The book of friendly giants

The king of Ireland was troubled in his mind. And that was something unusual. For he had as handsome a palace as you would wish to see, a queen as good as she was beautiful, and a fine, strapping son named Jack. The only thing that bothered him was that he could not drive to town without getting his gilt coach wheels spattered.

Down below the palace, straight across the king’s highway, ran a little river. In the fall when it was almost dry, splashing through it was a nice adventure. The royal coach would roll down the hill with a splendid thud, and dash gurgling through the water. But in the spring it was quite another matter. Going down the hill the coachman would pull on his gilt reins, the coachboys would tuck up their gilt boots, the king would slam down the coach window, and the queen would be ready to faint with excitement. (Only the footmen did not care, for they sat up so high behind, that the water could not reach them no matter how much it splashed.)

Then the horses would plunge spluttering in up to their gilt harnesses, the coach would slip and reel, and the water would come pounding up against the gilt-edged window-panes. Worst of all, when they reached the other side, there would be little black mud spots all over the gilt wheels, all over the gilt sides, all over the shiny door. And that was a sorry way for the king of Ireland to drive down among his subjects.

The king was sitting on his throne, turning it over in his mind when in came his son Jack.

“Good morning, father,” said Jack, bowing with all his might.

But the king was so melancholy and disturbed that he never said a word, but just nodded his head to show that he knew Jack was there.

“Is something troubling you, father?” asked Jack respectfully.

“It’s that river again!” cried the king, puckering his brow till his crown slipped down over his left eye. “What’s the use of having the finest coach in three kingdoms if every time you drive abroad it’s bespotted and bespattered like a common gipsy wagon?”

“Can nothing be done?” asked Jack.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to think,” said the king.

So Jack sat down quietly on the steps of the throne and thought with his father. Just as the clock struck ten, the king had an idea.

“We might put something over the coach,” he said.

“We might put something over the river!” cried Jack. “Why couldn’t we build a bridge?”

“Gilded Shamrocks!” cried the king. “That’s the very idea. We could ride across as dry and fine as you please.”

So he called the master mason. And that very hour all the masons from far and near began stirring about in great troughs of mortar and lugging building-stones as big as the coach wheels. By sunset there was as neat and stout a little bridge as you would wish to see. And the king and the queen and Jack walked up and down before it, beaming to think how spick and span and shiny they’d be next day, rumbling across it down to the town.

In the morning before he got his crown on, the king called for his coach; and the minute breakfast was done, around it drove to the palace door, glittering like a million gold-pieces. Then the queen stepped in, dressed in her shiniest gown, and the king in his best crown, and last of all, Jack, with a fine green feather in his hat. The footmen clambered carefully up on top so as not to rub their bright gilt boots, the coachman touched up the horses, and off they all whirled, as splendid a sight as the sun ever shone on.

Down the hill they rolled with a fine dash, when the horses reared and stopped.

“Dear me! Dear me!” fluttered the queen. “I hope the harness hasn’t broken.”

The king put his head out the window. “What’s the matter?” he roared.

The two footmen climbed cautiously down, and stood at attention beside the door.

“Begging your Majesty’s pardon,” said the first, “the bridge is down.”

“Thundering waterfalls!” shouted the king. “It can’t be.” And he burst out of the coach, with Jack at his heels.

Sure enough, there was no bridge at all,—just a line of gray stones heaped higgeldy-piggeldy from bank to bank, with the stream running saucily over them as much as to say, “You can’t bridge me! You can’t bridge me!”

“Well,” cried the king, “I’ll be splashed!” And he sent the two footmen off for the master mason as fast as their gilt legs could carry them.

The master mason scratched his head.

“You see your work,” said the king with a great sneer, “—a bridge so strong it has taken the stream a whole night to wash it away!”

The master mason flushed. “Asking your Majesty’s pardon,” he said stolidly, “it couldn’t have been the river. The bridge I built should have stood a hundred years, barring earthquakes.”

“Nonsense! Nonsense!” cried the king irritably. “Build me a bridge that will stand earthquakes, then, and be quick about it too.” And he climbed back into the coach, and drove off home in a very bad humor indeed.

