The Giant Jordan

To the east of the Ungarkopf, and high above the cavern called

Eggerskeller, there stands, close to a dizzy chasm in the rocks, the

Kohlhütte (coal hut), which is surrounded by steep grey mountain walls.

Not long since there resided in this hut a wild man, with his wife

Fangga. Jordan, for this was the name of the giant, employed himself

in stealing children and beasts which he devoured, and he occupied his

time also in hunting the poor fairies, whom he caught and killed, or

shut up in underground prisons.

One day he brought home a fairy, most probably one of those which

resided in the Eggerskeller, and who was already more dead than alive.

He threw her down at the feet of his wife, and was on the point of

killing her, but Fangga said, “Let the thing live; it will be of use to

me.”

“So,” growled the monster; “what can you do with her?”

“I should like to have her in the hut to make her work,” answered his

gigantic wife.

“Take then the thing,” shouted the giant; “the white cat to the black

one!” for the giant couple had in their hut a huge black cat which the

giant had made a present to his wife in a similar manner after having

caught it in the mountains.

The poor fairy now bore the yoke of servitude, under the giant couple,

who called her Hitte Hatte. She was obliged to wear servant’s clothes

and do servant’s drudgery, which she did so cleverly and quickly that

Fangga was contented with her, and treated her as kindly as it was

in her brutal nature to do. Hitte Hatte was kind to the cat, fed her

regularly, let her sleep in her own bed, and got altogether fond of

her. Although she had now taken entirely the nature of a human being,

she constantly longed to be free of the giants, and one day she took

the occasion while Jordan was out and Fangga sleeping, to slip down

into the valley and to seek her fortune amongst mankind. The cat, as

though she knew the intention of her friend, followed her every step of

the way, and so it happened that one evening a pretty girl, followed by

a huge black cat, entered the farm of Seehaus, which is close to the

village of Strad, in the Gurgl valley, and offered her services. The

farm people, whose name was Krapf, a very good and worthy couple, were

not very well off just then, as they had suffered some heavy losses,

and therefore at that time did not keep many servants. So they engaged

the pretty girl for very small wages, without even asking her who

she was or from whence she came. She did her work joyfully and well,

and with her blessings entered Seehaus; it was a pleasure to see how

beautifully Hitte Hatte, for this name she had kept up, managed and

arranged everything. The cleverest old peasant woman would never have

been able to do so well as she did. She went about her work quietly,

spoke little, and never anything without purpose; was always modest

and reserved, and the people of the farm left her to go on in her

quiet way just as she liked. Her greatest pet was and remained the cat,

which was also very useful in keeping the house and buildings clear of

rats and mice. Hitte Hatte only knew one fear, and that was the giant,

who on account of her flight had made a most fearful noise, and beaten

his wife without mercy; but in the valley he could not touch her, for

the village boundaries were every year blessed by the priest, and there

were all round about little crosses and chapels, of which the gigantic

race of pagans had the greatest terror.

While Hitte Hatte was still in Seehaus Farm, two boys of Strad had

climbed up the Ungarkopf to gather strawberries, and approached by

accident the giant’s abode. As the evening shadows began to fall the

boys got tired and hungry, and were about to return home, when they saw

blue smoke arising quite close to them, which ascended out of Jordan’s

Kohlhütte, and one of the boys shouted to the other, “Look at the

smoke! there, I am sure they are making cakes; let us go and see if we

can’t get some.”

They soon arrived at the door of the hut, which was carefully closed,

so one of them scrambled up on the roof, removed one of the wooden

tiles and peeped down below. Fangga, who was busy at her kitchen, heard

him in a moment, and called out, “Who is up there on my roof?”

The boy answered, “It is I with my good companion. We are hungry, and

pray you kindly to give us something to eat.”

Fangga opened the door and called out, “Come in, my boys, and you shall

have something, but be quick and creep into this hole (she pointed out

the stove), and keep very quiet there, for the ‘wild man’ is coming

very soon, and if he catches sight of you he will eat you bones and

all.”

