When Giants Rule Britannia // Debi Gregory

Once upon a time, giants ruled the world. One was bald, with a long nose and pointy ears and he smiled while he poked at pies and ate them whole.

Another wore straw on top of his head and covered himself in gold, strutting around snatching all the kitties. The one we had here was the worst of them all.

He was a big giant, with a giant mouth and a giant belly and a giant head but tiny eyes that didn’t see and a tiny brain that didn’t think and a tiny heart that wouldn’t feel but this giant knew magic.

He spun a spell around this land and when he spoke he put people in a trance. They believed the words he was saying, even when he would laugh in their face as he lied and eat their doctors, teachers and firefighters for lunch with his friends.

But little did the giant know that his spells wasn’t working on everyone. They could see what he ate for lunch. They could see him washing it down with champagne made from the blood of children, sick people and poor people. They could see him stealing from people in the dead of night to feed to the dragon he kept in a vault. 

The people questioned him and told him that his spell wasn’t working but he gathered the spelled people around him and had them protect him. The spelled people shouted that he was doing the best he could, while the giant danced behind their backs, laughing and singing his spell.

The other people went to a wise woman from a far away land and watched as she spoke about how to break these spells and they began to weave their own.

It was only small at first and because they had to hide it, it was in many pieces, hidden all over the land, but they kept weaving their spell. 

A little act of kindness here, a small but bold act of defiance there, a bit of independent thought over in that direction and eventually the spell got bigger and bigger and bigger until the number of people still under the giant’s spell got smaller and smaller and smaller. 

People began to feel happier.

The giant ate less doctors, less firefighters and less teachers so the people were safer, healthier and smarter.

The dragon ate less treasure so the people were less hungry and less worried... And the less they worried, the healthier they were, the smaller the giant became. 

He got smaller and smaller and smaller until one day he was so small that even his tiny eyes looked big in his face!

He tried to run away but the people demanded he stay and fix his mess. They demanded that he show he could be a leader without spells, without bloody lunches, without hoarding treasure for the dragon he claimed was sweet and called Economy but everyone knew was insidious and called Greed.

And he tried; to the giant’s credit, he did try.

But now he was small and he blamed the people for making him small and weak but it wasn’t the people. He’d always been small and weak but had hidden behind his spell and dazzled them all and filled up on doctors and teachers and other saviours of the community. But now he was alone with his wisdom and hard work and he realised just how weak he was... And he was scared. 

As scared as the poor and sick people he’d slurped up before. 

As scared as the doctors he’d gobbled up with caviar.

As scared as the dazzled people he’d stolen money from.

He was scared because he knew, as he’d always known deep down, that he was too small and too weak to run this land without his magic spell and lies and stealing.

You may ask what happened? What did the giant do?

I’d like to tell you that he stepped aside and let the people choose a new, better person to lead them so he and his dragon called Greed could live out the rest of their lives in comfort, feasting on the pleasure and gold that they’d hoarded together... But I can’t.

The giant held on to power for as long as he could, making one mistake after another after another as people died and others cried and even more still became worried and scared for the future, he still tried, even knowing he was too small and too weak to look after all these people... And soon people started feeling sorry for him and saying “he did his best” and “stop pressuring him” because he became so pathetic that even all his gold couldn’t protect him from the realisation of just how weak and small he was.

And the morals of this story, children, are:

Never prey on the weak because we’re all vulnerable in some way and you may live to regret it. 

If at first you don’t succeed, sometimes it’s not best to try, try, try again.

And, finally, weaving magic spells is all well and good for witches, who understand nature and respect all forces of magic and nature’s strength, but giants should probably leave it to the professionals.

Story by Debi Gregory

Illustrations by Elinor Rowlands