Week 4: Storytelling -- The Ballad of the Giant

The Giant (From the Third Voyage of Sindbad)

(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

With these ears of mine
That are elephant-like

I heard a disturbance

I came with a spike

I went to the courtyard

To there I ran fast

And opened the gates

And I saw there at last

A feast in the making

Two dozen men dead

Who sat on my doorstep

And to myself, I said

What a glorious thing!

I don't need to hunt

My meal came to me

Though these humans are runts

And just to be cautious

I'll sit here and wait

And if one of them stirs

He'll have an unlucky fate

So I sat there and waited

But none of them moved

So I looked at the fattest

And thought: he's the one I'll choose

Twice more passed my evenings

With cooked human flesh

But things changed on the fourth night

My food wasn't dead

How it burned! The hot poker

That they stabbed in my eye

I roared and I screamed

Then promptly dragged myself outside

I would get my revenge!

And I planned to get it soon

Though now I howled in pain

In the morning they’d lose

Those fools didn’t know

That although I was blind

I had help in the mountains

My kindred; my kind

I ran as fast as I could

Though I tripped and I stumbled

But who wouldn’t, blind?

Within this island’s jungle

Since my eyesight was lost

I used my nose and my ears

To steer through the thicket

While the pain caused me tears

I knew I was close

When the voices I heard

Of my brothers and sisters

Were easily discerned

Joy leapt in my heart

And I called to them in a shout

Come avenge me, my friends

Let’s wipe those humans out

Look what they did

To my poor, single eye

They’ll drown in the ocean

They pay for their crime

And though I can’t see

My hearing is clear

So while you attack in my name

Force out their cries of fear

Lead me to those vile creatures

Lead me near, close to the fight

Let me hear their voices pained

Let me feel their terrible fright

Time seemed long in my anger

But soon they said it was time

To strike at those humans

In the morning light

And so we set out

My comrades and I

To one edge of island

Where the humans would die

I soon smelled the sea salt

Felt the sand in my toes

Heard my kindred ahead

Throwing rocks with loud bellows

There! The many, satisfying crunches

Of tiny, crushed bones

That sounded my way
I laughed at the destruction sown



Author's Note

This was based on the Third Voyage in The Voyages of Sindbad. Since each voyage of Sindbad's is told by Sindbad himself, I decided to change it from his perspective to a character in this particular voyage: the giant that tries to eat (and later destroy) Sindbad and his companions. The giant isn't a particularly complex character or anything, but I decided it would be interesting to see what happened from his perspective. As for the poem...I was in the mood to write poetry rather than prose.  

And if you're wondering what happened, Sindbad didn't die. In the scene, Sindbad's entire crew tries to escape the giants in rafts, but the giants (who happen to have really good aim) sink all the rafts with rocks except the raft Sindbad is in (with two other people). And although that's the last of their run-in with the giants, the third voyage doesn't actually stop there. They end up running into a man-eating snake; Sindbad's the only person to survive the encounter, however.

Bibliography:
The Voyages of Sindbad by Andrew Lang (1898). Web Source: The Arabian Nights Entertainment