Ever since the beginning of things there have been giants. But the first ones of all we know little about. For, oddly enough, they were so big that no one ever really saw them.

Back in Adam and Eve’s time, and even for many years after, there were very few people; and instead of being all over the earth as people are now, they lived quite close together in a very small country. Among them lived the giants, tremendous fellows, bigger than the highest mountains, and so tall that if you leaned back until your neck ached you could not see to the top of one of them. Half the time, at any rate, their heads were hidden above the clouds, so it would have done you but little good to look. It was almost never that you could see the whole of a giant at once.

But even if one of Adam’s grandchildren had seen all of a giant, it would have caused him little surprise. For everything was new in those days, and one thing seemed no stranger than another. As it was, people scrambled about over the giants’ feet every day and thought only that they were climbing some new kind of hill. As for the giants themselves, going about with their heads above the clouds, and their eyes fixed on the stars and sun, they had not the slightest idea of the little people crawling about at their feet. Even when unknowingly they stepped on a whole house, they were none the wiser.

And so it might have gone on, the people knowing nothing of the giants, and the giants knowing nothing of the people until this day, had it not been for the Flood.

The first giant, and the biggest of all, was called Chalbroth. Mountains were but hummocks to him. When he was thirsty he stooped and drank from the clouds. When he was hungry he caught a whale and held it up before the sun to toast. And he strode about the world three thousand years without so much as dreaming of the tiny race of men. No more did his son or grandson. That was left for his great-grandson, Hurtali.

Hurtali was not so tall as his great-grandfather, but he was a fairly good-sized giant, a mile or so high, and quite big enough to take care of himself. And that was fortunate, for Hurtali was an orphan, without brothers or sisters. However, he did not mind that much, for there were plenty of good games he could play alone. In the morning, when he got up, he would take a little run across country, playing leapfrog with the smaller mountains on the way. Then he would wade out into the middle of the ocean till he found a place deep enough for him, and swim a few thousand miles before breakfast. When he wanted a quicker bath, all he had to do was to step into a thick cloud, and out into the dry sunlight on the other side. There was endless fun to be had with the clouds, anyhow: blowing the little ones about, and cutting up the thin ones with his fingers into all kinds of shapes,—whales and mountains and trees and giants. Then when he got tired of them, he would run and wave his arms and blow, and scatter the whole lot of them helter-skelter.

The nice part was, that no matter how thick the clouds got, Hurtali was always able to climb a mountain and stick his head through into the pleasant weather above. But every position has its disadvantages, and it must be confessed that when a sizeable thunderstorm came snapping about his ears, he was quite as glad to lie down in a valley and go to sleep. As for the rain, he seldom felt it at all, although sometimes when it came down in sheets it would seem to him that there was a heavy mist.

And that was why, when the Flood came, it lasted for a week or so before Hurtali took the slightest notice of it. It had rained for days and days. The rivers rose and rose until finally in one great torrent they went sweeping over all the land, and drowned every man and woman and child and bird and beast in the whole world, except those that were lucky enough to be with Noah in his Ark. Even the eagles came dropping through the air last of all, beaten down by the rain, and fell like sparrows about Hurtali’s feet. But Hurtali regarded it not at all. He sat on a high mountain, head and shoulders in the bright sunlight above the clouds, and whistled serenely.

Going across country, to be sure, it was a little sloppy. But Hurtali liked that, and ran splashing along with the greatest glee in the world. One day, when he got to the place where the ocean used to begin, all the water suddenly rolled up before him in a wave as high as he was, and cast itself back again with a roar and a rush that swept the land clear of trees for miles and miles. Hurtali laughed aloud, and plunged into the foam. He shouted, he dived, he turned somersaults. He swam and swam, and then, quite tired out, turned to start for home.

Then he looked about puzzled. There was no land in sight. Not an island, not a hill,—nothing but water as far as he could see. He swam harder. Finally a sharp point appeared on the horizon. He made for it, and as he drew nearer he saw it clearly. It was a single, jagged mountain-peak. He put one foot down and touched bottom. He could walk now, although the water was above his waist. Uprooted forests tripped his toes, and he slipped desperately over slimy hills onto scratchy cliffs.

All in all, it was not a pleasant walk, and when Hurtali finally settled himself on his rather uncomfortable mountain and began to pick the crags out of his feet, he was in anything but a happy frame of mind. He was tired and hungry and he had not seen a whale all day. Worse still, how was he going to sleep at night? There was not a plain in the whole world where he could lie down without drowning; and as for the mountain-top, it was much too small.

Hurtali bent down, picked a handful of trees and ate them moodily. Then an ingenious idea struck him. If he could not lie flat why not go to sleep reclining? He could stretch himself along the mountain, with his head at the top and his feet in the water below. He scrambled half way down to try it, and leaned carelessly back. In an instant he was up again, howling with pain. Hundreds of precipices had stuck into his back, and he had laid his head squarely on an ice-field.

