The Burning Wharf

"The Giants' Return"

"This was in the days when the old gods still worked their ways with the world," I said, in deference to Magya, "which was not very long ago. Baldur himself was watching over Snorri and his clan, as they tended to the reindeer that spring. Now, it had been a hard winter again and yet even the year before that. And so even the beasts of the wild had come down from the uplands and mixed with their animals, and that was good, the family thought, because it meant that the herd would become stronger from the new blood.

One day the young boy Snorri was sent out to look after the reindeer and on this day the herd had pressed up against the hills where the green plants grow in the fresh snow streams. And what do you think he found there? It was the wastage of a young cow, her side torn open and the calf taken, with blood and evil smells everywhere, and a trail of crimson that led away from the place. Snorri knew when he saw this that the giants had returned.