Bird-Dropping & Sunday
Merklas the Glass Giant holds the Sun on his shoulder as he paces from East to West across the Earth. Does the heat of the Sun singe his fingers? Do his giant feet crush houses and trees beneath them with each hundred-mile step? Will he ever get a day to rest from his labors? These are all good questions, my child, and if you have patience, they will all be answered.
But not today. For this is not the tale of Merklas the Glass Giant.
There once was a woman who lived in the left shoe of Merklas. (And she may live there to this day, if she is not dead.) Like the giant himself, the shoe was made of glass so clear you could see right through it and not know anything was there. If the glass was clean, that is. That was the job of the woman: to clean the giant’s left shoe. Keeping the whole shoe free from dirt was more work than she could handle alone, but she had seven children of her own to help her. Their names were Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
The woman also had one child not her own. One day an eagle stole a baby boy from his crib. As the bird returned to its nest with its prize, it flew headlong into the left knee of Merklas. The baby fell from the eagle’s claws and landed in a glass bucket of soapy water that the woman was using as she cleaned. She fished him out by his ankles and decided to keep him. So she took him into her little glass house inside the arch support of the glass shoe, wrapped him in a glass blanket, and placed him in a glass bed.
With seven children of her own, why did the woman decide to keep the baby? Where was her husband? What did she think about everyone being able to see through the glass into her home? These are all good questions, my child, and if you have patience, they will all be answered.
But not today. For this is not the tale of the woman who lived in the giant glass shoe.
It is the tale of the foundling boy.
Since there were no days left to use in naming the boy, the woman did not know how to name him. Finally, because he had been dropped by a bird, she called the boy Bird-Dropping.
Despite his name, Bird-Dropping was a clean boy. A very clean boy. The cleanest boy there ever was before or has been since. No dirt would stick to him. If you dipped him head-down in a barrel of mud he’d come out cleaner than most children come out from being scrubbed in a hot-water bath.
Did he hate the name Bird-Dropping? Could his clothes get dirty? Why would anyone have a barrel full of mud? These are all good questions, my child, and if you have patience, they will all be answered.
Of all Bird-Dropping’s adopted brothers and sisters, only one treated him kindly. Brother Monday said he was dumb. Sister Tuesday said he was ugly. Brother Wednesday twisted his arm. Sister Thursday pulled his hair. Brother Friday broke his toys. And sister Saturday spit on his breakfast.
But his oldest sister, Sunday, said he was handsome, and she told him he was smart. She combed his hair and hugged him, shared her breakfast and fixed his toys. And she told him stories of bold princesses and beautiful warriors—or perhaps it was the other way round.
One day when Bird-Dropping was five years old, the giant’s left foot came down near a cave. Since the giant’s strides were so long, each foot stayed on the ground for several minutes before the next step. That was long enough that the band of forty thieves who lived in the cave came out to find what had made the noise. When the one-eyed chief of the thieves saw Sunday scrubbing mud from atop the toe of the giant’s shoe, he decided to steal her away to be his wife. So he had his thieves surround her and place a sack over her head and carry her back to their cave.
Bird-Dropping heard Sunday’s screams and jumped off the shoe to run after her.
At the mouth of the cave, Bird-Dropping tried to sneak in but was caught by one of the thieves, who took him to the chief.
“What are you doing here, little boy?” The chief scowled, making his eye bulge out and the flesh around his empty eye-socket twitch. The scars on his face turned red.
“I’m not just a little boy,” said Bird-Dropping, trying to be brave and clever like the princesses in the stories Sunday had told him. “I’m a prince. And my father the king is very angry that you have stolen my sister, the princess. He sent me to tell you to let her go.”
The chief of the thieves roared with laughter. All the rest of the thieves laughed, too. Their eyes glittered darkly in the firelight.
“Tell me, little boy,” said the chief, “why should I believe you are a prince?”
Next to the chief was a barrel of black mud, which was used by the thieves to darken their faces when they went prowling in the night.
“Dip me in that barrel of mud, and you will have proof,” said Bird-Dropping.
So the chief of the thieves ordered two of his men to dunk Bird-Dropping head-down into the barrel of mud. And they held him that way for five minutes, until the chief of the thieves was sure the boy must be dead.
But because Bird-Dropping was such a clean boy, the mud couldn’t touch him. It left a pocket of air all around him so he could breathe.
When the two thieves hauled Bird-Dropping out of the barrel, everyone was amazed to see that not only was he not dead, but he had not a speck of mud on him, not even on his clothes.
“Only a prince could be of such nobility that not even mud will touch him,” said Bird-Dropping.
The chief frowned. “If you’re a prince and she’s a princess, why do you not dress in fine silks?”
“I can explain,” said Sunday, playing along with Bird-Dropping’s ruse. “My father the king has us go out among the common folk so that we will understand their needs and be better rulers.”
“If you are indeed who you claim to be,” said the chief, “why shouldn’t I hold you for ransom?”
“My father the king,” said Bird-Dropping, “will not pay. He will attack.”
“Yes,” said Sunday. “He will come with his men and kill you all. He’ll tan your hides to use as shoe leather, feed your flesh to his tigers, and carve up your bones for toothpicks.”
Several of the thieves looked at each other uncomfortably.
“If you are lying,” said the chief, “I cannot allow you to leave knowing that this cave is our hideout. But if you are telling the truth, I cannot afford to have you found here.” He motioned to several of his men. “Take them and throw them in the pit. Let the dog take care of them.”
The men carried Bird-Dropping and Sunday farther back in the cave. Deep growling and snarling sounded from a hole in the floor, and the stench of a filthy dog filled the air. The men lit a ring of torches around the hole, and then with no further ado, they threw Bird-Dropping and Sunday down into the pit.
