Keloglan and the Giant

Once upon a time there was a thick forest above a village. Deep in the forest lived a giant. The giant was so big that the ground shook when he took a step, and the leaves fell from the trees when he sneezed. The villagers no longer dared to go into the forest to collect firewood. Winter was coming, and the houses had run out of fuel.

One morning Keloglan said to his mother, "Mother, I'm going to the forest to bring back firewood." His mother was frightened: "Son, the giant will eat you!" "He won't, Mother. I'm not to his taste," said Keloglan. He put a lump of fresh cheese in his saddlebag, put his axe on his shoulder and set off.

As soon as he began chopping wood in the forest, the ground rumbled and shook. The giant came out from between the trees: "Who is swinging an axe in my forest? I'll swallow you in one bite!" Keloglan did not flinch: "Wait a moment, Master Giant. Before you swallow me, test my strength. Maybe I'm stronger than you."

The giant roared with laughter. He picked up a stone and squeezed it in his fist; the stone crumbled to dust. "Now you do it!" Keloglan secretly took the cheese out of his saddlebag, held it like a stone and squeezed it; whey dripped through his fingers. "You crumbled the stone, but I squeezed water out of mine," he said. The giant was astonished.

The giant picked up another stone and threw it into the air; the stone flew very high, and after a while it fell back down. In Keloglan's saddlebag was a sparrow he had found on the way to the forest and whose wing he had bandaged; it had healed and was ready to fly. Keloglan held the sparrow in his palm like a stone and threw it into the air. The sparrow flew and flew and never came down. "Your stone fell, but mine is still going," said Keloglan. The giant's mouth fell open.

The giant was a little afraid, but he did not show it. "Come and be a guest in my cave," he said, thinking to himself, "I'll finish him off while he sleeps." Keloglan understood. In the cave the giant's wife put a huge cauldron of soup before him. Keloglan secretly poured the soup into a leather bag under his shirt, and the giant thought he had emptied the whole cauldron in one sitting.

When night came, Keloglan put a log in his bed, covered it up and hid in a corner. At midnight the giant came and struck the bed with his iron club. The log split in two. "That's the end of him," said the giant, and went to bed. In the morning Keloglan got up yawning: "Master Giant, a fly landed on me in the night and bothered me. I had to scratch a bit." The giant was horrified: "My iron club felt like a fly to him!"

Now the giant looked for a way to get rid of Keloglan. "I'll give you a purse of gold. Go away and never come back," he said. "I won't carry the gold. You carry it," said Keloglan. The giant put the purse of gold on his back and walked with Keloglan all the way to the village. As they came near, the village children saw them and shouted: "Keloglan has caught the giant! Keloglan is bringing the giant!"

When the giant heard this, he was so frightened that he threw down the purse and ran beyond the forest, beyond seven mountains, and was never seen in those parts again.

With the gold Keloglan had a mill and a bridge built for the village. The villagers went into the forest with peace of mind and gathered firewood. That winter every hearth was warm. In the evenings by the fire, the children asked: "Keloglan, weren't you afraid of the giant?" Keloglan laughed: "Sometimes there's a timid heart inside an enormous body. And wisdom isn't measured by size."

Three apples fell from the sky: one for the one who told this tale, one for the one who listened, and one for Keloglan, who beat the giant with a lump of cheese.