The Day the Stream Vanished
In a small village called Brook Hollow, nestled deep in a green valley, there once ran a happy little stream. It turned the old mill wheel, it filled the wells, and it watered every garden in the village. But one summer morning, the people of Brook Hollow woke to a strange and worrying silence. The stream had vanished.
Where the clear water once chattered over the smooth stones, there was now only a dry, dusty bed of pebbles. The wells went empty, the gardens began to wilt in the hot sun, and the fish in the pond gasped in shrinking little puddles. The whole village gathered in the square, frightened and confused, whispering about curses and wondering what on earth they could do. But a brave girl named Esme, who had warm brown eyes and two long dark braids, did not whisper at all.
She tied on her forest-green cloak, packed some bread and an apple into her leather satchel, and stepped forward.
“I will follow the dry stream up the mountain and find out where all our water has gone,” she said firmly, lifting her chin with brave determination.
The grown-ups told her it was far too dangerous, but Esme had already set off, following the empty riverbed toward the misty mountain.
Up the Misty Mountain
Esme climbed all morning, following the winding bed of dry stones higher and higher up the mountainside. The valley grew small and far below her, and cool grey mist curled between the dark pine trees. It was quiet, far too quiet, and once or twice Esme felt a cold shiver of fear. But she thought of the wilting gardens and the gasping fish, and she kept on walking.
As she climbed, she began to notice strange and curious things. There were footprints pressed into the soft earth, but footprints bigger than any she had ever seen, each one as long as she herself was tall. There were tall pine trees snapped clean in half, as if something enormous had pushed straight past them. And caught upon a thorny bush, she found a single round button, a button as big as a dinner plate and carved from smooth grey stone.
Esme's heart thumped, but her curiosity was stronger than her fear. She tucked the giant button into her satchel and followed the enormous footprints up, up, and around a great rocky bend, toward a sound she could not yet understand: a deep, slow, rumbling hum.
The Cave in the Mountain
Around the great rocky bend, the footprints led straight to an enormous cave, its mouth as tall and wide as the village church. The deep humming came from somewhere far inside, echoing off the stone walls, and warm orange firelight flickered on the rocks at the entrance. Esme stood very still and took three slow breaths to steady her racing heart. Every part of her wanted to turn and run home, but the village needed its water, and the answer was surely somewhere inside this cave.
So, holding her satchel tightly, she tiptoed in through the great stone mouth. Inside, the cave opened into a vast and cosy chamber, lit by a crackling fire. And there, sitting on the floor with his back to her, was a GIANT. He was as tall as three tall men standing one upon another, with shoulders like grey boulders and a great bushy beard the colour of soft green moss.
He hummed a slow, sad little tune to himself as he gently polished a smooth round stone with a cloth. All around him sat his collection of stones, hundreds of them, each one polished until it shone in the firelight. Esme gasped before she could stop herself, and the giant went very, very still.
Bramble the Lonely Giant
The giant turned around very slowly. Esme braced herself, quite sure he would roar. But the giant's huge face was not fierce at all. He had soft, kind eyes and a worried frown, and he looked just as frightened as she felt.
“Please do not run away,” he rumbled, in a voice as deep and slow as faraway thunder. “Everyone always runs away from me.”
Esme found that all her fear had quite melted away. She took a small step closer to him.
“I am not going to run away. My name is Esme. Who are you?” she said, taking another brave step toward the giant.
His worried frown lifted into a shy, hopeful smile.
“I am Bramble. I have lived up here all alone for as long as I can remember. I collect the prettiest, roundest stones on the whole mountain, but I have no one at all to show them to,” he said softly, holding up the shining stone in his enormous hand.
Esme looked around at the hundreds of beautiful polished stones, and her heart ached a little for the lonely giant. She sat down beside his great fire, shared her apple with him, which to Bramble was no bigger than a pea, and listened as he told her all about the mountain and his treasures.
The Most Beautiful Stone
As they talked, Esme noticed something strange through the wide mouth of the cave. Just outside, sitting in a great rocky hollow, was the most enormous and beautiful round stone of all, smooth and silver-grey and bigger than an entire cottage. And all around its base, the ground was dark and damp.
“Bramble, where ever did you find that giant stone?” asked Esme, walking slowly toward the great silver stone.
The giant beamed with happy pride.
“Ah, that is my very finest treasure! Only last week I found it bubbling its way up out of the ground, the roundest stone in all the world, so I rolled it here to keep it safe,” he said, beaming with enormous pride.
Esme knelt down by the great stone and pressed her ear to the damp earth. Far below, she could hear water trickling and gurgling, trying its best to get out. All at once, she understood the whole mystery, and she turned to the giant with wide eyes.
“Oh, Bramble. This stone was plugging up our mountain spring. When you carried it away, you took all the water from our whole village,” she explained as gently as she possibly could.
The giant's kind face crumpled with dismay, for he had never, ever meant to do any harm at all.
The Great Heave
“Oh, I am so terribly sorry. I did not know! We must put it back at once,” cried Bramble, leaping at once to his great feet.
He wrapped his huge arms around the colossal stone and pulled with all his might, but the stone had wedged itself fast into the hollow, and it would not budge so much as an inch. The giant heaved until his face turned red, but it was no use at all.
Then clever Esme had a wonderful idea. She found a long, strong pine log, and she showed the giant how to push one end of it deep beneath the stone, the very way she moved the heavy rocks in her own garden at home.
“Use the log like a lever! Push down hard on this end while I dig the earth away from underneath,” she called up to the straining giant. Bramble did exactly as she said.
Esme dug and scraped at the packed earth around the base, and Bramble leaned his whole great weight upon the log. For one long moment, nothing at all happened.
Then, with a deep groan and a great shower of pebbles, the enormous stone rolled up and out of the hollow at last. And from the dark hole beneath it burst a great fountain of clear, cold water, sparkling in the sunlight, rushing and tumbling away down the mountain, straight toward the thirsty village of Brook Hollow.
The Giant of Brook Hollow
Together, Esme and Bramble followed the laughing water all the way down the mountain. By the time they reached the village, the dry stream bed had become a chattering stream once more, the wells were filling, and the thirsty gardens were drinking deeply. But when the villagers saw the enormous giant striding down the green hill, they cried out in alarm and began to run away.
Then they saw little Esme walking calmly at his side, holding on to one of his huge fingers, and they slowly stopped.
“Do not be afraid! This is Bramble, and he is the one who has given us back all our water,” she called out to her frightened neighbours.
Slowly, and shyly, the people of Brook Hollow came forward to thank the gentle giant. Bramble was so happy that two great tears rolled down his cheeks. From that day on, he was lonely no more. He helped the villagers lift fallen trees and mend their roofs, and the children loved to climb upon his great shoulders and admire his hundreds of beautiful polished stones.
And every single night, the little stream sang its happy song right through Brook Hollow, while high on the quiet mountain a gentle giant kept watch over his new friends, beneath a wide sky full of soft and peaceful stars.