The Girl Who Hummed the Giantess to Sleep
Once there was a village of forty chimneys, tucked against a long green hill. The hill had sheep on it, and a stone wall, and a haystack at the top end. It also had a nose, because the hill was a giantess called Big Martha. She had been lying at the edge of the village for so long that grass grew on her shoulders.
Big Martha was kind and good company, and she had not slept in a hundred years. She was very polite about it. When the baker called up to ask how she was, she said, “Wide awake, thank you, but don’t trouble yourself.” Then she plumped the haystack she used for a pillow and turned over, and every cup and plate in forty kitchens rattled on its shelf.
At the bottom of the lane, in a house with nine coat pegs by the door, lived a girl called Wren. She was the youngest of nine and the smallest girl in the village, and the smallest thing about her was her voice. It was so soft that everyone she had ever spoken to had said the same thing back.
“Speak up, Wren.”
Her brothers said it and her sisters said it. The schoolteacher said it, and so did the man who brought the coal. At dinner there were twelve people round the table, and Wren had never once been heard. If she asked for the salt, somebody passed her the bread. If she asked for the bread, somebody patted her on the head. So she reached for things herself, and listened, and noticed a great deal, because nobody was ever waiting for her to finish.
She minded about it far less than everyone else did. Still, just once, she would have liked to do something that nobody told her to do louder.
Gran said “Speak up, pet” as well, but Gran said it differently. She put her ear right down by Wren’s mouth, so it didn’t matter whether Wren spoke up or not. Gran had taught her a lullaby with only four notes in it. The fourth note was a low one, and Wren could never quite reach it, so she always hummed the third one twice.
“That does just as well,” said Gran. “Somebody bigger can do the fourth.”
That harvest, Big Martha tossed and turned worse than ever. Every time she rolled over, the milk churns slid across the dairy floor, and the stooks in the top field fell flat, all together, with a soft whump.
So the whole village walked up to her chin to ask what could be done.
“I’m so sorry about your churns,” said Big Martha. “I do try. I count your chimneys to send myself off. But I always get forty-one, and I know there are forty, so I have to start again at the mill.”
“There are forty,” said Mr. Hobb the blacksmith. He said it very loudly, but then he said everything very loudly.
Wren knew where the forty-first came from. She had sat on the wall on summer evenings and heard Big Martha counting under her breath. Big Martha always counted the baker’s oven pipe twice, once on the way along the rooftops and once on the way back.
“I think she—” said Wren.
“Speak up, Wren,” said Mr. Hobb, and he rolled up his sleeves.
Now, you might think a giantess would need a giant lullaby. So did everyone in the village, and they set about it.
Mr. Hobb believed that any problem could be solved by hitting it in rhythm. He had mended the mill wheel that way, and a stuck gate, and the weathervane on the school. It took four men and a cart to get his anvil halfway up the hill, and then he hammered Big Martha a lullaby. CLANG, clang, clang. CLANG, clang, clang. He did it as gently as he could, which was not very.
“It’s too loud,” said Wren.
“Speak up, Wren,” said everyone.
“Thank you,” said Big Martha. “That was lovely.” And she lay there wider awake than before, with her eyes as round as mill ponds.
Next the choir of twenty went up. They stood in four rows beside her ear and sang a lullaby about a lamb who would not lie down, all eleven verses, at the tops of their lungs.
“It’s too loud,” said Wren.
“Speak up, Wren,” said everyone.
“Thank you,” said Big Martha. “That was lovely.” And she lay there wider awake than ever, and plumped her haystack twice.
Last of all, the miller fetched his brass horn. He played the softest tune he knew, as loud as the horn would go. Wren said nothing this time, because nobody could have heard a word.
“Thank you,” said Big Martha. “That was lovely.” Then she sighed and turned over, and the churns went sliding across the dairy, and the stooks fell flat, and down in forty kitchens the cups rattled on their shelves.
Everyone went home worn out and sorry. Mr. Hobb said they would try two anvils tomorrow.
Wren went home thinking about a very large ear, and about the way Gran always put her ear right down close.
That evening, when the lamps were lit in forty windows and the air had gone blue, Wren put on her coat and told Gran where she was going. Gran bent down to hear it. Then she nodded and wound Wren’s scarf round twice.
“Third note twice,” said Gran.
Big Martha’s hand lay at the bottom of the hill, palm up in the clover. Wren stepped onto it and walked up the wrist, and on up the long arm, which was like a lane with a sleeve on it. The sleeve had buttons as big as cartwheels. She went past the elbow and up onto the shoulder, where the grass was long and the sheep shuffled over to let her by. Then she sat down beside Big Martha’s ear, which was as big as the church door, and put her mouth close to it, the way Gran did.
“Hello,” said Wren.
“Hello, Wren,” said Big Martha.
Wren sat quite still. In all her life, nobody but Gran had ever heard her the first time.
“You count the baker’s pipe twice,” said Wren. “That’s why you get forty-one.”
Big Martha thought about it. “So I do,” she said. “I like it best. It smells of buns.”
“Then forty-one is right,” said Wren. “For you. You can stop counting.”
“Oh,” said Big Martha. “What a relief.”
Then Wren hummed Gran’s lullaby, as softly as she could, which was very softly indeed. Three notes, and the third one twice. All day the grown-ups had sent up the loudest things they had, and all of it had arrived at once, like a dresser falling over. This was the first thing quiet enough for a giantess to hear properly.
Wren hummed it again, and Big Martha’s eyelids grew heavy.
Wren hummed it a third time. When she came to the place where the fourth note should be, a low sound came up from under the grass, so deep that the sheep lay down where they stood. Big Martha was humming the fourth note.
Somebody bigger, thought Wren.
And Big Martha’s great eyes closed, for the first time in a hundred years.
Down in the village, not one cup rattled. Wren meant to climb down, she really did. She got as far as the crook of Big Martha’s elbow. It was warm and sheltered and exactly Wren-sized, and the moon was coming up over Big Martha’s knee. So she curled up there and fell asleep too.
In the morning the whole village woke up late and astonished. Nobody had slept so well in years. The churns stood in their rows. The stooks stood in the top field. Mr. Hobb, who had got up early to fetch a second anvil, put it down again very gently, which was the first quiet thing he had ever done.
Wren’s mom counted eight children at the breakfast table and was just starting again when Gran, at the window, said, “Here she comes.”
Down the lane came a hand as big as a hay cart, moving very slowly. It set Wren on her own front step as carefully as an egg. Every door in the street opened.
Then Big Martha whispered, and when a giantess whispers, every hat in the village blows off.
“Never ask that girl to speak up.”
Nobody ever did again. That night at supper, when Wren opened her mouth, the eleven other people round the table all stopped talking at once. She asked for the salt, and she got the salt.
And that is why, to this day, each midsummer evening, the smallest child in the village climbs the long green hill and hums into a very large ear. Three notes, and the third one twice. Big Martha hums the fourth herself, and one good sleep lasts a giantess the whole year round. And all that night, under forty chimneys, or forty-one if you ask Big Martha, not a single cup rattles on its shelf.