The monarch of the Rhine gave him an indignant glance. “Is this the way you keep your promise?” he inquired, in a tone of some severity. “Another such interruption and I shall decline to continue the amusement of legend-telling. I have no objection, however, to inform you that the word Daddyroarer signifies a giant, though whence its derivation I am unable to tell you with any degree of certainty. It probably comes from two Teutonic words, but I should be sorry to attempt to give them in the original. There is something about the name, however, which conveys the idea of a giant. ‘Daddy,’ indeed, being the familiar appellation by which children occasionally designate their male parent, points, not so much to the paternal relationship of a giant with mankind, as to his size and proportions, which are as much larger than those of man as are the proportions and size of a father to those of his young children. I presume that the term ‘roarer’ is not intended to convey, as in the case of a horse, the notion of broken wind, but has rather reference to the gruff and deep-toned voice which usually characterizes the giant. “But, be this as it may, I repeat the fact that there was once a certain Daddyroarer, or giant, who lived among the mountains near a certain part of my beautiful river. For many years, indeed, in the old, old times, the men of Rhineland were grievously troubled with giants {140}of different sorts and sizes. Tradition tells us that they all sprang from the mighty giant Senoj, who, as is well known, was born, nobody knows how or where, among the loftiest peaks of the Alps, and is down to this day popularly known in Rhineland as the father of all giants. [Illustration: 156] “Certain it is that his descendants, if such they were, proved exceedingly troublesome to mankind in general, and Rhenish mankind in particular. These creatures were, indeed, a plague and a pest to the country. They ate voraciously, and were not particular as to the food with which they satisfied their appetites. I am not prepared to say whether or no they were actually cannibals, and will therefore give them the benefit of the doubt; nevertheless, they were exceedingly unpleasant neighbours. The quantity of food which they required was alone sufficient to have placed this fact beyond question, for if you recollect the feats performed in the way of swallowing by your own old giant-- ‘Robin-a-bobbin-a-Bilberry Ben, Who ate more victuals than three-score men,’ and consider what would have been the effect upon your country of half-a-dozen Robins, you will have no trouble in understanding the difficulty which Rhineland experienced in supporting these worthies.