Around this table sat seven giants. They sat there bending forward as though they were consulting with each other, but none of them moved or spoke, or even so much as winked an eyelid. They might have been carven figures, for all the signs of life they gave.
At the head of the table sat a giant with a long beard, and he had been sitting there so long that his beard had grown into the slab of rock that was the top of the table.
Robert Kelly stood there looking at them for a while, and then, as none of them took any notice of him, he called in a loud voice, “Is any one among you named Mahon McMahon?”
At that the giant at the head of the table started up so suddenly that the pulling out of his beard split the rock of the table into pieces, but none of the others stirred nor looked at him.
“I am Mahon McMahon,” cried the giant. “And what do you come seeking me for?”
“I have come here in search of little Phil Renardy,” cried the blacksmith boldly, “and I have been told that you are the one who can tell me where to find him.”
The giant looked at him in silence for a bit, and then he said, “Yes, I can tell you where to find him, and better than that, I can even show you where he is.”
He then led the way into a great stone chamber on beyond the hall, and it was glowing with fires, and there in it were a great number of young lads. It seemed to the blacksmith that there were hundreds of them, and they were all busy at some kind or other of metal work.
When Mahon McMahon came in, they stopped their work and stood back against the wall, and the blacksmith saw that not one among them looked to be more than seven years old, and they were all so much alike that they might have been brothers.
“If you are a friend of Phil Renardy, no doubt you can choose him from all others,” said the giant. “And now look about you, and if you can tell me at the first telling which is he, then you may take him away with you, and no harm to any one. But if you cannot tell me, then it was an ill hour for you when you entered my house, for you’ll never go out again.”