The two sat upon the top of the hill beneath a great spreading oak and looked out across the plain.  The boy and his grandfather shared a bit of flat bread, a bit of cheese and some water from a water skin.  There were birds on the wing, water fowl, a hawk, song birds as well.  The old man enjoyed the quiet for a few moments, but his grandson could not let the moment last.

“Grandfather, what is the Dagda?” Bres asked.

“Not what, but who,” began Dream-Walker, “the Dagda was a giant who lived among the Deer-Riders.  Long ago, before the Gobli ravaged the plain, before we all took to horse, and even before the Deer-Riders rode their herd deer. 

“In fact it was not so much after the first men came down and scattered the grass on the plain and the trees on the hills, planted all that we eat and all that we hunt, this was long and long ago, when Danu’s children moved from the Palace of Glass to Sliebe na Gael down South.  It was the Deer-Rider’s ancestors who were charged with making the world green and it was those same folk who fought the ice wall that threatened to destroy us all.

“Now at this time the goddess Danu made every woman who had borne her first child take a child of Danu’s making.  This was the womb duty and some were good people who just needed to be born, but there were some that were changelings, and some were just evil so that the saying was, “trust a first, a third and a fourth, but never trust a second born nor a seventh.”  That was the womb duty, and that was what they were like, and then some were giants.”

“How could a woman give birth to a giant?”

“Ah, well that shows what you know, a giant isn’t born so.  How big were you when you were born? Not so very, but you ate and you grew.  Isn’t that so?”

“Yes sir.”

“Well that’s how it is with giants too.  They eat and they grow, they eat and they grow, and they eat and eat and eat and they grow grow grow.  A giant is always hungry and if you feed him he grows and he never stops growing until he stops eating.  That’s how it was with a fellow named Eochaid.

“Now this Eochaid was the second child of a man named Calvert Moss and his wife named Mandy.  That is he was a womb duty child, but they treated him as one of their own, and loved him like the rest of their children.  But Eochaid was the hungriest of all their children.  He was always hungry and his loving parents fed him and he grew and grew until he was much taller than an ordinary man even before he was twelve years old.  What made it worse was that none of the other Mosses, not even Calvert or Mandy, was tall.  In fact they were very short.

“The more the Mosses’ fed young Eochaid, the more he grew.  That was clear.  But there were other things that were odd.  Mandy’s eyes and hair were brown, Calvert’s hair was black, and his eyes were green, and so too, all the other Moss children were a mix of one or the other, but not Eochaid.  His hair was firey red, like copper.  His eyes were blue, like ice.  He was tall for his age, but he was born with teeth in his mouth, which went hard on poor Mandy, and too, He had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot.  SO, how do you know a giant when he is young?”

Bres pondered, “His fingers and his feet, his hair, and his height?”

“All good clues.  And this too, in his mouth you may see that he has two sets of teeth where you or I have only one.  That you may see when he is young, but you will know him as he is driven by his appetite to eat, and when allowed his way, he will not cease to grow.”

“You say you will know him, grandfather, are there no girl giants then?”

Dream-Walker smiled at his grand-son, ”Well that you have asked, for there are no giant females.  These creatures are the Nephilim reborn and they take there wives from among normal men, if you imagine that a woman who would be the wife of a giant is in any way normal.”

“And Eochaid was one of them?  Giants I mean, not giant wives.”

“He was that, but he was the first of them and he was more influenced by his family who loved him than by others.  The giants grew wicked.  Their hunger made them selfish and a bit mad, I think.  Eochaid grew and grew.  He had six fingers on each hand and six toes to a foot, he had copper hair and cold eyes, but Eochaid had a remarkable father and mother and loving brothers and sisters and that made all the difference.

“So, though he grew to be twice the size of a man, and more, he used his great strength and size to help the people who loved him and who he loved.  I’ve told you about the great underground raths of the Deer-Riders.  When the Norfolk fought to save the plains and stood against the advancing ice it was the raths that Eochaid built that made it possible, that kept them safe, that kept them warm.

The Gaels had a legend of a man who used his strength to benefit his people and this “good god” or “the Dagda” had a great appetite and used his strength to make great ring forts.  They called him the Dagda but the legend says that he was first called Eochaid.  Strange to think them both named the same, but the new Eochaid came to be called after the old, a rath builder, enormously strong, good, they called him the Dagda.”

Bres eyed his grandfather skeptically, “Really Grandfather, do you think that story is true?”

Dream-Walker carefully got to his feet, “I do, I believe that and more.  But right now I believe that we have a fish to catch.”

“The Bass of Knowledge?”

“The same.”  And hand in hand they walked down to the pond.

Oatey was faster than she looked.  She fairly flew down the ridge and repeated the same attack that had killed the first goat.  For some time there was no chance for questions.  Lugh kept with the girl and the charging goat and not much more.

“The problem as he saw it,” Lugh mused, “was too much riding and not enough running.”  Still, he was close to her when they burst into another clearing dominated by an unlit bon-fire.  The goat looked worse than he did, head down, panting, but not for long.  With a deft slash Oatey put the goat out of its misery.

Oatey turned to the stacked wood.  Lugh was panting, hands on knees, watching her as she struck a spark in tinder and blew it into flame.  She thrust the flame into the wood and the bonfire flared to life.  Without hesitation she turned back to the goat.  With practiced ease she cut the legs free and threw them, one after another, onto the growing fire.  Smoke billowed.  “Help me with the body.” Oatey commanded.

