THE GIANT HOK-BRAS
The roadstead of Brest.
When the roadstead of Brest was only a small stream where the sea barely rose during high tides, there was between Daoulas and Landerneau, a giant, a giant as no one has ever seen.
"It was as big as the Kreisker bell tower, perhaps?"
"Come on."
"Like the Ménez-Hom?"
"Try again."
"High as the clouds?"
You are not there yet. If you went to the cap of the sky, my friend, you would not be quite there."
"But then where could this unfortunate man stay?"
"Ah! that's the deal! Sir Hok-Bras had the ability to lie down at will. This is where this precious faculty came from."
I need to tell you that Master Hok-Bras was naturally quite tall. At three years old he was already over six feet tall, and as he was not yet baptized, his father took him to an aunt he had in Huelgoat and asked her to be this little boy's godmother. Hok-Bras already walked like a man, and the godmother did not need to carry him to the baptismal font, which would have been tiring, indeed.
Hok-Bras was kind... He went alone and didn't cry at all, except when they put salt in his mouth: he coughed so hard, so hard, that the beadle opposite was thrown away. against a pillar, where he got a pretty bump on his head, which made the baby cheer up and made him laugh... but laugh... Ah! It was the recteur who didn’t laugh when he saw all the stained glass windows falling in his church! Finally, Hok-Bras was a Christian and would not come to church to laugh every day.
After the baptism dinner, which was said to be very good, Hok-Bras went off to play in the woods, near the place called the Devil's Hole, and, no doubt, to prevent the devil from coming out that way (which would have been a great service to humanity, if he had succeeded), he began to roll around the largest rocks of the hill, and everybody knows that there is no shortage of them in this beautiful valley.
While the toddler was working like this, to the great amazement of the others, his godmother came to watch him do it and said to herself:
"Here is a godson who will do me honor."
And, while saying this, she was playing with her beautiful diamond ring. Suddenly the ring slipped from his grasp and rolled to the bottom of the abyss, which was not yet covered and where the water fell with a terrible noise.
The godmother began to cry.
"What is the matter with you, godmother?" Hok-Bras told her. "Your ring? Don't cry, we'll see. If I were only as big as this hole is, I'd bring it back to you in five minutes."
Now, it is good to say that the pretty godmother was a fairy. She dried her beautiful eyes and promised Hok-Bras to grant his request if he found the ring. Hok went down into the hole and sank into the water, but soon he was up to his neck in it.
“Godmother,” he said, “the water is too deep and I am too short."
"Well! Lie down," said the fairy.
Indeed, Hok let himself sink, always sink, always, because it was a well of hell, and his head always remained above the water. Finally, his feet touched the bottom of the abyss.
Source: Le Géant Hok-Bras from the French book Contes et légendes de Basse-Bretagne published in 1891.
Previous tale: Trémeur or the Headless Man
Hello, my name is Vincent Celier.
I am writing translations of folk tales that I found in public domain French books, so that people who do not understand French may enjoy them too.
In this new tale, the main character is a giant so tall that he can see over the highest clouds.
His godmother, a fairy, lost her ring and the giant Hok-Bras is trying to get it back from a hellish hole.
MY NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS
I usually don't make New Year resolutions, because most of them are too hard to keep.
However, this year I decided to make two resolutions related to Hive:
Get all the Power Up Day Power Up Month badges of 2024.
I believe I can do this.
Of course, if the value of Hive goes very high, such as up to US$5, I may power down some HP and sell the Hives for Cash, which will void the current Power Up Month.
Blog every day of the year in 2024 to get 12 Monthly Author badges and 1 Yearly Author one.
Obviously, I failed this resolution on the first day of the year. My excuse is that I have a bad cold that started on December 30th. I have not yet fully recovered.
So, I am going to change this to Get 11 Monthly Author badges in 2024. So far, I have had only 7 since I started blogging on this platform in 2016.
-- Vincent Celier