How deep was the pit? Was there a big dog down there? Did the pit have another way out? These are all good questions, my child, and if you have patience, they will all be answered.
Bird-Dropping and Sunday fell ten feet to the bottom of the pit. Because the floor was covered in grime and muck, Bird-Dropping stopped falling just short of hitting the ground. Sunday was not so lucky, and winced in pain from the force of the fall.
The two of them got to their feet and looked around.
Two large eyes glowed red in the flickering torchlight. The eyes came closer, and the light revealed a large dog. A very large dog. The largest dog there ever was before or has been since. It opened its mouth wide enough to swallow Bird-Dropping whole, revealing huge yellowed teeth. The dog growled and came toward Bird-Dropping and Sunday. From around the edge of the pit, the thieves cheered the dog on.
Clutching each other’s hands, Bird-Dropping and Sunday backed away until they found themselves trapped between the dirt wall of the pit and the snarling, slobbering hound.
Then the dog stopped, sniffing the air in puzzlement. It could see two people, but Bird-Dropping was so clean he had no scent at all. For a dog, such a thing is a great mystery. It finally decided to ignore the scentless thing and went to bite Sunday.
Seeing his sister in danger, Bird-Dropping did the only thing he could to prevent the dog from biting her: he leapt into the dog’s mouth.
The dog was surprised by this. Usually its meals tried to avoid being eaten, but the scentless boy was halfway inside its mouth. The dog was not going to argue with that, so it closed its jaws to bite the boy in half.
Except its jaws would not close all the way. It bit down harder, and one of its teeth broke off. Try as it might, the dog could not bite into Bird-Dropping, because its teeth were filthy.
After several minutes, the dog finally gave up trying to bite. Instead, while the thieves whistled and stomped their approval, the dog raised its head up, opened its jaws wide, and swallowed Bird-Dropping whole.
Poor Sunday was left alone with the dog, and she began to cry. She cried more for the loss of her brother than she did for her own fear. Fortunately, the dog having eaten its fill for now, it ignored Sunday and lay down to take a nap.
Sunday sat down and tried to think what to do next.
But the dog could not sleep, for inside its stomach there was an uncomfortable wriggling.
Bird-Dropping told himself not to be scared, but it was the first time in his life he’d been in complete darkness. Traveling in the shoe of the giant who carried the Sun meant Bird-Dropping had never seen nighttime. After a moment’s thought, Bird-Dropping decided to try crawling back up the dog’s gullet to see if he could get out when the dog opened its mouth again.
He crawled and crawled. He didn’t think he had come this far down the creature’s throat, but he kept crawling.
And suddenly he found himself emerging from the dog’s rear end, near a large pile of dog-doo.
“Bird-Dropping! You’re alive!” said Sunday.
“I must have gotten turned around in the darkness,” said Bird-Dropping as he jumped to the ground, still clean as can be despite the path he had taken.
The dog just whimpered, making no move to attack them. Having someone crawl through your gut is not pleasant, or so it is said by those who know.
Sunday glanced up at the entrance to the pit, which was too high above for them to reach—even if it weren’t surrounded by jeering thieves. “How will we get out?” she asked. “That’s the only exit.”
Bird-Dropping walked to the wall of the pit and reached out to touch it. The dirt parted before his clean fingers, of course, because if dirt isn’t dirty, what is?
“Take my hand and follow me,” said Bird-Dropping.
And as they walked forward, the ground opened up before them until they safely emerged from the Earth. But they could tell from the position of the Sun that Merklas had already stepped away. The shoe that had been their home was gone, along with their family.
Bird-Dropping and Sunday began walking to the nearest town.
“After all that has happened, I will give you a new name,” said Sunday.
Bird-Dropping was happy, as he did not like his name. “Not Dog-Doo, please.”
“No,” said Sunday. “I will not name you Dog-Doo.”
“And not something like Clean-Boy just because I am clean,” said Bird-Dropping.
“No,” said Sunday. “Your cleanliness may have given you the power to save me, but it was the strength of your heart that gave you the will. I will call you Strongheart.”
And he was known as Strongheart from that day forth. And by that name he grew up to become a great hero. A very great hero. The greatest hero there ever was before or has been since.
Did Strongheart and Sunday ever see their family again? Did Strongheart ever find his real parents? How did he defeat the wily Gruntlebeast and milk its sea of teats in order to become king of all Voralia? These are all good questions, my child, and if you have patience, they will all be answered.
But not today.
ABOUT THE STORY
In the summer of 2005, Codex decided to hold a Fairy Tale Contest. Contestants had to use at least one of the following as inspiration:
• The nursery rhyme “There was an Old Woman”
• The Irish myth of Cú Chulainn
• The fairy tale “The Princess and the Pea”
• The fairy tale “Fundevogel”
I was, of course, familiar with two of the four, but I had to research Cú Chulainn and Fundevogel. And then I decided I had to use all four as my sources, in addition to drawing on various other fairy tales and myths.
What elements of Cú Chulainn’s myth did I draw on? What does “Fundevogel” mean? How did the story do in the contest?
These are all good questions, my child, and if you have patience, they will all be answered.
As a child, Cú Chulainn encountered (and killed) someone’s fierce guard dog. I drew on that to create the dog in my story.
“Fundevogel” means foundling bird. In the fairy tale, a baby is taken from his mother by a bird of prey. A forester finds the baby in the bird’s nest and names him Fundevogel.
My story took first place in the contest. My writing groups loved it. I thought it would end up being an easy sale, but I submitted it sixteen times over the next four years, with no success. Then an anthology editor emailed me to ask if I had a story he might like, so I sent it to him and he bought it.