“Here’s to Prince Que-grand-tu-as!” they cried.
Now, the very oldest of the king’s old neighbors, who I am afraid was a little tipsy, shouted the toast out after the others, and in his haste, slurred the four words together. So it happened that the young giant was named for all time: GARGANTUA.
Up to the time he was five years old, Gargantua was educated much like the other children of the kingdom, in
Drinking, eating, and sleeping;
Eating, sleeping, and drinking;
Sleeping, drinking, and eating.
From dawn till dark he was continually full of frolic. He would roll about in the mud; slide down the palace towers; run after hawks and eagles with a net, as other children chase butterflies. When his playmates ran about with their paper whirligigs, he would pick up a convenient windmill and go charging down with it across the kingdom.
Best of all he liked his horses. To make a good rider of him, his father had built a great horse of wood as high as a church. Across its back Gargantua would throw himself, and make it trot, jump, amble, gallop, or pace just as he liked. Of a huge post he made himself a hunting-nag; and of a beam, a work-horse. Besides these he had ten or twelve poles that did for race-horses, and seven great boards that were horses for his coach. All of them he kept in his own room, tied securely to his bed.