No one could imagine or deny it.
For years, a giant with a devil’s appetites
had been feeding on children and ravishing ladies in the country.
Hundreds had tried and failed to stop him.
After the fiend had seized a duchess, a farmer
rode to Camelot’s king to plead his case
to rescue those they could and kill the beast.
Of course, the king would go, with two stout knights.
He couldn’t wait for a larger force. He
lamented only that he hadn’t known sooner.
The farmer told the people’s king the giant
dwelled on a mountain with two blazing fires.
When the king approached, he saw the monster
hunched over a spit, wheeling his arm
like a clockwork and gnawing on a bone with the other.
The duchess lay dead in the lurid glow.
The king brandished Excalibur and charged
while the giant grabbed an iron club and battered
the crown. As the two closed in a bloody welter,
the king carved off the lecher’s parts.
The giant still heaved his massive limbs
around the king to crush his bones. The two
rolled down a slope to the shore in a fury
of beastly groans and dagger strikes by the king.
Waiting at the water’s edge, the trusted knights
leapt into action, and with well-timed strokes,
severed the giant’s head. The children were safe.
The women were safe. That wasn’t enough.
The king still grieved the atrocity of the mountain
and the long years of evil in that high place.
He ordered, Take the giant’s head back
to the castle and post that horror at the gate.
Name the curse, he said. Though word came late,
the people must know.
Copyright © 2025 by Sam S. Dodd