Farmer James Gray and the Giantess Clanshid

In the wild thickets of Benshir lived a giant. He was a wicked and cruel giant, and he treated his wife, the giantess Clanshid, very poorly.

Just imagine: every night he would beat her with whatever was at hand. Either she hadn’t cleaned the cave properly, or she hadn’t cooked dinner right, or sometimes he just had itchy fists and couldn’t sleep until he had given her a thrashing.

And every night, the screams of the poor giantess echoed over the forests and hills of Benshir. The worst of it fell upon James Gray, whose farm stood not far from those parts.

Night after night, neither he nor his family could get a wink of sleep, and so during the day, instead of working, James Gray would doze off in the fields, his wife in the kitchen, and their children over their schoolwork. All the work came to a halt, and the farm was on the brink of ruin.

Then one day, as James Gray was mending the fence on the edge of his land—though, to be honest, his eyes were barely staying open—he suddenly heard loud peals of thunder. A miracle, indeed! The sky was clear, not a cloud in sight, and the sun was shining. Where was the thunder coming from?

As it turned out, it was the giantess Clanshid, out looking for something to cook for her husband’s dinner.

“What luck!” James Gray rejoiced. “I’ve been waiting for this meeting for a long time.”

And he shouted at the top of his lungs, calling to Clanshid, whose head could be seen towering above the trees of the nearby forest.

The giantess immediately made her way toward him, parting the tall trees as if they were mere brambles.

“Good day, human!” her voice boomed. “What do you want from me?”

“I want to complain!” James shouted. “Because of you, neither I nor my family can get any sleep or peace!”

Clanshid replied that she was very sorry and asked how she had disturbed them.

“You make such a racket every night,” James said, “that we can’t sleep at all. Can’t you go just one night without screaming and wailing? There’s such a ringing in our ears, it’s as if a thousand evil spirits are filling the air with their cries. This can’t go on!”

But Clanshid explained to him why she screamed and wailed every night, and James even felt sorry for her.

“My husband is a terrible man,” the giantess sighed. “I wish I could be rid of him.”

“You’re right, madam,” he eagerly agreed. “It would be good for you to be rid of him. We’d all sleep better then.”

Word by word, the giantess and the farmer parted as good friends.

That very night, as soon as the full moon rose, Clanshid came to the farm. She knocked lightly on the door, causing the whole house to shake. James Gray immediately guessed who his nighttime visitor was.

“What do you want?” he asked, opening the door. “I’m afraid I can’t invite you inside—you wouldn’t fit.”

“No need,” said the giantess. “Come, help me kill my husband! I’ve heard you’re a good shot. And if you kill him, he won’t be able to beat me anymore, and you’ll all sleep peacefully.”

“You’re a funny woman,” said James Gray. “How am I supposed to kill him? It’s like asking an ant to kill an elephant!”

“Ah, you don’t know,” said the giantess. “My husband has a mole over his heart. If you hit it, he’ll die instantly.”

James Gray agreed. You’d have agreed too in his place: just think of all the nights he’d lost sleep because of that giant!

And so, taking his bow and arrows and climbing onto the shoulders of the giantess Clanshid, James Gray set off for the giant’s cave.

The giant was already waiting for them, standing at the entrance to the cave and shaking his massive fists in the air.

Gray drew an arrow, fitted it to his bow, pulled the string tight, took aim—which wasn’t too hard, since the mole over the giant’s heart was about the size of a Scottish bonnet—and fired.

The giant let out a gasp and vanished into thin air.

Overjoyed, Clanshid began to dance, stomping and twirling so wildly that James Gray begged her to stop—it wasn’t very comfortable sitting on the shoulders of a dancing giantess.

Clanshid set James down on the ground and said:

“You’ve done me a great service, James Gray! From now on, you may call on me and my time as you please. Tell me quickly: what can I do for you?”

But the last thing James wanted at that moment was to take advantage of the giantess’s offers. All he dreamed of was getting a good night’s sleep! And, wanting to get rid of the obliging giantess as quickly as possible, he pointed to a herd of deer running through the forest at that moment and said:

“See, those are my horses that escaped from the stables. Round them up and drive them back into the stalls!”

The gullible and not-too-bright Clanshid rushed off to carry out his task, and James Gray returned home and went to bed.

But no sooner had he laid his head on the pillow than—knock! knock! knock!—his house shook from the familiar pounding.

“I’ve driven your horses back into the stalls,” she said. “Though it wasn’t easy—they were terribly unruly. Now, what else…?”

But we don’t know what James Gray replied to her, or when the poor man finally managed to get a single peaceful night’s sleep!

↑ To the top

Farmer James Gray and the Giantess Clanshid

More fairy tales