‘I took her advice, and laid myself down among the rest, as if dead, to
see how he would behave. The first thing I heard was him calling for
his pie. When she set it down before him he swore it smelled like
swine’s flesh, but knowing where to find the finger, she immediately
turned it up, which fairly convinced him of the contrary. The pie only
served to sharpen his appetite, and I heard him sharpening his knife
and saying he must have a collop or two, for he was not near satisfied.
But what was my terror when I heard the giant groping among the bodies,
and, fancying myself, cut the half of my hip off, and took it with him
to be roasted. You may be certain I was in great pain, but the fear of
being killed prevented me from making any complaint. However, when he
had eaten all he began to drink hot liquors in great abundance, so that
in a short time he could not hold up his head, but threw himself on a
large creel he had made for the purpose, and fell fast asleep. When I
heard him snoring, as I was I went up and caused the woman to bind my
wound with a handkerchief; and, taking the giant’s spit, reddened it in
the fire, and ran it through the eye, but was not able to kill him.
‘However, I left the spit sticking in his head, and took to my heels;
but I soon found he was in pursuit of me, although blind; and having an
enchanted ring he threw it at me, and it fell on my big toe and
remained fastened to it.
‘The giant then called to the ring, where it was, and to my great
surprise it made him answer on my foot; and he, guided by the same,
made a leap at me which I had the good luck to observe, and fortunately
escaped the danger. However, I found running was of no use in saving
me, as long as I had the ring on my foot; so I took my sword and cut
off the toe it was fastened on, and threw both into a large fish-pond
that was convenient. The giant called again to the ring, which by the
power of enchantment always made him answer; but he, not knowing what I
had done, imagined it was still on some part of me, and made a violent
leap to seize me, when he went into the pond, over head and ears, and
was drowned. Now, sir knight,’ says the Thief of Sloan, ‘you see what
dangers I came through and always escaped; but, indeed, I am lame for
the want of my toe ever since.’
‘My lord and master,’ says an old woman that was listening all the
time, ‘that story is but too true, as I well know, for I am the very
woman that was in the giant’s castle, and you, my lord, the child that
I was to make into a pie; and this is the very man that saved your
life, which you may know by the want of your finger that was taken off,
as you have heard, to deceive the giant.’
The Knight of the Glen, greatly surprised at what he had heard the old
woman tell, and knowing he wanted his finger from his childhood, began
to understand that the story was true enough.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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