The master mason and his men worked till long past sunset. When they had finished, there was a bridge twice as high, twice as wide, and twice as solid as before.

The next morning the king was up at daybreak calling for his coach and his crown; and before the dewdrops were off the grass, he was driving off with the queen and Jack down the hill toward town. But just as they got to the river, back lunged the horses again, down clambered the gilt footmen, and out burst the king all a-tremble.

Sure enough, the bridge the master mason had built so solid and so strong was nothing but a jagged pile of stones, with the stream gushing impudently between them as if it were the best joke in the world.

The king called for the master mason in a tone that made the gilt footmen scamper; and back they came with him as red and flustered as the king himself.

“Just one more chance for you,” raged the king, shaking his scepter, “to build me a bridge that will last over night. If by to-morrow morning I don’t find as good a bridge here as ever was built in Ireland, I’ll—I’ll have you buried beneath your own stones and mortar.”

“Your Majesty,” cried the master mason tensely, “it can’t be done. There is some enchantment. The bridges I built here were the best in Ireland. The river could never have washed them away. It can’t be done, I say. It can’t—”

But the king had already slammed the coach door and driven violently away. So there was nothing for the master mason to do but to call his men and get to work harder than ever. All day long they drilled great holes in the bed of the stream and set huge rocks in them, one on top of the other. And over those piers from bank to bank they laid a bridge so bulky and so solid that the like of it was never seen before or since.

It was full moonlight by the time the last stone was heaved into place, and the great bridge loomed like an elephant wading in a brook. The workmen picked up their trowels and troughs, and plunged wearily along the road toward home. The master mason stopped for a last look. “Let any magic throw that down!” he cried defiantly, and shook his fist. Then he trudged after the workmen down the road.

There was a creaking of branches beside the river, and a figure, dirk in hand, crawled to the bridge, paused, looked about, then settled itself, leaning back against the bulky stonework. The figure was lost in the shadow of the bank, but every now and again it raised its head into the clear moonlight. It was Jack!

All the time the bridges had been breaking and the king had been fuming and the master mason had been protesting, Jack had been thinking. For Jack had a couple of eyes in his head, and he saw how small and weak the river was, compared to the bridges. So he thought to himself that it would be no wonder after all if the master mason were right, and it was not the river that kicked the bridges down, but some magic or other. Anyway it would do no harm to watch for a night and see what might happen.

So Jack sat there with the moon shining into his eyes, and not a sound anywhere to keep him company but the palace clock now and then counting off the hours into the quiet. But Jack did not mind, for the moonlight had a kind of friendly feeling in it; and in spite of being alone it was more drowsy he felt than frightened.

He might in fact have gone to sleep entirely if all of a sudden there hadn’t come a strange, low gurgle, as if beyond the hills all the rivers were brimming, brimming, brimming. Then it rose with a rush as if they had burst over the hills and were racing, dashing, flooding down to Jack.

The moon went out as if a great black blot had fallen across the sky, and Jack sprang up, all a-tremble, to see if he could make out what was going on. Something swept by him in the dark, showering him with drops like a moist whirlwind. There was a shaking and a shock, and the bridge which had stood so solid and so firm, crumbled with a crash, stone after stone, into the water.

The moon flashed out again into Jack’s eyes, and black beside it against the sky towered a tremendous giant figure. For a moment Jack caught his breath; then suddenly he understood: It was the giant who had made the darkness by stepping in front of the moon; it was the giant who had rushed splashing by him up the river; it was without a doubt the giant who had pulled his father’s bridges down! And there Jack stood in the moonlight at the foot of the giant, gazing up at the top of him, never daring to say a word.

The giant kicked the building stones with his toe, like so many pebbles. Jack got up his courage.

“Oh, giant,” he shouted, “giant!” But not a syllable more could he get out.

The giant stopped his kicking and scanned the ground with his great eyes. Finally he spied Jack.

“Bursting bridges!” he gurgled. “Who are you?”

Jack stood up as tall as he could. “I’m Jack, the king of Ireland’s son,” he cried; “and it’s my father owns this bridge you’ve broken and this river you’ve splashed up.”

