmalade. As I followed the wind I saw traces of marmalade on the ground. Manaan ate while he ran, and like most youngsters, made a mess of it.

Thinking of food made me quicken my steps. I hadn’t grabbed breakfast this morning. My fault really, oversleeping. I’d spent a long day yesterday rebuilding the castle tower after a volleyball team of Trolls decided to hold their tournament on our property. Since it’s best to keep on good terms with Trolls, we played host. My darling Ossa was in a grumpy mood from cooking all day yesterday for two teams of ravenous Trolls. Once I brought Manaan home, we’d have peace.

He knew not to go onto our neighbors’ lands, but then, I knew better when I was his age. Our property was the size of Bavaria on the earth below. He usually stayed on the grounds playing with his friends.

Unless there were Fairies involved, Manaan couldn’t go anywhere without our knowing. My Fairy magic sensors detected them anyway.

He couldn’t go to Earth. The twilight door didn’t work for magic folk. Animals were the only ones who used it. Occasionally, the Dream King opened the door a crack and sent dreams of magic down to earth. The animals brought us news and images of the humans, but we mostly didn’t bother ourselves about them.

Suddenly, the marmalade scent disappeared.

I stopped abruptly, sniffing the wind, examining the ground. No marmalade.

I looked all around with my giant vision.

Then, I saw Manaan’s half-eaten fairy cake on the ground, marmalade oozing out. Ants and bees rushed to collect the unexpected feast.

Next to the cake was a hole.

It wasn’t a large hole, as holes go, or particularly impressive. More of a crack, really. A wide crack, wide across as my shoulders.

Through the crack, I heard Manaan scream.

When I ripped the ground open wider, the wind came up, fierce and cruel, and knocked me unconscious.

* * * * *

I never had such a headache as when I woke up on my castle floor with Ossa frowning over me.

“You really are a lazy lout.” She gently touched my bedraggled crimson hair.

“Manaan’s gone.”

I felt numb. I was a lazy lout. I had to find my son. I lurched to my feet.

“Easy, dear.” Ossa busied herself with a pot. I smelled oatmeal with lingonberries, my favorite.

“Manaan’s missing.”

“It was time.”

I stared at Ossa. She smiled at me and ladled oatmeal from the pot into my favorite green-and-white swirled bowl.

“Didn’t you hear me, woman? Manaan’s disappeared.”

She set the steaming bowl of oatmeal in my hands. “Hush now and eat.”

“I think Manaan went down there. Down through the Twilight Door.”

“Nonsense.”

I grabbed Ossa by the hand and took her to the crack in the earth, as frightening to me as Ossa’s smile.

“See, wife? He went through the Door.”

Ossa smiled. “Why, nonsense. Nothing can get through the Door.”

“But there’s a crack in the worlds. You can see the Earth through there.”

Ossa squinted into the hole, then pulled me down so I could look too.

All I saw was darkness.

Ossa grinned. “See, husband, only some flying or burrowing creature. Everyone knows that...”

I stomped to my feet. “Our boy is missing. You told me to go after him.”

Ossa shook her head.

“You said, you lazy lout, our son has run off.”

“And I won’t waste our freedom with you sleeping all the time.”

“Freedom? What are you talking about, woman? Something strange has happened to our son. Something wicked. We must look for him.”

Ossa shook her head. “Manaan is fifty years old. It was time for him to go.”

“Time! He’s only a baby! Someone has stolen him.”

Ossa leaned in for a kiss. This confused me. She hadn’t wanted to kiss me since Manaan was born.

“Come back inside and eat your oatmeal, dear.”

“I don’t want oatmeal. I want Manaan.”

She shrugged. “We are giants. Our children leave. What’s to be done? The breakfast will get cold.”

I turned and fled her smiles and her oatmeal.

* * * * *

Poppy, our nearest witch, lived in a spreading chestnut tree near Organ Mountain, which bordered the northeast end of our lands. Even among witches, Poppy was reckoned a strange one.

For one thing, Poppy was a man but refused to call himself a wizard. “What’s the difference?” he would grunt.

When I ambled up to the whispering roots that marked the beginning of Poppy’s domain, one of the branches plucked me off the ground and hoisted me into the tree. I was shocked. The branches were half as thick and as strong as my arm.

“Wenceslas.” Poppy’s gruff voice echoed, as usual, from his cauldron that took up the entire room of his house. It was as big as Manaan and half as big as I. Poppy had hollowed out the center of the tree and created a roof of planks to guard against the inevitable dry rot in the upper branches. An alcove held an altar graced by a brass mandala with a lightning bolt carved in the middle. The icon of the Aldfather and Aldmother, our almighty God and Goddess.

Poppy’s jug-eared face seemed to peer from the depths of the cauldron, when in reality Poppy stood on the other side. I’d heard that Poppy’s grandmother was a Giant. I certainly couldn’t dismiss the rumor.

