The Red Ettin

Originally published: December 1904 in The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

Genres: Fairy Tale

Dime Novel Bibliography: https://dimenovels.org/Item/71979/Show

Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/543164.The_Blue_Fairy_Book

Gutenberg link: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/503

There once were two widows that lived on a small bit of ground which they rented from a farmer. One of them had two sons, and the other had one. By and by, it was time for the wife who had two sons to send them away to seek their fortune.

She told the oldest son one day to take a can and bring her water from the well, that she might bake a cake from him. However much or however little water he might bring, the cake would be great or small accordingly. That cake was to be all that she could give him when he went on his travels.

The lad went away with the can to the well and filled it with water and then came home again. But the can was broken, the most of the water had run out before he got back. So his cake was very small. Yet, small as it was, his mother asked if he was willing to take half of it with her blessing, telling him that, if he chose rather to have the whole, he would only get it with her curse.

The young man, thinking he might have to travel a far way and not knowing when or how he might get other provisions, said he would like to have the whole cake, come what may of his mother’s curse.

So she gave him the whole cake and her curse along with it. Then he took his brother aside and gave him a knife to keep until he should come back, desiring him to look at it every morning, as long as it continued to be clear, then he might be sure that the owner of it was well. But if it grew dim and rusty, then for certain some ill had befallen him.

So the young man set out to seek his fortune. And he went all that day, and the next day, and on the third day, in the afternoon, he came up to where a shepherd was sitting with a flock of sheep. He went up to the shepherd and asked him who the sheep belonged to, and the man answered:

“The Red Ettin of Ireland
Once lived in Bellygan,
And stole King Malcom’s daughter,
The King of Fair Scotland.
He beats her, he binds her,
He lays her on a band;
And every day he dings her
With a bright silver wand
Like Julian the Roman
He fears no man.
It’s said there’s one predestined
To be his mortal foe;
But that man is yet unborn
And long may it be so.”

The young man then went on his journey. He had not gone far when he espied an old man with white locks herding a flock of swine. He went up to him and asked whose swine these were. The man answered with the poem of the Red Ettin of Ireland.

Then the young man went on a bit farther and came to another very old man herding goats. When he asked whose goats they were, the answer was the poem of the Red Ettin of Ireland.

This old man also told him to beware of the next beasts that he should meet, for they were of a very different kind from any he had yet seen.

So the young man went on, and by and by, he saw a multitude of very dreadful beasts, elk one of them with two heads, and on every head four horns. And he was very frightened and ran away from them as fast as he could. He was glad when he came to a castle that stood on a hillock, with the door standing wide to the way.

He went into the castle for shelter, and there he saw an old wife sitting beside the kitchen fire. He asked the wife if he might stay there for the night, as he was tired of a long journey.

The wife said he might, but it was not a good place to be in as it belonged to the Red Ettin, who was a very terrible beast with three heads that spared no living man he could get hold of.

The young man would have gone away, but he was afraid of the beasts on the outside of the castle, so he beseeched the old woman to conceal him as well as she could, and not to tell the Ettin that he was there. He thought, if he could put over the night, he might get away in the morning without a meeting with the beasts, and so escape. But he had not been long in his hidy-hole before the awful Ettin came in.

No sooner was he in than he heard crying:

“Snouk but and snouk ben,
I find the smell of an earthly man;
Be he living, or be he dead,
His heart this night shall season my bread.”

The monster soon found the poor young man and pulled him from his hole. When he got him out, he told him that if he could answer his three questions, his life should be spared.

The first was whether Ireland or Scotland was first inhabited. The second was whether man was made for woman, or woman for man. The third was whether men or brutes were made first. The lad, not being able to answer one of these questions, the Red Ettin took a mace, knocked him on the head, and turned him into a pillar of stone.

On the morning after this happened, the younger brother took out the knife to look at it, and he was grieved to find it all brown with rust. He told his mother that the time had now come for him to go away upon his travels also.

She requested him to take the can to the well for water so that she might bake a cake for him. The can being broken, he brought home as little water as the other had done, and the cake was little.

She asked whether he would have the whole cake with her curse or the half with her blessing. Like his brother, he thought it best to have the whole cake, come what may of his mother’s curse. So he went away and everything happened to him that had happened to his brother!

The other widow and her son heard of all that had happened from a fairy. The young man determined that he would also go upon his travels and see if he could do anything to relieve his two friends. So his mother gave him a can to go to the well and bring home water so that she might bake him a cake for his journey.

He went and, as he was bringing water home, a raven above his head cried him to look, and he would see that the water was running out. He was a young man of sense, and seeing the water running out, he took some clay and patched up the holes, so that he brought home enough water to bake a large cake.

When his mother put it to him to take the half cake with her blessing, he took it in preference to having the whole with her curse. Yet the half was bigger than what the other lads had got altogether.

So he went away on his journey. After he had traveled a long way, he met with an old woman who asked him if he would give her a bit of his cake. He said he would gladly do that, and so he gave her a piece of the cake. For that, she gave him a magical wand, that she may yet be of service to him if he took care to use it rightly.

Then the old woman, who was a fairy, told him a great deal that would happen to him, and what he ought to do in all of the circumstances. After that, she vanished in an instant out of his sight.

He went on a great way farther, and then he came up to the old man herding sheep. When he asked whose sheep these were, the answer was:

“The Red Ettin of Ireland
Once lived in Bellygan,
And stole King Malcom’s daughter,
The King of Fair Scotland.
He beats her, he binds her,
He lays her on a band;
And every day he dings her
With a bright silver wand.
Like Julian the Roman,
He’s one that fears no man,
But now I fear his end is near,
And destiny at hand;
And you’re to be, I plainly see,
The heir of all this land.”

He repeated the same inquiries to the man attending the swine and the man attending the goats, with the same answer in each case. When he came to the place where the monstrous beasts were standing, he did not stop nor run away but went boldly through among them. One came up roaring with open mouth to devour him when he struck it with his wand and laid it in an instant dead at his feet.

He soon came to the Ettin’s castle, where he knocked and was admitted. The old woman who sat by the fire warned him of the terrible Ettin and what had been the fate of the two brothers, but he was not to be daunted.

The monster soon came in, saying:

“Snouk but and snouk ben,
I find the smell of an earthly man;
Be he living, or be he dead,
His heart this night shall season my bread.”

He quickly spied the young man and bade him come forth on the floor. Then he put the three questions to him, but the young man had been told everything by the good fairy, so he was able to answer the questions.

When the Ettin found this, he knew that his power was gone. The young man then took up the axe and chopped off the monster’s three heads. He next asked the old woman to show him where the King’s daughters lay. The old woman took him upstairs and opened a great many doors, and out of every door came a beautiful lady who had been imprisoned there by the Ettin.

One of the ladies was the King’s daughter. She also took him down into a low room and there stood two stone pillars that he had only to touch with his wand when his two friends and neighbors started into life. The whole of the prisoners were overjoyed at their deliverance, which they all acknowledged to be owing to the prudent young man.

The next day, they all set out for the King’s Court, and a gallant company they made. The King married his daughter to the young man who had delivered her and gave a noble’s daughter to each one of the other young men, and so they all lived happily all the rest of their days.