Claude

Claude hung about in what is now Albania and he was an exceptional bloke for his time topping six feet. This was in an age when a tall man stood five foot six in built up shoes so it was natural that people round and about thought of Claude as something of an exception. Something of a very large exception indeed. In fact, a giant.

Actually Claude was an ordinary sort of bloke in all other respects. Just a farmer with a couple of goats and a block of land and nothing much to distinguish him from the next farmer you might meet except his size. His size was the thing you'd remember about him. You'd never remember his goats, his block of land or his little shack with the plough leaning up beside the door. His size was the thing everyone remembered and naturally word got around that if you were traveling anywhere past that way you'd better watch out for the giant.

Eventually, of course, word of this giant started to reach the ears of gung-ho types in some of the major towns of the day and naturally talk turned to the possibility of wandering over to Albania and doing something about ridding the world of the threat to travel that was posed by a dangerous giant like Claude.

So a steady stream of armed warriors started to roll up to Claude's farm in Albania seeking to check out this very dangerous giant and possibly dispatch him to a shallow grave or more likely a quiet spot under a pile of leaves somewhere deep in the woods. However most of them took one look at Claude, politely asked the direction of the next town and went on their way convinced that a quiet career in haberdashery might be just the sort of option they ought to be considering at this point in their lives.

There was the odd bloke, of course who had the fixed idea that he was the match of any giant, even Claude. Usually these blokes would lurk in the undergrowth at the edge of the farm for a few days working up their courage. Then, finally, when they though Claude wasn't looking they'd charge out of the shrubbery at Claude shouting and screaming and waving a sword.

Claude was reduced to fending off these attacks with whatever was at hand. Usually the plough, occasionally a plank of wood, and once a goat.

Now you might thing that Claude, being armed only with a plough, or a plank of wood or a goat wouldn't fare too well against professional fighting types who, even in those days, tended to be encrusted with a fair bit of armor and to carry some pretty formidable things for separating limb from, well, limb. Even so there were not many who were prepared to close in on someone Claudes size and risk getting their blocks knocked off, armor or not. As well it's a sad fact that armor, for all its defensive merit, does tend to slow you down more than a tad and while armor does offer considerable protection for stabs and cuts it does practically nothing to protect you from concussion.

The best hope the gung-ho type had was to close in behind his shield and try and get in a blow at Claude. Claude dealt with this by planting the end of his plough, rake, plank or goat in the fighting types chest and pushing. With Claude's greater mass the fighting type either fell back or fell down.

Of course once the gung-ho type was on his back the battle was effectively over. All the gung-ho type could hope for was to scramble back to the safety of the shrubbery with Claude's boot in his backside.

The other tactic the gung-ho type could employ was to stand off and pepper Claude with arrows. Not that this posed any real threat to Claude, the accuracy of arrows being what it was in those days, but it did interfere with Claudes farm work and cause him to retire indoors and refuse to comer out and play. All the gung-ho type could do was storm up and down outside Claude's hut maybe trample a crop or two and fire off a few insults until the novelty palled and the gung-ho type got fed up and drifted off to the nearest pub to boast about how he'd routed the giant. Then Claude could go out, round up the goats and get back to work putting in a new crop.

Of course it those days Albania was a long way from anywhere (and still is) and the interruptions caused by these gung-ho types were mercifully fairly rare. Mostly Claude's was a lonely life and Claude was free to get on with his farm work, and anyway most travelers were not gung-ho types but just merchants and messengers and porters and things like that and most of them were only too eager to scurry past the farm of the giant as quickly and as silently as possible. After all the giant probably wasn't as dangerous as common report had it, but who was going to loiter in the neighborhood and find out?

In the absence of any really information the legend of the terrible giant grew. The more the legend grew the more the whole area was shunned by right thinking people, the less real information there was to contradict the rumors and the bigger the legend got. And, of course, no one was going to go up to Claude and tell him what was going on. In fact the number of callers at Claude's farm fell from few to zero and if Claude noticed at all it was only to be thankful that the number of gung-ho nuts charging out of the shrubbery at him seemed to have tailed off somewhat, and Claude couldn't bring himself to be sorry about that at all.

Now eventually word of this terrible and dangerous giant came to the ears of Ulysses. Sissies, as his friends called him, was the biggest, strongest and most gung-ho of all the gung-ho types around the pubs of Athens at the time. His armor was the shiniest. His sword was the longest. His appetite was prodigious and when he visited a village where villains needed vanquishing or a dire desperado needed dispatching all the girls walked bowlegged for weeks.

Now initially Sissies tended to discount the stories about a giant called Claude. There were any number of gung-ho types who had tried at one time or another to tackle Claude and each had a tale to tell about how he had fought the horrible giant manfully and how, eventually, he had managed by dint of great courage and incredible luck to escape with his life while leaving the giant wounded and enraged in his wake. Sissies knew the propensity of gung-ho types to exaggerate and discounted the tales accordingly. It's not that he considered his comrades in armor inveterate liars, but he knew that if there is one thing people have always loved it's a good tale, even if it isn't true. And on the theory that there can be no story without at least something to base that story on Sissies was prepared to accept that there was indeed a giant roaming about Albania and that as the smartest and toughest hero in the heroing business it was up to him to lope off to Albania and do something about Claude.

