We could quite well do with all the moon always. Besides, some day it really might not grow again. And what then...?
NINE
The Third Adventure of the Rainbow Cat
WHEN the Rainbow Cat left the land of the Tree-goblins he travelled for some time until he came to a delightful country called the Bountiful Land.
It was a marvellous country.
There were deep forests there, and great meadows full of the loveliest flowers, such as only grow in gardens in other countries; the sky was nearly always blue, and the people who lived in that land were happy and contented. That is to say, they would have been but for one thing.
In the very middle of the country there was a great castle built high upon a rock, and in this castle—so the inhabitants of the place told the Rainbow Cat—there lived a cruel and wicked giantess who tyrannised over the people and constantly took away their goods, sometimes even their children.
The Rainbow Cat did not meet with any one who had actually seen the giantess face to face, but terrible tales were told of her doings and of her horrible appearance. She was three times the height of an ordinary man, it was said. Her hair was like knotted ropes, her eyes flamed fire; when she blew her nose, the sound was like thunder; when she sneezed, forests swayed as beneath a hurricane; when she stamped her foot, whole villages collapsed.
Besides being a giantess she was reported to be able to work magic, and that frightened the people more than anything else.