Read Online North Yorkshire Folk Tales by Ingrid Barton - Free Book Online Page A

children?’
    ‘That’s for me to know and those filth to find out!’
    ‘It’s Thor’s Day tomorrow.’
    ‘What do I care? Thor was my father.’
    ‘He killed warriors and monsters, not children.’
    ‘How do you know what the great god Thor did, old greybeard?’
    ‘That’s for me to know and you to find out.’
    Suddenly the old man struck the ground with his staff. The blow did not seem hard and yet the rocks rang and the stone keep shuddered. The astonished giant took a step backwards. The old man laughed as he turned away, and the giant and his servant heard him say, almost to himself, ‘Be warned: you stand on the brink!’ He strode swiftly away down the winding path into the Dale but his last words came floating up, ‘One more step and you fall!’

    The next morning the giant’s old servant was emptying the slop pail outside the kitchen when he heard a deep croaking. Looking up he saw two huge ravens circling the keep. Round and round they went until the servant was giddy. He was filled with fear, for he thought he knew whose ravens they were; he rushed to tell the giant. His master once more sat by the fire, muttering. The servant recognised the warning signs and he hovered uncertainly.
    ‘What is it?’ growled the giant. ‘Speak up man, don’t stand there gibbering!’
    ‘Ravens, Master. Ravens flying around the keep –’
    ‘Ravens? What do I care for ravens, you idiot?’
    ‘It’s a warning! Surely you know –’
    ‘A warning! I’ll give you warning, you idiot!’ and he aimed a vicious kick at the old servant that felled him to the ground. The giant kicked him again and again until he was tired.
    ‘Are you dead yet?’ he yelled, but there was no reply. The giant spat on the body and, picking up his great cudgel, marched out to await the men of Wensleydale and their children.
    But the old servant was not dead. He was badly hurt, but he knew what to do next. He hauled himself to his feet and slowly staggered out to the shed, where the wood and peat for lighting the fire was stored.
    ‘I’ve seen your ravens, my lord,’ he said to the sky. ‘I know you are with us!’ Then he began to fill baskets with peat. Nine baskets he filled and began, painfully, to drag them into the keep.
    The giant had not walked more than a hundred yards from his keep when he noticed something reddish lying across his path. He was filled with an unfamiliar sense of foreboding. As he got closer, he saw nine of his great boars lying dead across the path.
    A hundred yards further on there was another nine – and a little further yet, another.
    The giant ran now like a wild elephant, so furious that he foamed at the mouth, striking at everything he met with his cudgel. The huge veins in his neck and forehead stood out like hawsers, ‘By Thor! I shall kill every one of them! Smash their heads, beat their bones to flour, pull down their houses, and crush their wives and children! Wensleydale will become a desert!’
    The men of Wensleydale stood at the meeting place near the cliff, holding their young children in their arms. The children were afraid and many were crying.
    As the sound of the giant’s violent approach reached them they all trembled and some turned to flee, no matter what might happen to them. Suddenly the old man in the grey cloak stood before them. No one had seen him come and yet he was there, not exactly smiling but somehow comforting. Even the most fearful seemed to gain courage from his presence.
    As the giant appeared over the crest of the hill, he looked so powerful that no one thought he could be prevented from killing them all. Then the old man stepped forward and held up his staff – or was it now a spear? The giant stopped as dead as if he had run into a wall. Still he waved his cudgel.
    ‘I know you, Lord of the Gallows!’ he panted. ‘And I defy you!’ The watchers thought that he would strike the old man down but at that very moment two ravens appeared as though from thin air