The Rainbow Cat did not meet with any one who had actually seen the giantess face to face, but terrible tales were told of her doings and of her horrible appearance. She was three times the height of an ordinary man, it was said. Her hair was like knotted ropes, her eyes flamed fire; when she blew her nose, the sound was like thunder; when she sneezed, forests swayed as beneath a hurricane; when she stamped her foot, whole villages collapsed. Besides being a giantess she was reported to be able to work magic, and that frightened the people more than anything else. On dark nights she would come down from her castle, they told him, in a chariot drawn by six dragons, and when the people heard the noise of it they fled into their houses and locked the doors and barred the windows. From within they could hear their barns and granaries being ransacked, and the opening of the doors of sheds and stables, whence their best cattle and horses were carried off. But sometimes a great voice would be heard shouting in the dark, “Throw out your treasures or I will take your children.” Then the terrified people opened their windows and threw out their treasures in fear and trembling. And notices would mysteriously appear in the villages, threatening that unless certain things were delivered up at the castle gates, the giantess would come down and take a terrible revenge. The things were conveyed up the rocky path by terrified villagers, who left them in front of the gates as commanded. They always came back with most alarming stories of what they had observed. One man had seen the giantess’s shoes being cleaned by a servant in the courtyard. They were as big, he said, as a hay waggon. [Illustration] Another was so frightened by the sight of her washing hanging out on the line that he ran all the way home and did not get over it for weeks. But the worst thing of all was that children who had wandered a little way from home disappeared and never came back. Others who escaped would tell how an enormous cloaked figure had suddenly sprung out from behind a tree, seized one of their comrades, and made off into the woods. The thing had grown so bad that people dare not let their children out of their sight for a moment, and they were growing so afraid of the visits of the giantess that all happiness was rapidly vanishing out of the land. The fame of the Rainbow Cat’s wisdom had already reached this country, and the people were delighted to see him and implored him to come to their assistance. The Rainbow Cat felt that this was a very serious matter indeed, but he was exceedingly sorry for the people and promised to do all he could to help them. So on the evening of the second day after his arrival, he took his little bag, which contained, among other things, the lightning which the Thunder Giant had given him and the bottle of fairy water from Tree-goblin-land, and quietly set off for the castle of the giantess.