Tales of Wonder

by Lord Dunsany

  How Plash-Goo Came to the Land of None's Desire

  In a thatched cottage of enormous size, so vast that we might considerit a palace, but only a cottage in the style of its building, itstimbers and the nature of its interior, there lived Plash-Goo.

  Plash-Goo was of the children of the giants, whose sire was Uph. Andthe lineage of Uph had dwindled in bulk for the last five hundredyears, till the giants were now no more than fifteen foot high; butUph ate elephants which he caught with his hands.

  Now on the tops of the mountains above the house of Plash-Goo, forPlash-Goo lived in the plains, there dwelt the dwarf whose name wasLrippity-Kang. And the dwarf used to walk at evening on the edge ofthe tops of the mountains, and would walk up and down along it, andwas squat and ugly and hairy, and was plainly seen of Plash-Goo.

  And for many weeks the giant had suffered the sight of him, but atlength grew irked at the sight (as men are by little things), andcould not sleep of a night and lost his taste for pigs. And at lastthere came the day, as anyone might have known, when Plash-Gooshouldered his club and went up to look for the dwarf.

  And the dwarf though briefly squat was broader than may be dreamed,beyond all breadth of man, and stronger than men may know; strength inits very essence dwelt in that little frame, as a spark in the heartof a flint: but to Plash-Goo he was no more than mis-shapen, beardedand squat, a thing that dared to defy all natural laws by being morebroad than long.

  When Plash-Goo came to the mountain he cast his chimahalk down (for sohe named the club of his heart's desire) lest the dwarf should defyhim with nimbleness; and stepped towards Lrippity-Kang with grippinghands, who stopped in his mountainous walk without a word, and swunground his hideous breadth to confront Plash-Goo. Already thenPlash-Goo in the deeps of his mind had seen himself seize the dwarf inone large hand and hurl him with his beard and his hated breadth sheerdown the precipice that dropped away from that very place to the landof None's Desire. Yet it was otherwise that Fate would have it. Forthe dwarf parried with his little arms the grip of those monstroushands, and gradually working along the enormous limbs came at lengthto the giant's body where by dwarfish cunning he obtained a grip; andturning Plash-Goo about, as a spider does some great fly, till hislittle grip was suitable to his purpose, he suddenly lifted the giantover his head. Slowly at first, by the edge of that precipice whosebase sheer distance hid, he swung his giant victim round his head, butsoon faster and faster; and at last when Plash-Goo was streaming roundthe hated breadth of the dwarf and the no less hated beard wasflapping in the wind, Lrippity-Kang let go. Plash-Goo shot over theedge and for some way further, out towards Space, like a stone; thenhe began to fall. It was long before he believed and truly knew thatthis was really he that fell from this mountain, for we do notassociate such dooms with ourselves; but when he had fallen for somewhile through the evening and saw below him, where there had beennothing to see, or began to see, the glimmer of tiny fields, then hisoptimism departed; till later on when the fields were greener andlarger he saw that this was indeed (and growing now terribly nearer)that very land to which he had destined the dwarf.

  At last he saw it unmistakable, close, with its grim houses and itsdreadful ways, and its green fields shining in the light of theevening. His cloak was streaming from him in whistling shreds.

  So Plash-Goo came to the Land of None's Desire.