“Rippledy-row!” cried the giant, stepping a-straddle of the stream. “So he owned this bridge, did he? But he never owned this river. No, indeed. That’s mine, you know. Always has been, always will be, and I won’t have it bridged. Do you hear?”

“But you can’t say that,” shouted Jack, “for my father rules the whole of Ireland.”

“He may rule Ireland,” granted the giant pleasantly enough, “but he doesn’t rule the rivers. They belong to me, and I won’t have them crossed. All day long I sit in my castle at the ends of the earth, watching the rivers come and go; and every bridge or dam I see, I go at night to tear it down, so that all my rivers can be free, free,—free as I am!”

“But who are you?” cried Jack.

“Oho!” bellowed the giant, “if that’s what you want to know, come here where I can tell you.” And with that he scooped Jack up in one of his mighty fists and held him there just opposite his eyes.

“Now!” he cried. “Listen:

And as he said that, the giant’s voice grew deeper and fuller till it seemed to flood out and fill the air. Jack braced himself against it, but it swept and swirled around him till he drooped limp over Riverrath’s great thumb. But he didn’t lose his wits for all that, and every other minute he kept saying to himself, “I mustn’t let him down me, I mustn’t let him drown me.” Only “down” and “drown” were somehow mixed up in his mind, and which it was he meant he couldn’t himself be quite sure.

“But, but, but,” he gasped as soon as he was able to straighten up again, “you’ve only said your name. You haven’t told me where you come from, where you live, or anything.”

The giant threw back his head with a roar. “That’s just it!” he gurgled. “You’re to come and find out. Anybody else whose father had tried to bridge my river I’d have felt it my duty to drown. But I like you, Jack. You have a steady head on your shoulders. You’re not afraid even of me. And I’ll give you a year and a day to find my castle. It’s a weary walk, but if you get there you’ll never want any good thing more,—that I’ll promise you. But if you don’t,”—and here the giant’s voice grew deep and troubled,—“if you don’t, why then

There was a sudden brightening in the sky, and Jack felt himself set down with a bump upon the grassy bank. The next moment a chilly spray beat in his face and trickled down his neck. He looked up to see the giant Riverrath with his garments dripping and fluttering, dashing up the river and off toward the pale moon.

“Which way is your castle?” shouted Jack.

“At the ends of the earth,” called the giant. And Jack could hear his mighty laughter gurgling up among the hills.

For some minutes Jack sat gazing at the sunrise, thinking it all over. Then he picked himself up, and ran pell-mell to the palace. There was the king already up, standing before the mirror putting on his crown. And there was the queen ready to go out with him in the coach.

“Father! Mother!” cried Jack. “I must go upon a journey.”

“Of course, of course,” said the king. “You’re going to drive with us to town.”

“Oh, not that!” cried Jack. “I have to go to the ends of the earth to find the giant Riverrath.”

“And who is he?” asked the king.

“The giant who pulls your bridges down,” said Jack; and he told them all about it.

“It’s nonsense,” said the king decidedly. “Here the palace has stood three hundred years, and here it will stand for all your giants. However,” he added a little nervously, “if you’re determined, Jack, I suppose you may as well go to find him.”

As for the queen, as soon as she saw how things were turning out, she ran to the pantry and set the four-and-twenty dairy maids to putting up a lunch for Jack. “For,” said she, “he may be gone a year and a day, and I don’t want my son to go hungry.”

So Jack chose a good stout staff for a walking stick, slung his lunch across his back, and set off for the ends of the earth. His father and mother watched from the palace tower till his green feather was lost to sight behind the hills.

All day long Jack walked up hill and down, in and out, by field and farm, through market and town, past castle and cottage. And everywhere he stopped to ask his way. But the queer part was that though every one had heard of the ends of the earth, no one could tell him just where they lay. There was no scholar who had ever seen them on a map and no traveler who had been so far.

“Oh, yes,” people would say wisely and nod their heads, “the ends of the earth! Every one has heard of them, of course, but just where they are or how you would go to get there, that I can’t say.”

