Three at once
Hoes, hammers, horseshoes, shovels, pots, rattled down in one clanging pile. And the apprentices, two by two, fell in behind Herr Klinkerklanker. And so the giants, all in a hurry, stepped out of the market-place to let them in.
Then there was a bustling indeed. Those who were good at measuring started in on Grosshand’s belt. Those who were good at writing copied the numbers on Grosskopf’s spoon. Those who were good at figuring scribbled and scratched With all their might to find out how much two and a half times Grosshand’s belt might be. As for the rest, Herr Klinkerklanker sent them to knock at all the house doors until they got every bit of iron in town and a hundred lusty men to hammer it.
Four at once
Not even the giants remained idle. Grosskopf and Grossmund tore wide, flat boulders out of the mountain and set them up for a forge and an anvil in the market-place. Grosshand came rattling back with all his pots swinging in his hands and strung clattering about his neck.
And then giants, hammerers, apprentices, set up such a clinking and a clanking and a puffing and a blowing as never was heard in all Germany before. All day long the great forge flame swept skywards. All day long the five-and-twenty apprentices swung their sledges while Herr Klinkerklanker shouted orders. All day long the hundred hammerers beat and pounded at the glowing iron that was to be the giants’ pot.
All day long Grossmund puffed out his great cheeks and blew to keep up the forge flame. All day long Grosshand lifted the pot from forge to anvil, and back again from anvil to forge. All day long Grosskopf stood quietly by ready to think in case of emergency.
