There was once a tribe of frightened, little people, making their way – and mostly losing it – across a great empty plain toward the Mountains of Mome. Their leader was the Giant of Chaldor. He had appeared to them one day, seemingly out of nowhere. He was vast, strong and handsome, and was twenty times the height of the tallest of the little people.
A small white bird perched on his shoulder and He had looked down at them gently, his eyes full of affection. “Follow me,” he had said, before walking off slowly, careful not to go too fast for them.
They had hesitated for a moment, but then they hurried after him; running and hopping along, stumbling, going this way and that, and squeaking among themselves in high little voices.
“I don’t know why he has to go so fast,” they complained, running five steps backward.
“Why won’t he wait?” they twittered angrily, scurrying seven steps forward.
The giant walked on, painfully slowly, happily watching them, and occasionally reaching down to pick up one who had fallen. Gradually the foothills came in sight, but, turning, the giant saw dust in the distance behind them. Dust, that he knew was from the hooves of the savage horsemen of Yom – wild beings sent to kill his little people.
“Hurry,” he said. “The horsemen are coming.”
But the little people looked and – being so close to the ground – they saw no dust. “What is he talking about?” they squeaked to one another.
The giant watched as the dust clouds came steadily closer. “Hurry!” he said again, more urgently this time. “The horsemen are coming!” He pushed them, and cajoled them forward.
“What’s he talking about?” they repeated. “I don’t see anything. Do you?”
Later, as the horsemen drew closer still, they remarked “Look, it’s only a little dust. Why does he think it’s anything else? There are clearly no horsemen on this plain.”
But the giant kept on pushing and cajoling until, at last, they came to the slopes of the foothills and the entrance to the Pass of Wandar, a deep cleft in the first cliffs. The giant looked back and again saw the dust clouds coming closer still.
“We’ve reached the mountains!” the little people squeaked, and they jumped up and down in celebration.
“No,” said the giant, “you haven’t yet reached the mountains. Beyond this pass are many hills, cliffs, and crevices which you must pass before you reach the mountains….”
“How negative he is,” they whispered to one another.
“…but I will send my bird,” he continued, “and he will show you the way.” Drawing a huge bag of grain from his pocket, he placed it down on the ground before them. “Here, take this, divide it among you, and feed it to the bird as you go – as he needs sustenance too.”
“What about you?” one of the little people squealed.
“I’ll stay here,” the giant said.
They grumbled about that, and about the weight of the grain, but finally they divided it among themselves and were ready to continue – all the time the dust clouds were growing closer.
“You’re sure you won’t come with us?” they asked the giant.
“I’ll stay here,” he repeated.
“Well, have it your way then,” they said, and they started off.
They entered the pass, hopping and squeaking, and rounded its first bend. The giant turned back toward the dust clouds and stood guard at the entry of the pass. Before long the horsemen came riding from out of the dust – not men at all, but fiendish beings mounted on fire-breathing steeds. For a moment the horsemen, startled, reined back their mounts. Then, regrouping, they charged on, their mouths open on screams of blood-curdling terror.
The giant held out his arms wide, across the mouth of the pass, and the horsemen yelled in rage; drawing their bows, and showering him with arrows. For three hours he stood there and then, at last, he fell, but after his body fell, the horsemen found that they could not move it, nor could they go around or over it as the giant’s body was so vast that it blocked them from going through the pass.
Meanwhile the white bird flew on – slowly, so that the little people could follow – and the people came through the pass to the region of hills and cliffs and crevices. They began to grumble, “These aren’t the mountains.”
At first, they fed the bird, and the bird guided them on; over hills and through canyons. But as time passed some of them forgot to feed the bird, and others decided that it wasn’t worth their trouble. “Where are the mountains?” they asked, and they began to split up and look in different directions.
One man, standing at the bottom of a canyon, whispered, “I don’t think there are any mountains.”
A few people still fed the bird, but he now had to range more and more widely for food. Always he returned, flying to the scattered people – who wandered now in small groups; alone and cut off from one another by the hills and cliffs and crevices. The bird found each one of them, each group, and sang to them, cajoling them toward the mountains. He would fly away to find the others, or to find food, but always he returned.
One of the little women, exhausted, sat down on a rock and cried. She thought of the giant. “Oh, why couldn’t the Giant have done something for us?” she asked.