So Jack kept on for a week and a month, knocking and knocking at all the house doors, without finding any one to tell him the way. And every day his lunch grew smaller, his shoes grew thinner, and his feather which had stood up so fine and straight, drooped more and more. But his heart inside him beat as happy and as high as on the morning he said good-by to his father and his mother. And he whistled so cheerily that the housewives would smile as he passed, and say, “There’s a brave lad coming home from a journey.”

Late one afternoon Jack found himself on a wide, sandy plain that stretched as far as he could see. There were no house doors at which to knock and no travelers of whom to inquire the way. It was quite lonely and still. Ahead on the far horizon inky turrets appeared against the setting sun. They belonged to a castle standing alone upon a high rock. Beyond it was only sky. The sand seemed to reach the cliff, and stop in a sudden firm line. The hope and joy in Jack almost choked him. What could this be but the ends of the earth and the castle of the giant Riverrath?

The dark began to come, and it was the last edge of twilight when Jack reached the great black cliff where the castle stood. He felt about, but the rock was steep and jagged whichever way he turned. So he scrambled up on his hands and knees. At the end of an hour or so he found himself, scratched and breathless, under the huge wall of the castle. In the dim starlight a few feet away he could make out an iron grating with bars as thick as tree trunks.

“That is the castle gate,” thought Jack. So he beat upon it with his staff. The massive iron resounded through the dark. But when the noise died down, the castle loomed as silent as before. Jack whacked at the bars again, blow after blow, till he could hear the echoes go booming down the hall inside. There was the loud, slow grating of a lock, the opening of a great door, and a light as big and bright as the moon came swinging down the corridor, far above Jack’s head.

As soon as his eyes got through blinking, Jack looked up. The other side of the tall grating towered a man as high and wide as the palace at home; but it was not the giant Riverrath. This giant had black hair and black mustaches, and he looked down at Jack by the light of his huge lantern without saying a word.

“Good evening,” said Jack politely, doffing his hat. “Could you tell me the way to the ends of the earth and the castle of giant Riverrath?”

At that the giant’s face broke into dimples as deep as teacups. He rattled the gate open with a noise like thunder, and cried out:

“Oh, thank you, thank you,” gasped Jack. But he didn’t have breath left to say more, for the giant bent down and carried him off through the tall corridor to a vast room all of iron. The ceiling and the walls were iron, and so were the chairs, the table, and the great spits over the fire. The giant set Jack and his lantern both on the table.

“Well, Jack,” he said, “I’m glad to see you, for I haven’t seen a man before for three hundred years.

“As for the ends of the earth,” went on the giant, “wherever they are, I’m sure to find them for you. For I have a map of the whole world hanging on the wall. Only if I get that out, you’ll have to stay all night, for it will take me that long to look it over.”

Jack said that he would like to. So the giant took four or five fine roast pigs from a spit and piled them up on a platter. He and Jack had a very merry supper. After it was done, the giant put on his great iron-bowed spectacles, and spread the map out on the table. Jack walked around on it, all over the pink countries and the yellow, across the blue seas, to the green spot that was Ireland. There he stopped, and showed the giant where his father’s palace was, and the stream where Riverrath had pulled down the bridges. Then he went and lay down in the inglenook while the giant traced out all the names with his great finger.

In the morning when Jack woke up, the giant was just hanging the map up again on the wall.

“Oh, Jack,” said he, “to think that I should have to disappoint you after all! But I’ve been over every word and every letter, and there’s no mention of the ends of the earth on the map at all.”

“Never mind,” said Jack, “and thank you kindly.” But he couldn’t help looking a bit downhearted for all he spoke so bravely.

“I’ll tell you what,” cried the giant, “there’s still a chance some one might know how to get there. And if any one does, it will be my brother, who lives nine hundred miles from here. For he has a book with the history of the whole world written down in it.”

So the giant took Jack down the steep precipice the other side of the castle, that had seemed to him like the ends of the earth the night before. “Now, Jack,” said the giant, “when I whistle, you start forward, and then you’ll get there all the quicker.”