Lugh grabbed the blood soaked animal and with Oatey threw it onto the bonfire.  “How is this going to kill a giant?”

Oatey stood, bloody to her elbows, hair, sweat matted to her head, and for all that, beautiful.  She smiled, “This is for confusion.”

“Wonderful, the giant and I are both confused.” 

“We stand over there.  The giant is drawn to this, burning meat, destruction of burning.  Then he smells us, sees us, comes for us.  We run down that defile and as he pursues, mad with hunger and hatred, he dies.” Oatey beamed her pride, “Come, the giant is near.”

Oatey, running like the wind, dashed off with her purpose clearly in mind.  Lugh, blowing hard, followed as he could.  As he followed he saw that there was indeed a cut in the rock ringed clearing.  Oatey slowed and stopped at a sort of edge where the grade turned steeply down.  Lugh slowed and was shocked to hear a booming, as of a drum, from his feet as they struck the earth, as if it were hollow. 

“A false floor, we can cross, but the giant will break though and his feet will find copper thorns but no better purchase to keep him from falling there.”  Oatey grinned mischieviously, “Have a look.” 

Oatey pointed down and standing next to her Lugh saw men of the Norfolk standing below.  Each of the men was manning a wicked looking pike rigged among the trees in the creek bed below.  There were others standing by thick ropes farther into the trees.

Oatey nudged Lugh, “For now we are the bait.”  She pointed back toward the fire. “See, he comes.”

The creature was every bit of fourteen feet and frightful in its wrath.  It was a man in everything but size and yet this similarity to a man made it seem all the more alien to Lugh.  The skin, that had been grey and stone like as it rose from the hillock that had covered it, was now pallid white.  Red hair covered its head and a matted beard covered its jaw and chest.  The giant howled its rage in deep booming Rus that Lugh knew from his travels.

“Lugh, when I say so, run down the ramp with me.  Keep your feet as long as you can.  When we hit the soft ground at the base we must roll aside.  Do you understand?  Oatey searched his eyes and seemed satisfied with his nod.  “He is hungry, angry, but he begins to speak.  Do you know his words?”

Lugh nodded, “aye, yes, tis Rus.  He spouts threats and dark promises.”

“Yes, he is human now, no longer stone.  His wits are returning, but we must catch him in his rage.  Lugh, you must wait with me until I go, else he may realize the trap.  But now he is flesh and we can kill him easily.”

“Oh gods, how can you say easy?”

The giant held in two huge hands an uprooted tree.  Most of the branches were torn free and the man thing swung it like a maul with the remains of the root ball, the head of it.  With one wild swing he shattered the bonfire, sending its parts across the clearing.  Then his eyes fell on the pair.  His howl convinced Lugh all the more that this thing was no human.

Oatey’s grasp caused pain, “Wait!” she commanded as the giant charged howling its rage.  The giant swung its tree-club into the air and pounded toward them impossibly fast.  Its strides ate up the intervening ground and Lugh’s blood ran cold.  “Come,” Oatey said and dragged him after.

The track was steep but he had almost made it to the base when he tripped and began to roll.  Oatey was already down and rolling toward what Lugh hoped was a soft landing.  The impact was was jarring, stunned he tried to figure out which way to roll. 

Oatey yelled, “Quickly here.”  He scrambled after and was stunned again as he was thrown aside by opening gates buried in the ground.  He lay looking up the slope horrified to see the giant stumble and fall. 

The tree bound pikes were swinging into position to meet it.  Armored men, with copper axes, were boiling out from cover around them.  The huge man was pierced shoulder, chest, and gut, but his weight could not be stopped.  The pikes shattered, and the creature turned as it fell.  Lugh feared he might be crushed, but he was far enough away as the thing went behind the huge doors onto which he and Oatey had fallen.

He looked around for her.  Trying to gather himself he clambered to his feet searching for her.  She was gone.  Armed and armored men were rushing into the defile where the body of the giant had fallen, surely dead with the wounds.  He followed expecting that he might find the girl at the center of mayhem.

As he rounded the door, following in the wake of the axe men.  He caught a glimpse of the man-thing impaled among a forest of copper clad and barbed spikes.  “Easy she’d said, what creature had a chance against her?” he had the chance to think.  The axe men were pushing through the spikes from all sides now.  Lugh couldn’t understand the urgency.

Suddenly, the thing moved, pinned as it was through almost every part of its body, the movements were slight and somewhat aimless.  A big six-fingered hand rose near Lugh, but only just off the ground as the arm was pierced with many barbed spikes.  It smashed down and the arm strained against the piercings.  “I’ll eat you all, damn bugs.  You’ll pay!”  The thing howled its protest.  The giant’s face turned to Lugh and its one undamaged eye focused on him.  “I’ll pop you like a maggot too Gael boy!”

“The head! Strike off its head!”  Oatey cried, she was in the thick of it, moving toward the giant’s shoulders.  Lugh saw rage turn to fear on the giants face.  It redoubled its efforts as the Norfolk soldiers clambered onto its back.  Lugh watched as stroke after stroke bit into the thick corded neck of the giant.  Men lost their balance and fell only to rise again and seek to climb up onto the giant.  Lugh marvelled at how much damage it absorbed before it grew still, but even then Oatey harangued and cajoled until the head was completely removed.

A ragged cheer went up and injured axe men began to be tended to.  None of the injuries that Lugh saw seemed severe.  Easy, like she’d said.  Lugh expelled a tension filled breath and went looking for the girl.