Re: Kris Hirst's page on Why Don't We Call Them Cro-Magnon Anymore? updated

On Feb 13, 8:04 pm, Tom McDonald <kilt...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Feb 13, 11:44 am, "J.LyonLayden" <JosephLay...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

<snip>





It's a very rough draft and any feedback would help me get it to
final.

Comments/suggestions appreciated:

No Working Title

The giants stood upon a hill, gazing down at the valley. There were
seven of them, and all of them were thicker of frame than any man that
Nufta had ever seen. And though Nufta was a tall man, in fact the
tallest man in all the hamlets this side of the inner sea, he would
have had to stand on his tiptoes to look even the shortest of them eye
to eye.
The giants were looking down upon the fields where Nufta's people had
been working, reaping wild wheat from the bountiful fields that lay
across the slope. Now the men stood still, faces grim and scythes held
defensively braced before them, or before a woman near them. Some of
the women were scurrying back towards the hamlet, and one just a
second before had let out a disheartening scream. Beyond them, far off
in the center of the valley, small pillars of smoke rose from clusters
of huts, one of which Nufta called his home. The intruders had come
just at the ending of the day, and the sun was beginning to set behind
a further hill.
Dusk draped the tallest giant like a cloak.

Dusk? These guys are on a hilltop, apparently in daylight (the little
guys are still working in the fields).

He was eyeing Maya, the
girl who had screamed. She was running down the hill towards the
smokey huts, her attractive skin glowing bronze in the fading light
and her dark brown hair and garments flowing out behind her like wake
in the wind. the giant looked satisfied; he looked like a man who had
come home.
Nufta breathed in the Mana from the air. He visualized the energy
swelling up around him. He saw his spirit rise above his body, saw it
drop down into the body of the giant, and looked at his own body from
the giant's eyes. Then Nufta imagined a brilliant chord of light,
flowing from the center of his own chest to the giants, and flowing
from the giant's chest to his. He allowed the rest of the world to
fade away, so that only he and the giant existed, poised in time for a
moment, seperate from the world...

Is this business of magic intended to be a real phenomenon in your
world; IOW, more a fantasy than imagined history?

Or are you building the cultural/religious basis for the shorties?

But then the giant shook his head and thundered a roarous laugh down
into the valley below. As it echoed among the hills, the other giants
joined in, and the world came back into quick focus for Nufta. his
magic had failed.
The giants words were strange to Nufta, but he understood them for the
most part, being very close to the speech of the woodsmen who lived to
the north of nufta's people. And in those days men had not yet fully
learned to hide their communications with words.
"I have come to protect you," laughed the giant. "It is a wonder my
people have not yet come to claim you. But you will harvest for ME,
now, and we will keep them and all others at bay."

Before I comment in more detail, can you tell me about your intended
audience? Is there a genre within which you intend this to fall?

And where is your story set, both temporally and spatially?

<snip>

Also the final word will probably not be "giant" but a more ancient
word, maybe basque but not jentilak because it's too much a
possibility that they borrowed it from "gentile" when they got
religion.

Why Basque?- Hide quoted text -

Because I believe they are the oldest surviving indigenous culture in
Europe, and many of their words may be unchanged since the ice-age.
They may be the last people to have seen cro-magnons and neanderthals.


- Show quoted text -

.

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