The giant whistled loud enough to be heard nine hundred miles, and then at every step Jack took, he went the length of ten. And so in scarcely a week’s time, Jack found himself before a great bronze castle shining red in the sunset. He beat with his staff on the tall bronze gate; and a giant, big and ruddy, with glowing hair, came to see who was there.

“Good afternoon,” said Jack. “Could you tell me the way to the ends of the earth and the castle of giant Riverrath?”

The giant beamed all over his great red face, and his eyes shone like coals of fire. He swung open the gate with a glorious clang, and cried:

And with that the giant picked Jack up and carried him down a corridor echoing like deep chimes, into a vast room all of bronze. The ceiling, the walls, the table, the chairs, flashed back the firelight like a hundred sunsets. The giant set Jack on the bronze table.

“I’m glad to see you, Jack,” he said, “for I haven’t seen a man before for three hundred years.”

“Why,” cried Jack, “that’s just what your brother said.” And he told the giant all about his visit to the great iron castle.

When he had finished, the giant’s good-natured face grew sober. “Strange,” he said, “that the ends of the earth weren’t down on my brother’s map, when you hear of them every day or so. But I’ll tell you what, Jack: if any one has ever been there, my book will say so, for that has the whole history of the world written down in it. Only if I get that out, you’ll have to stay all night, for it will take me that long to read it through.”

Jack thanked him, and the giant took four or five fine brown pigs from a spit and piled them up on a platter. He and Jack had a merry supper. When the giant talked, his voice echoed about the bronze room as if a hundred great bells were ringing; and when Jack answered, it was like a hundred little bells tinkling back again.

After supper, the giant put on his big bronze-bowed spectacles, and opened his tremendous book at page one. For a while Jack stood on the table beside him and tried to read too. But the lines were so long and so big that before he had finished the first one he had fallen fast asleep.

In the morning when Jack woke up, the giant was just putting the book away again on its shelf. “Jack,” said he, “I’m afraid I’m no more help to you than my brother. For I’ve read through every line and every word of the whole book, and I can’t find that anybody has ever been to the ends of the earth. There is plenty of talk about going, but no one seems ever to get there at all.”

“Never mind,” said Jack, “and thank you kindly.” But he couldn’t help looking a bit downhearted for all he spoke so bravely.

“I’ll tell you what,” cried the giant; “there’s still a chance some one might know how to get there. And if any one does, it will be my brother who lives nine hundred miles from here. For he is master of all the birds of the air.”

So the giant took Jack outside, and whistled loud enough to be heard nine hundred miles. And then at every step Jack took he went the length of ten. So in scarcely a week’s time Jack found himself at noonday before a great golden castle glittering in the sunshine. He knocked with his staff on the high gate; and a giant with golden hair and eyes as blue and gleaming as the noonday sky, came to see who was there.

“Good day,” said Jack politely. “Could you tell me the way to the ends of the earth and the castle of giant Riverrath?”

The giant beamed all over his great happy face, till his eyes and his cheeks and his wide mouth were full of sunny smiles. He swung open the gate, and cried:

And with that he picked Jack up and carried him through a shining corridor, up hundreds and hundreds of high golden stairs till they came out on a dazzling turret far up against the sky. The giant set Jack down on the wide parapet. “I’m glad to see you, Jack,” he said, “for I haven’t seen a man before for three hundred years.”

“Why,” cried Jack, “that’s just what your brothers said.” And he told the giant all about his visits to the iron castle and the bronze.

“Never mind,” cried the giant cheerily, when Jack had finished. “Birds fly farther than men ever go; and perhaps some of them will have been to the ends of the earth. Anyway we shall soon find out, for I am master of all the birds of the air.”

Jack thanked him, and the giant took from his pocket a great golden whistle and blew it with the sweetest sound, that seemed to pierce the air in all directions. In just a minute the sky was full of flying birds. The eagles and the hawks came first, the gulls and all the birds with long, strong wings; then the swallows, the robins, the blue jays and the doves, and last the parrots and macaws and all the gay birds of the jungle. They lit on the giant’s shoulders, and Jack’s, all over the turret and the castle towers, chattering and cheeping till Jack had to put his fingers in his ears.