“So, your son’s wandered off.”

“Yes. Have you seen him?”

Poppy shook his head and tapped his wide ears that looked like half-gourds. “I heard everything from here. You and Ossa...”

I covered my ears. “How could she say what she said?”

Poppy dipped into the cauldron with an arm that looked like a leafy vine. He reached out to me with a bowl of liquid that smoked.

“Bowl of tea. It’ll clear your head.”

I didn’t want the tea, but I drank it anyway at a gallop. Poppy tsked at me.

“Your wife’s right, you know. The boy is gone.”

“Did he go through the Twilight Door?”

“He did, and you know that Giants and Elves and Fairies and even witches like me can’t...”

“Can’t what?”

“Survive.”

I could have cracked Poppy’s head. I settled for reducing the gourd to fine dust. Poppy, unfazed, offered me the entire cauldron of tea. I drank it all.

“More where that came from,” he said.

“I don’t want any more. You tell me true. My son’s gone forever?”

“He’s gone forever.”

“WHY?”

“A Mortal boy.”

I stared at Poppy. “What Mortal boy?”

“Mortals...they’re different from us. They can pass through the Twilight Door, but we can’t.”

“You make no sense, old man.”

“D’you think just because we’re magic we can do anything? Fear nothing? The God these Humans pray to, that they call by too many names, the God made us like them. With warts. And big heads. And limits. Your son didn’t know those limits.”

I shook my head. Poppy’s words bounced off me like an arrow off enchanted armor.

Poppy’s eyes reflected sorrow. “Mortal boy was dabbling with fairies and got whisked up here. Well, boy, what trouble that started! Whenever Mortals get up here they cause nothing but trouble. The boy was hiding out in the Dagar Caves on the southwestern border of your lands.”

The Dagar Caves. I’d warned Manaan...

“Yes,” Poppy said, guessing at my thoughts. “Manaan kept going there. He met this Human boy and tried to make friends. The Human boy never saw a Giant in his life. He thought Manaan might be one of the demons his people believe in and he ran. Manaan cornered him and the boy fought, but a Mortal boy isn’t a match for a young Giant who doesn’t know his strength. The Mortal boy didn’t know where his country was, but another silly Fairy told him about the Twilight Door, and he headed for it…your son followed. They tumbled through...”

“Stop, I don’t want to hear any more.” I barely got the words out before I added, “What happens to us when...”

“No one knows. But as I said, Mortals cause all kinds of problems. They’re not supposed to be up here. They stay down there, we stay up here.”

“I don’t believe it. Manaan can’t be gone. Does Ossa know that...”

“That wife of yours, like everyone else, doesn’t know about the unwritten rules.”

“Maybe they should be written...” I choked on my breath. “If she did know about...it, would she care?”

“For a week, a month, but then she’d move on. She’s young after all, she can have other children. Giants do. You have, I think, eighteen brothers and sisters?”

“I think so. It’s probably more.”

I was numb. I should be throwing and smashing things. Instead I sat here, my big legs lolling out of the tree.

Poppy humphed sympathetically. “That wormroot tea with valerian soothes the temper. You drank a whole pot of it. I’m telling you this now because you’re not like other giants. The grief will smite you worse than any Dragon or evil spirit. The tea will keep you calm for...a week, maybe two, and help you survive this.”

Poppy went to the shrine and lit a musk ox wax taper. “The Aldfather and Aldmother watch over you and protect you. You and Ossa.”

“I want proof. I want to find this Mortal boy.” I was completely calm. “I might not be able to go there, but I don’t have to, do I?”

Poppy hesitated. I hooked my thumb behind his neck and lifted him up. “Whenever the tea wears off, I can kill you. I don’t want to harm Ossa. She’s all I have now. But I can harm you. So...your choice. Will you help me seek revenge, or do I kill you?”

* * * * *

So, Poppy helped me create the magic beans that Jack found. And Jack climbed up the beanstalk and stole the golden goose to save his mother and his home. That silly Human woman. Putting her child in harm’s way. Letting him climb a beanstalk and enter a stranger’s home without supervision. If I had really carried out my plan to kill him, he would have been dead.

But he reminded me of Manaan. He looked like someone had shrunk my son. If he was Manaan's friend, I couldn't hurt him.

Ossa somehow found out what I was planning, because she knows me. She helped him escape. Even smuggled the golden goose to him for his trouble. Once again, she let another promising child slip away from us. She showed more motherly instinct over this human boy than she had when Manaan vanished. Maybe she grieved more than I thought.

* * * * *

Now that I lay here, with every villager gawking at me and Jack crowing in triumph, with the silly goose honking up a storm, I realized I should have listened to Poppy and Ossa. I should have let go. But what do you expect of a giant who lives in a scary castle?