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Finn McCool and the Giant — cover illustration
Classic story

Finn McCool and the Giant

by Joseph Jacobs

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The mighty giant Fin M'Coul leaves his wife Oonagh at home while he works on a bridge to Scotland. He fears the arrival of Cucullin, a rival giant who boasts immense strength and a flattened thunderbolt as a weapon. Knowing Cucullin is coming to fight him, Fin returns home worried about how to face such a powerful foe. Oonagh comforts her husband and devises a clever plan to protect him from danger. She hides Fin in a cradle and persuades him to pretend to be their infant child when Cucullin arrives. When the giant enters, Oonagh tricks him into turning the house around and splitting a large rock to find water. Inside, she serves Cucullin bread baked with iron griddles, causing him to lose his teeth in pain. Next, the disguised Fin squeezes water from a stone to prove his family's incredible strength. Terrified by these displays of power, Cucullin agrees to never fight Fin again. However, he asks to see the baby's teeth closely before leaving. As he reaches into the cradle, Fin grabs Cucullin's finger, which is the source of his strength. The giant loses all his power and falls defeated at their feet. Through cleverness and wit, Oonagh helps her husband overcome a much stronger enemy without fighting.

How it begins

A LEGEND OF KNOCKMANY What Irish man, woman, or child has not heard of our renowned Hibernian Hercules, the great and glorious Fin M'Coul? Not one, from Cape Clear to the Giant's Causeway, nor from that back again to Cape Clear. And, by-the-way, speaking of the Giant's Causeway brings me at once to the beginning of my story. Well, it so happened that Fin and his men were all working at the Causeway, in order to make a bridge across to Scotland; when Fin, who was very fond of his wife Oonagh, took it into his head that he would go home and see how the poor woman got on in his absence. So, accordingly, he pulled up a fir-tree…

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