THE GIANT GOULAFFRE

_{The Giant Goulaffre.}

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Allanic and Fistilou were very sad, looked at each other with big eyes, and did not eat.

"Well! So you little ones aren't eating?" the giant told them.

“We are not hungry, lord."

"It’s still very good though!"

And taking the two feet they had on their dishes, he swallowed them in one mouthful.

When the meal was finished:

"Now let's see your talents, my children, and try to entertain me a little."

And Allanic began to play his straw reed and Fistilou to dance, to frolic, and to throw his hat in the air, shouting: Yeh! yow! hoo! hoo! The giant laughed heartily and had a lot of fun, and so did his wife and two daughters.

“I am happy with you,” said Goulaffre to them, after an hour of this exercise, "Go to sleep now with my daughters and tomorrow I will see what I will do with you."

The giantess then led them to their room, gave red caps to Allanic and Fistilou, to put on their heads, and white caps to her daughters, and then she left.

It didn't take long for the two young giantesses to fall asleep and snore, making the stained glass windows of the room shake in their frames. But Allanic and Fistilou were not sleeping. They soon heard a noise in the apartment below them. It was the giant and his wife who were quarreling. Allanic jumped out of bed, pressed his ear to the floor, and this is what he heard:

"I tell you, woman, I want to eat them tomorrow morning for breakfast."

"At least wait a few more days; they will entertain you with their music and dance. And our daughters, these poor children who have no distractions, you saw how content and happy they were; spare them, for their sake."

"Needless to say, I have to eat them tomorrow morning. Where is my cutlass?"

And a moment later we heard the giant's footsteps on the steps of the staircase. Allanic then ran to his bed, exchanged his red cap for the white cap of the young giantess, who was still sleeping, and told Fistilou to do the same, then they turned their faces towards the wall and pretended to be sound asleep. Goulaffre immediately entered the room, holding a lantern in one hand and a large cutlass in the other. He approached the first bed, cut off with a single blow the head which wore the red cap, ran to the second bed, and did the same; then leaving the heads rolling on the floor, he went downstairs, carrying the bodies of his two daughters under his arm, and he threw them on the kitchen table, without examining them.

When he returned to his bedroom, he said to his wife:

"It's done! What a great breakfast I will get tomorrow morning!"

"As long as you weren't mistaken in your haste!" the giantess told him.

"How do you expect me to be wrong? I know how to distinguish a red cap from a white cap."

Then they fell asleep peacefully.

As for Allanic and Fistilou, as soon as the giant had left their room, they went down into the garden, using their bed sheets, and gave themselves some fresh air!

The next morning, Goulaffre made his wife get up early to prepare her lunch. But when she arrived in the kitchen and recognized her daughters, she began to scream so much that the castle shook. Goulaffre came running, hearing it and added his cries and bellows to those of his wife. He ran to his daughters' room, believing he would still find his two guests there. But he only found a paper on which it was written (Fistilou knew how to read and write a little): “Fistilou and his friend Allanic thank the giant Goulaffre for the hospitality he has granted them, and promise him to come back and see him."

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Source: Le Géant Goulaffre from the French book Contes et légendes de Basse-Bretagne published in 1891.

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Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Part 5

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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.

 
So, it turned out that this tale of the Giant Goulaffre is a variation of the tale "Le Petit Poucet" published by Charles Perrault in 1697, a tale now known in English as Hop-o'-My-Thumb.

Will Allanic and Fistilou see again the Giant Goulaffre as they said in the note they left?

 

IT HAS SNOWED LAST NIGHT!

As predicted by the weather report, more than 20 cm of snow has fallen during the night.

 
And it is still snowing.

Such a large amount of snow is very infrequent in this part of British Columbia. So, the municipalities are not equipped to remove the snow from all the streets. Schools are probably closed today, because of that.

 
As we don't need to go out, we will simply observe the outside world from our apartment.

-- Vincent Celier