When the giant thought they were all there, he blew his whistle for silence.

“Which of you has been to the ends of the earth?” he cried.

But all the birds kept still, for none of them had ever been so far.

And if Jack had been downhearted before, now he was ten times more so, for where to turn next he didn’t know.

As for the giant, he said never a word, but began counting the birds, one by one. “There’s one missing!” he cried at last.

As he spoke there was a loud beating of wings, and Jack looked up to see an eagle ten times larger than any of the others, flying toward them.

“You’re late,” called the giant sternly.

“And a good reason why,” screamed the eagle. “I’ve had twenty times as far to come as any other bird here.”

“Where have you been then?” asked the giant.

“At the ends of the earth,” screeched the eagle, “visiting the giant Riverrath.”

When Jack heard that, he was ready to jump up and hug the eagle; but the giant seemed to have forgotten about Jack’s errand entirely.

“Well, eagle,” he said, “if you have come so far, you must be hungry. Come in and have some lunch.”

So the giant and the eagle went into the castle, and left Jack with all the other birds outside. One by one, they flew away, and Jack was there alone. After a while he heard the giant’s steps again coming up the stairs.

“Now, Jack,” said the giant, “I’ve found out from the eagle about the ends of the earth, and they’re farther than I thought. You never could get there by walking. The only way will be for the eagle to take you. But if he knows it’s you he’s carrying, I’m afraid he might get hungry and eat you. So here’s a bag to put you in, so that he won’t see you at all.”

The giant took out of his pocket a great golden bag, big enough to hold Jack twice over. Jack stepped in and sat down, and the giant drew up the string. “Quiet now,” he said; “don’t let the eagle hear you stirring.”

When the eagle had finished his lunch, he came up on the turret to say good-by. “Oh, eagle,” said the giant, “I wonder if you’d do me a bit of a favor. There’s a bag over there I’m anxious to get to the giant Riverrath; and since you know the way, I thought you’d be good enough to take it for me.”

The eagle grumbled a little about its being so far. But he didn’t dare refuse the giant. So he took the bag in his beak, and flew with it up into the sky.

Jack cut a little hole in the side to look out of. But the eagle flew so fast and so high he could hardly see the earth at all. So they flew for a week or more before Jack felt the eagle going slower. He looked out of the hole again; and sure enough, straight ahead was a great crystal castle with waterfalls tumbling over the walls. Wherever he looked he could see rainbows gleaming through it in the morning sunshine. Beyond it there was nothing at all. So Jack knew he was at the ends of the earth at the castle of the giant Riverrath.

The eagle gave a hoarse scream, and Riverrath himself came out of the castle door. “Here’s a bag for you,” said the eagle shortly, setting it down; and flew away again.

Jack ripped the bag open with his sword, and stepped out at Riverrath’s feet. “Good morning,” he said, and couldn’t help smiling just to think that he had gotten there at last.

“Bursting bridges!” roared Riverrath, “if it isn’t Jack!” And he couldn’t help smiling too, just to think that Jack had found the way. So he gave a kind of yawn behind his hand that ended in a great gurgling laugh. “I knew I liked you, Jack,” said he, “and you’ll find that I’ll keep my word with you too. Now come and see the castle.”

So he took Jack up into the highest tower where he could see the rivers coming and going, and then down to the great middle court where was a fountain fed by all the rivers of the earth. And by that time Jack and the giant were joking together like the best friends in the world.

But the thing Jack liked best in all the castle was not the high fountain nor the wide view but the little slip of a girl who was Riverrath’s daughter. For she was as small as Riverrath was big, and as calm as he was boisterous. When Riverrath walked abroad, the rivers always rose up and roared to greet him; but before the girl, even the wildest and angriest of them would lie down quietly to let her pass over. And because she was so placid and at the same time so joyous, they called her the Daughter of the Fountain.

She had pale pink cheeks and flying hair, and a silver gown with rainbow lights in the folds. And when it came to a race she could usually beat Jack. For he would be so taken up with looking at her that he never could bear to get ahead. So all day long they played together, and at the end they would climb up on Riverrath’s high shoulders and make him take them for a walk. And Jack thought he never in all his life had had so good a time.