The one thing that Sissies (or the big U as he was know in some quarters) had not heard, and this was the really worrying point, was a story of a harmless traveler being set upon by the giant Claude. This was generally believed among the gung-ho types to be because an innocent traveler had Buckley's chance of getting away from the giant and that the innocent travelers had been eaten one and all.

Not that Sissies totally believed this. For though his experience was somewhat limited when it came to giants named Claude he did feel that a hundred percent strike rate on the part of the giant against travelers was probably doing it a bit brown. After all if no one ever got away from the giant then how did tales of the giant get around in the first place? Someone must have carried the tale to all those gung-ho types who had subsequently visited Claude, trampled his crops and got their backsides kicked. Considerations like these led to Sissies hopping on his horse named Harley (purchased at Con Davidson's Used Horse Emporium) and heading off to Albania.

Now Sissies was a pretty cautious bloke. Lots of other gung-ho types had been to Albania expressly to dismember Claude and all had come away with sore bottoms and not much else to their credit for all their troubles and so The big U decided that perhaps the cautions approach might be the way to go on this occasion and so he put off his armor, packed his sword away and adopting the guise of a simple traveler wandered to the general direction of Claudes farm. The aim being to scout out exactly what this Claude character was all about and possible find any weaknesses he might have before attempting anything like a frontal assault.

So one day Sissies rolls up at the edge of Claude's meadow and sees Claude marching up and down behind an ox ploughing his field and after watching Claude for a while from the safety of the shrubbery Sissies steps out into the road and lets out a big "ahoy" at Claude and Claude sees Sissies, stops his ploughing and waves and lets out a big "ahoy" of his own.

Claude, of course was pleased to see this Sissies bloke as the absence of travelers was getting to be something of a worry to Claude, especially as travelers were the only source of news that was available in those days and travelers seemed to be increasingly few and far between in this particular corner of Albania at this time and this was concerning Claude as the last two travelers had both been of the gung-ho persuasion and Claude had been forced to send them on their way with a swift kick in the backside and Claude was anxious to know if there was something happening in the outside world he should know about or whether the appearance of two gung-ho types in a row in his vicinity was just a statistical aberration.

So Claude gives Sissies a big welcome and invites Sissies in for a few goat chops and over a meal asks Sissies if he knows why there are so many gung-ho types on the roads these days and if they are causing Sissies any grief as all the gung-ho types seem to be interested in is charging out of the shrubbery and trampling Claude's crops.

Sissies says he doesn't know why there are so many gung-ho types on the roads these days and he goes on to say that even when there are gung-ho types on the roads they are generally very peaceful gung-ho types providing they are well fed and he can not understand why these gung-ho types have been attacking Claude.

Claude says that it is most inconvenient as it is hampering his with his ploughing, sowing and reaping and wonders if it might not be indigestion on the part of the gung-ho types or something of that ilk.

Sissies agrees with this suggestion that it might be indigestion and further agrees that it is most inconvenient for an honest farmer such as Claude obviously is and he further suggests that perhaps Claude should display his sign a little more prominently, "For," Sissies says, "I did not see your sign myself and almost passed your farm by without dropping in to say hello."

Claude is taken aback by this and asks what sign it is that Sissies is talking about.

"It has become the fashion," Sissies says, "For farmers to display a notice to travelers advising them that this is a friendly household and that travelers are welcome to call." Sissies paused and seemed to be thinking.

"It might be that these gung-ho types looked upon the absence of a notice as a snub."

Claude was astonished. "Naturally I do not wish to give offense and travelers are always welcome at my shack," He said. "I will put up a notice straight away."

Claude paused and chewed his chop reflectively. "There is one problem." he said.

"What is that?" asked Sissies.

"I can't write." confessed Claude.

Well Sissies said that this was not a problem as he can do the writing and besides he has seen plenty of these notices put out by other farmers and so he knows just what to say. So Sissies goes to his pack and gets out a pen, which in those days is a goose quill , and some paper, which in those days is vellum or kid skin, and sits down to write.

Now while Sissies was writing Claude stepped up close to see what Sissies was writing as writing was something of a novelty in those days especially for someone like Claude who had spent all of his life in the sticks and hadn't seen writing done before. So Claude stepped close and bent down and as he did so Sissies jabbed the goose-quill pen into Claude's eye. Naturally Claude started hopping about in some agony trying to get the goose-quill pen out of his eye. Meanwhile Sissies quickly took his sword out of his pack and cut Claude's neck in two.

Naturally Claude was quite surprised at this.

Sissies took Claude's head and stuck it on a stick and carried it around for quite some time telling all and sundry how he had bested the one-eyed giant in single combat until Claude's head became quite flyblown and started to stink and Sissies was forced to dump it in a ditch where it proved an amusing morsel for some pigs.

Personally I thought Claude was given the rough end of the pineapple myself but it goes to show you that winners can pretty well please themselves and the story of the one-eyed giant did more than a little to establish Sissies reputation as the thinking man's hero, especially when Sissies mate, Homer, got through writing the story and flogging it around the pubs in Athens.