On hearing this the boys were terrified out of their wits, and crept

into the stove, and directly afterwards the giant entered the hut, and

sniffing round with hideous rolling eyes, he shouted to his wife, “I

smell, I smell human meat!”

But Fangga, who had not been educated in an Innsbruck school, answered

him very sharply, “You smell, you smell the devil!”

Then the giant gave such a tremendous snort that the whole hut trembled

as though it had been shaken by the wind, and the boys terrified

lest the stove should fall and kill them, jumped out of it. As Jordan

caught sight of them his rage grew still more horrible; he overloaded

Fangga with imprecations and abuse, shut the boys up in a cupboard and

took the keys with him while he ran off to catch a lost goat of whose

bell he just caught the sound. The poor boys now began to scream and

implore, and at last Fangga, cruel and hard as she was, was touched

with pity, and consented to release them. But as she had not the key of

the cupboard, she kicked at the door till it flew open, let the boys

out, and told them the best means of making their escape, and away they

went as fast as ever their legs would carry them.

They had not gone long when the wild man returned home, but without

his goat, which had also escaped him, so he vowed now to kill the

boys; but as the cupboard was empty and he could nowhere find them, he

thundered new imprecations at Fangga, who however took no notice of

them. The savage monster then seized his boarskin mantle, and set off

in pursuit of them. He arrived at last on the edge of a wild roaring

mountain-torrent, on the other side of which he caught sight of them,

and he called out in the sweetest and softest voice he could command,

“Tell me, dear boys, how you got over the river!”

“Ho! wild man,” shouted the boys, “go up the river, and further on you

will find the plank over which we crossed.”

Jordan now tore along the banks of the river for miles and miles,

about as far as from Nassereit to Siegmundsberg, where he found a weak

bending board upon which he stepped, and plump down went the monster

into the wild foaming water, in which he had to struggle for a long

time ere he succeeded in reaching the opposite bank. Meanwhile the boys

had got far in advance; but the giant ran as fast as he could, and soon

caught sight of them again on the other side of a large lake which he

did not know how to get over, as he had no idea of swimming, and wade

through he dared not, as he did not know how deep it might be, and

there was no boat either large enough to carry him over. Therefore he

shouted again to the boys in a flattering tone, “Dear boys, tell me

how you got over the lake!”

The boys answered, “We have tied large stones round our necks, upon

which we have swum across.”

So he took a heavy rock and tied it firmly round his neck, jumped into

the water, and was immediately drowned. So the boys escaped, and people

say Fangga did not die of grief over the loss of her savage husband.

A few days afterwards Lorenz Mayrhofer, a friend of the farmer of

Seehaus, returning from the market of Imst where he had sold a team of

oxen, and carrying the yokes on his shoulders, stopped at Krapf’s house

on his way home, and over a glass of Tyrolian wine with which Hitte

Hatte had herself served him, he said to his friend, “One sees most

wonderful things in these times. After leaving the Döllinger Hof on my

way here, a voice called out to me from the heights of the mountain,

‘Carrier of the yokes, tell Hitte Hatte that she can now go home, for

Jordan is dead.’”

The farmer and his wife looked at one another and then at Hitte Hatte,

who, hearing the news, set down the ladle which she was holding, and

said, “If Jordan is dead, then I am happy again. Take great care of

the hairy house-worm. I thank you much for your kindness to me, and

wish you all luck with your farm. If you had asked me more I should

have told you more,” and in saying so she passed out of the door, and

has never again been seen.

The farmer, his wife, and friend were struck dumb with astonishment,

and could not divine the girl’s meaning. Under the “hairy house-worm,”

she had meant the cat. “What a pity it is,” still now say the peasants

of Strad, “that the Seehaus farmer never asked more of the fairy, for

if he had done so we should know more.”