giants are not really all dead, but only sleeping in the great Hall of Albyn. In proof whereof, know that a man of these parts once ventured into a great cave by the sea-shore. It opened to a vast and lofty apartment, where there were many huge men lying fast asleep on the stone floor. In the center of the room was a table, on which lay an ancient horn. The man put the horn to his lips and blew one blast. The enormous figures stirred. He blew a second time. One of the giants rubbed his eyes and said in a voice that rumbled through the cave:

"If you blow once more, we shall wake."

The man fled in terror. Though by singular bad luck he could never again find the mouth of that cave, it is something to know that our tall friends are there, only waiting for three bold blasts to return to us.

Part I
GIANTS OF THE MORNING
OF THE WORLD

A BOOK OF GIANTS

CHAPTER I
HOW ZEUS FOUGHT WITH TITANS AND GIANTS

We think of Zeus as the mightiest god of Greece, accompanied by his servants Force, Might and Victory,—the Cloud-gatherer, the Rain-giver, the Thunderer, the Lightning-hurler, the Sender of Prodigies, the Guider of Stars, the Ruler of other gods and men, whom even Poseidon the Earth-shaker must obey. The very name reverberates with majesty, power, dominion.

But the beginnings of this vast deity were in darkness and danger.

True, the reign of his father Kronos was that Golden Age when, in the fresh morning of the world, "Heat and Cold were not yet at strife, the Seasons had not begun their mystic dance, and one mild and equable climate stretched from pole to pole; when the trees bore fruit and the vine her purple clusters all the year, and honey-dew dripped from the laurel and juniper which are now so bitter; when flowers of every hue filled the air with perpetual fragrance, the lion gambolled with the kid, and the unfanged serpent was as harmless as the dove"; when over-curious Pandora not yet having released her boxful of ills,

men had neither care nor sickness nor old age, but, after centuries of blissful calm, faded like flowers and became kindly spirit-guardians of their successors.

Yet amid this charming serenity Kronos could never forget the curse of his father Uranus whom he had overthrown, and the prophecy that he himself should in his turn be cast down by his own children.

"Wherefore being resolved to defeat that prophecy, he swallowed each child his wife Rhea brought forth, as soon as it was born. When Rhea had thus lost five babes,—Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades and Poseidon—and knew herself about to bear yet another, she made her prayer to Uranus her ancient sire, imploring counsel and aid.

"But only a faint, vast murmur thrilled through the sky:

"'My voice is but the voice of winds and tides, no more than winds and tides can I avail. Pray thou to thy puissant Mother: in me, dispossessed of godhead, is no succor more.'"

So the Titaness betook her to Earth, and the mighty Mother gave her counsel how to outwit grim Kronos. And Rhea fled through the swift, dark night to a secret thicket upon a hill of Arcadia. There was born a mighty babe, whom she called Zeus. At her prayer Mother Earth smote the mountain, and there gushed forth a bounding stream, in which she laved the infant. Then she gave him to the nymph Neda who bore him swiftly across the sea to Crete, hiding him in a cave upon a dense and wooded mountain named Ida.

She entrusted the child to Adrastea and Ida, nymphs

of the mountain, to be reared in secret. But Rhea took a huge stone and wrapped it in swathes, and brought it to Kronos, then sovereign of the gods, saying: "Behold, I have borne my lord another son."

"Naught said he, but snatched the stone and greedily swallowed it, nothing doubting that it was the new-born child. Thus his wife deceived him, for all his cunning."

Rhea might not so much as see her babe, lest Kronos should spy her from his throne on high; but the child throve, laid in a golden winnowing-fan for a good omen, tended by the gentle nymphs, and nourished on the wild honey they gathered for him and on the milk of a mountain goat. Around him danced the fierce Curetes, Earth-born warriors, who performed their war-dances, rattling and clashing their weapons whenever the infant cried, lest Kronos should overhear him.

"So the child Zeus increased daily in beauty and stature, nor was it long before he gave proof of his godhead in wondrous wise. Two years his goat foster-mother suckled him: snow-white she was, with jet black horns and hooves, the most beauteous of her kind, and her name was Amalthea. Then, on a day, while the young god played with her after his wont, he grasped one of her curved horns as she made pretence of butting, and broke it clean off.

"Tears stood in the creature's eyes, and she looked reproachfully on her fosterling. But the little god ran to her and threw his arms about her shaggy neck,

bidding her be comforted, for he would make amends; with that he laid his right hand on the goat's head, and immediately a new horn sprouted full-grown. And he took up the horn he had broken, and gave it to the nymphs, saying, 'Kindly nurses, in recompense of your care, Zeus gives you Amalthea's Horn which shall be to you a horn of plenty. As for her, when I come into my kingdom, I will be mindful of my foster-mother; she shall not die but be changed into one of the bright signs of Heaven.' Thus Zeus promised, and fulfilled his word in the aftertime, for faithful and true are the promises of the Immortals. But when the nymphs had taken the Horn of Amalthea, behold they found it brimful of all manner of luscious fruits, of the finest wheat flour, and sweet butter, and golden honeycomb. They shook all out, laughing in delight, and one cried: 'Here were a feast for the gods, had we but wine thereto!' No sooner said she this than the Horn bubbled over with ruby wine; for this was the magic in it, that it never grew empty, and yielded its possessors whatsoever food or drink they desired.

"Now when Earth saw that Zeus was come to the prime of his mighty youth, she sent to him one of the daughters of Oceanus named Metis, which is, being interpreted, 'Counsel.' And Metis came and stood before him in the Idaean Mount and said: 'I have an errand unto thee, O king that shalt be hereafter.'

"And Zeus said: 'Is it a foe's errand, or a friend's? Who sent thee hither, and who art thou?'

"And she said: 'Metis is my name, a daughter of

Oceanus the old, and my errand is from Earth, the All-Mother. She bids thee take this herb I bring and go straight to Kronos in his golden house on high; tell him not who or whence thou art, but cause him to swallow the herb unweeting, and it shall work mischief to him and good to thee. Delay not, for the hour is at hand when Kronos must pay full measure for the outrage he did his sire, as it is ordained.'

"'Tell me,' said Zeus, 'how knows Earth that such an hour is at hand, and by whom is the vengeance ordained?'

"Metis answered: 'There are Three Sisters, daughters of Primeval Night, Grey Virgins, older than Time, who sit forever in the shades of underground, spinning threads of divers colors from their golden distaffs; and the threads are the lives of gods and men. As the sisters twine them, sad-hued or bright, so is the