Hurtali was infuriated. He was not so easily to be foiled. He plucked out cliff after cliff in his rage and hurled them splashing into the water. With one of them he pounded madly on the glacier, sending ice-splinters in a bright fountain skywards. By nightfall he had cleared the mountain. He lay back, propping himself with a cliff or two on either side to keep from rolling over into the water. Then wearily he opened his mouth and snored to high heaven.

All of a sudden, Hurtali awoke. Somewhere there was a noise that disturbed him. It was the queerest noise anyway. It seemed to be made up of a hundred small sounds. It was a twittering, a rustling, a chirping, and a tiny screaming all at once.

“Just my luck!” thought Hurtali sleepily. “I’ve gone and laid my head in a whole colony of eagles’ nests.”

Then he rubbed his eyes open. It was morning, and what felt so cold around his neck was water. It had risen until it had covered him up in the night.

But the noise kept on. It did not seem to have the slightest intention of stopping. The wider awake Hurtali grew, the louder it seemed to become. It did not sound at all like eagles any more, and it seemed to come from somewhere very near his left ear. Hurtali turned over on his side. There, stuck on the rocks he had piled up, was a tremendous wooden box, almost as long as he was himself. The ends floated in the water, but the middle was wedged firmly on the rocky shelf. It was from that the noises came.

Hurtali raised himself on one elbow and put his ear against the box. Inside, hundreds of little creatures seemed to be moving about. There were steps and stampings, small roars and tiny shrieks, flutterings and callings, barkings and bleatings innumerable. It was Noah’s Ark waking up for the day, but of course Hurtali did not know that. He listened, fascinated.

Just then a window in the side shot open, and four men with four poles, leaning out, began to push against the rock with all their strength. Hurtali gasped. Never in all his life had he seen such tiny creatures. He watched breathlessly as they braced themselves and struggled. But the harder they pushed, the firmer the Ark seemed to stick.

Now, Hurtali was a kind-hearted giant, and while he could not but chuckle to see the little people struggling at a task so much too big for them, his first thought was to help them out. So he put out both his great hands and pushed against the side of the Ark. But the Ark was stuck too fast even for that, and instead of sliding off into the water with Hurtali’s shoves, it tossed first on one side and then on the other, and so rocked violently back and forth. And with that there arose such a scrambling and scratching as never was heard before, as the animals rolled about inside. Elephants trumpeted, cows mooed, donkeys brayed, eagles screamed, dogs barked, lions roared, pigs squealed, wolves howled, orangoutangs chattered.

As for Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, who had been pushing, their eyes had been so fast fixed on their poles that they did not see the giant’s arms at all, and thought the whole commotion due to their own efforts.

But when Hurtali saw that he could not budge the Ark that way, he scrambled up out of the water with splashes that set the craft seesawing. Then, throwing one leg across, he jumped on top, as a man mounts a horse. And sitting there a-straddle, he pushed with his foot against the cliff,—once, twice, three times. And with the third push the Ark sailed off suddenly, with Hurtali sitting atop.

It was a new experience for Hurtali, and he laughed with his whole voice. In all his life he had never been on any kind of boat before, and this one was so jolly. It went wabbling about over the waves with queer splashes and gurgles. Hurtali swung his legs and roared out a giant-song. Once in a while his toes would strike against a half drowned mountain, and then he would push with all his might to keep his big craft off the rocks.

All at once, Hurtali was conscious of a change. Inside the Ark everything was strangely quiet. Not a roar, not a bark, not even a squeal disturbed the stillness. Just in front of him on the roof was a chimney. He put his ear down. There was a sound, but it was faint and different. It rose and fell with contented regularity. It was a low, munching, crunching sound, as if the hundreds of little creatures were moving their jaws up and down all at once.

A sympathetic twinge shot through Hurtali. He remembered suddenly and definitely that he had had no breakfast. He sat up and scanned the water for whales. Just then a noise came up the chimney as if some of the little beings were gathered there shouting and stamping. Hurtali looked. At the bottom stood the men he had seen before at the window. With them was a curious four-legged beast with a long neck that stretched up the chimney to the very top. The men spoke to the creature. Slowly it bent its head, and one of the men clambered up on it. Then with infinite deliberation it stretched its neck out again, carrying the man to the very top of the chimney.

Hurtali straightened up in surprise. But the little man did not seem in the least alarmed or afraid. He grasped the edge of the chimney and cautiously climbed out on it. Then he turned toward Hurtali and bowed low. He was an old man with a thin white beard that reached nearly to his feet, and he wore a tremendous turban wound and re-wound about his head.