But one morning Riverrath came to him. “Jack,” said he, quite soberly, “do you know what to-day is?”

“Why, no,” answered Jack, not much caring.

“Well,” said Riverrath, “to-day your time is up. It’s a year and a day since you started out to find me, and now you must be going back to your father and your mother.”

Then Jack looked sober too, for though he knew quite well that the giant was right, he couldn’t bear to think of going.

“Come, come, Jack,” cried Riverrath kindly. “Don’t be downhearted. If you must go, you must, and that’s the end of it. Come down to the court in just an hour’s time, and you’ll find a boat waiting to take you home. And because I like you, Jack, I’ll give you a guide besides.”

So Jack went and said good-by to the Daughter of the Fountain, got his hat and his staff, and came down to the court just as the giant had told him. Sure enough, there in the pool at the edge of the fountain, was a boat made of a great scallop shell, with a gossamer sail shining silver in the morning sunshine. But there was something silvery in the boat too. Jack looked, but he couldn’t believe his eyes, for there sat the Daughter of the Fountain, looking as roguish and contented as if she were there to stay.

Riverrath beamed all over his great joyous face. “There is your guide in the boat,” said he. And he gathered Jack up with a hug of his big fingers, and put him down in the shell right beside the Daughter of the Fountain.

“And now,” said Riverrath, feeling around in his huge pockets, “here are three presents I want you to leave for me with the three giants who helped you to find me.” So he handed Jack three neat white parcels tied with water-lilies.

“Good-by,” he roared, “good-by. And don’t forget the giant Riverrath. Sometimes I’ll come to visit you, and sometimes you’ll come to visit me.”

And with that he blew against the sail, and the shell moved quietly out of the pool, through the green grottoes underneath the castle, and out down the rivers of the earth. When the rivers saw that it was the Daughter of the Fountain coming, they lay down and let the shell skim over them faster than any bird could fly.

In a little while Jack saw the great gold castle of the bird giant. He beat with his staff on the gate, and the giant came out to meet them. “Here is a present from the giant Riverrath,” cried Jack.

So the giant untied the water-lilies, and there inside was a tiny fountain which grew and grew until it was a mile wide,—big enough for all the birds of the air to bathe in.

“Thank you, thank you,” called the bird giant. “And good luck to you, Jack!”

In just a few minutes more the shell floated up to the bronze castle. And there was the history giant outside, waiting for them. Jack gave him his present from the giant Riverrath. As he untied it, a nice, wet spring bubbled out, and beside it was a card which read:

“A spring—to make history less dry reading.”

The history giant beamed. “Thank you,” he cried gratefully. “And good luck to you, Jack!”

In scarcely half an hour they came to the map giant sitting on one of the towers of his iron castle. Jack handed Riverrath’s present up to him. Hardly had he begun to open it when the clearest stream Jack had ever seen trickled down over the castle wall. With it was a card which read:

“A crystal brook,—to make geography clearer.”

“Thank you, thank you!” cried the map giant. “And all the school children will thank you too.”

After that Jack and the Daughter of the Fountain skimmed down the rivers for an hour or more before they saw the King of Ireland’s palace. On the bank stood Jack’s father and mother waiting to welcome them. Jack got out and kissed them both; then he gave his hand to the Daughter of the Fountain.

When the king and queen saw what a fine lady Jack’s guide was, they thought they would like to have her for a daughter. “How would you like to marry Jack?” asked the king.

The Daughter of the Fountain said she would not mind in the least. So the king called for his gilt coach, and they all got in and drove toward town. And when the river saw that the Daughter of the Fountain was in the coach, it lay right down, and let them drive over as dry and fine as you please.

Jack and the Daughter of the Fountain went into the church and were married. And all the people cried, “What a fine bride Jack has!”

But the king was so taken up with looking at his coach that he forgot the bride entirely. For on all the gilt wheels, on all the gilt sides, on both the shiny doors was not a single spot of mud! And ever after when the king of Ireland drove down among his subjects, his coach was just as bright and fine as the day it first was gilded.

—Based on Celtic folk-lore.