The Dance of the Giants

Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.

From Ancient Tales From Many Lands by Rachel M. Fleming, 1922.

Long ago a king of Britain had won a great victory, but instead of rejoicing at his success, he was filled with grief and sorrow for the earls and princes who had helped him in the battle, but had lost their lives. As he gazed upon the green turf which covered their bodies, he fell to wondering how he might best preserve the memory of these noble friends who had died for their country.

Then he called together all the master craftsmen in stone and wood, and asked them to put forth all their skill to try to make some new kind of building that should stand for ever in memory of men so worthy. The craftsmen gazed sadly upon one another, and then told the King that they were quite unable to build anything wonderful enough to satisfy him. Just then a friend of the King said to him, "If there be any man strong enough to carry out this plan, it is Merlin the prophet. Never another man in thy kingdom is brighter of wit than he. Bid him set his wits to work, and he will build thee a monument to last for ever."

So the King sent for Merlin, who listened to his request for a monument of his fallen friends that should last for ever. Then the wise Merlin said, "If you wish to grace the burial place of these men, send for the Dance of the Giants that is in Killaurus, a mountain in Ireland."

He told the King that this Dance of the Giants was a great ring of huge stones, each so large that none of the men who were now living could raise even one, unless his brain was as clever as his strength was great. He added that the stones were of such wonderful size and virtue that if they were set up in a circle around the grassy plot where the King's friends lay dead, just as they were now set up in Ireland, they would stand for ever.

Upon hearing this, the King very rudely burst out laughing, and said it would be a fine thing indeed to fetch stones of such huge size from so distant a country, when Britain had plenty of stones quite close at hand for the job. Then Merlin rebuked the King, and told him that he ought not to laugh so lightly, for he had been very much in earnest when he advised the King to send for them.

He said, "Long ago giants of old did carry these stones from the furthest ends of Africa, and bring them to Ireland, and set them up there. They were at the trouble to bring them all that long way because the stones were sacred and had a healing virtue. If any of these giants of old fell sick, he had only to wash the stones with water and then to bathe in this water, and he would be healed of his disease. If any of them had been wounded in battle, he had only to collect some herbs and mix them into a paste with water that had touched the stones, and put this paste upon the wound, and it would be cured at once."

Now, when the King and the Britons heard this, they became very eager to fetch the wonderful healing stones, and set them up upon the plain. So the King's brother got together a great army in case the Irish should fight to keep the Britons from taking away their stones. Of course they took Merlin with them so that he might use his wit to help them to take down and carry away these giant pillars.

At last the ships were ready, and a light wind bore them across to Ireland. Here they were met by the brave young King of Ireland, who had heard of their coming, and had got together a great army, for he was determined not to let the Britons take away the very smallest stone of the Dance.

A dreadful battle took place, but at last the Irish were overcome, and the Britons hastened to Killaurus. There they found, to their delight and wonder, that the stones were standing in a great circle, just as Merlin had said. As they stood gazing, Merlin called to them, "Now, my men, try what you can do to fetch me down these stones. Then you will see whether strength is better than skill."

So they set to work with one accord to try all manner of plans to fetch down the Dance. They tried with ropes and ladders placed in all sorts of ways, but, though they tired themselves out with their efforts, not one of them could move a stone so much as an inch.

Then Merlin fell a laughing at them, and he put together his own engines. With them he laid down the stones so gently that the men who were watching could hardly believe their own eyes. He bade the men carry the stones on to the boats and set out for England. Presently, with the help of a fair wind, they came to a landing place. They lifted the heavy stones from out the boat in the way that Merlin told them to do, and carried them to the burial place of the King's friends. There Merlin set them up in a circle exactly as they had stood in Ireland, and so showed the King and the people that skill was better than strength, and there they stand to this very day.

As for the giants who had set them up in Killaurus hundreds of years before Merlin's time, they must indeed have been wonderful men. Although they lived so long ago that very likely they did not know how to use iron or even metal tools, but had only wooden and stone weapons and tools, they, like the lake-dwellers, could make themselves boats. What is even more wonderful is that these men, in their simply made boats, with nothing to guide them but the sun and the stars and the winds, braved the dangers of the wild, stormy Atlantic, and sailed from Africa to Ireland. They could not, of course, put right out to sea and sail from one big port to another in a few days as the great steamers do nowadays. They had to keep near to the coast, and to stop at very many little landing places on their long journey.

One story tells us that a certain Scythian named Fenius, a king of those wandering tribes whom lo had passed in her sad journey, was turned out of his kingdom. He and some of his followers went to Egypt, but were turned out of that country, and wandered along the north of Africa and the coasts of the Mediterranean, going from one little port on the coast to the next just as the wind carried them. At last they landed on the shores of Spain, where they found a home that suited them and where they prospered greatly, and set up many of their sacred stones. Here, too, they heard many tales of a wonderful country in the west, called Ireland, where there was gold in abundance. On clear evenings they fancied they could see the shores of that favoured isle in the far distance. At last they set out to find it.

There they landed and went to Killaurus, where they set up their sacred stone circle. Many people have wondered at the skill which they displayed in measuring their great circles so exactly, and in raising these heavy stone pillars into position in that dim past when men had so few tools and no books to help them. No one has ever yet found out the secret of how they did it, but the stones they raised are to be seen to this day all along the western shores of Europe from Africa to Ireland.

The country folk tell many queer tales of the wonderful things the stones can do, and of the long forgotten race of men who first set up these sacred pillars.

Fleming, Rachel M. Ancient Tales From Many Lands. Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1922.

Rachel M. Fleming

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