Noah sharply clapped his hands. The giraffe’s nose appeared again in the chimney, stacked up with bowls of food. One by one, Noah removed them and set them down, with a bow, on the roof before Hurtali. Then, with the same slow gravity, he mounted himself again on the giraffe’s head and started to descend as he had come.

Hurtali was dumb with surprise. But he had been brought up to be polite. So, just as Noah disappeared through the chimney, he gasped out a “Thank you,” which was pretty weak for a giant, but which boomed through the Ark, and set all the animals to squealing, nevertheless.

Then he turned to the food. There were two sheep and a cow, with a bowl of pottage and a dish of honey for dessert. Hurtali disposed of them all in just three mouthfuls, and looked about for more.

Then it occurred to him that the little people were not used to a giant’s appetite; and, being a polite giant as we have said, he determined to get along without telling them. He turned his eyes to the water again, and before dinner he caught twenty-five good-sized whales which he fastened up behind him on the roof where Noah could not see them.

Days went by, and still the waters rose. There was not a dry mountain-peak on the whole earth. Hurtali could not even feel one with his toes. Sometimes, when the water was clear, he could dimly see one, hundreds of feet below. Usually, however, the water was ruffled. The wind blew, and the waves dashed up over the Ark, often to Hurtali’s waist. Streams of mist seemed to be trickling through his hair and down his cheeks, and for the first time in his life he got the idea that it was raining. His legs were cold and numb, and he felt uncommonly stiff in every joint.

By day things were not so bad. For Hurtali could hear the little creatures racing about inside the ark, screaming and scolding, jumping and playing, lowing and howling and squeaking. But at night when they were all asleep, it was more than lonesome. It was black with a blackness Hurtali had never known before; and the wind whistled through his hair and chilled his arms, and sometimes beat against him till he nearly fell over into the water. Somehow he managed to keep his seat, and the gray morning comforted him. Three times every day the giraffe reached up food to him, and three times Hurtali would send back by it the dishes of the meal before, and then reach cautiously behind him for a whale.

So, time went on, until one day Hurtali noticed a brightness in the sky. The mist no longer streamed over his face. The waters were still. Up in the brightest cloud, he could make out a round, shining disk. Then Hurtali knew that it was clearing off, and he shouted down the chimney with almost all his voice, “The sun! The sun!”

A few days later he felt something hard and jagged with his foot. It was a mountain, and he knew that the waters were going down. Soon peaks began to appear like sharp teeth all about them on the horizon; and one day, far off, Hurtali saw one that was soft and green. Then he put forth all his strength. He paddled with his feet like a duck and sent the Ark straight and sure for that mountain. Hurtali put out his foot and touched the land. Then, very gently, he set the Ark safe and dry upon the top of Mount Ararat.

Hurtali stood up and stretched his tired, cramped limbs. He capered stiffly. He flung his arms about. He shouted with all his lungs.

And still the waters fell. By night the whole mountain was dry, and Hurtali lay back and slept as he had not since the Flood. The next day, Noah himself came out on the Ark roof to ask Hurtali if the Flood was over and if he might safely let his creatures free.

Hurtali stood upon the mountain-peak and overlooked the whole world. As far as he could see were dry hills and green meadows, and the seas and rivers were back again in their beds.

So, Noah went back into the Ark; and Hurtali with one sweep of his mighty hand ripped off the whole roof from end to end. And from the Ark, in a bright flutter, went up all the birds of the air into the sunlight. Red, green, blue, white, and gold they glittered,—parrots and eagles, robins and doves, hawks and geese, blue-jays and tanagers, crows and flamingoes, all together in one feathery swarm, out into the blue sky.

Then Hurtali went to the end of the Ark, where all the animals were gathered about the door, bleating aloud to heaven. With one tug he snatched away the door; and, scurrying, scuffling, scratching, burrowing under, scrambling over, the beasts burst out. Bears bounded, squirrels frisked, pigs bolted, hyenas leaped, horses galloped, mice scampered, camels loped, cats whisked, all in one wild stampede out of the Ark into the free air. After them rushed Shem and Ham and Japheth with their wives; and, last of all, Mr. and Mrs. Noah, who being quite old and grown-up, tried to go as sedately as if they had been walking on dry land every day.

Flinging up his arms to the high clouds, Hurtali went leaping across the fair earth, taking the valleys at a bound, and racing over the mountains as if they had not been.—All at once, he paused! The sky seemed suddenly radiant with a soft brightness. Across a cloud, directly before him, glowed an arch of lovely colors. It was more beautiful than anything he had ever seen, and it made him feel happy and elated without quite knowing why. Somehow it seemed to him that now his dear mountains and valleys would always be safe and green as they had been before. And so, bending his head, Hurtali ran out across the world, underneath the Rainbow.

—Based on an Oriental myth.