Freeing a giant

We returned to the cliffs earlier today.

The elves who had worked all night had reached the snow giant frozen in the ice. He was lying at an angle, so they had managed to dig around his head and shoulder, careful to leave a coating of ice on him. The rest of his body was still buried in the ice.

By the time we were ready to start again, we had been joined by a dozen snow giants.

Some of them were crying like Kracknovag. We had to keep jumping out of the way of showers of ice tears!

“Kackanokack is on his way back from the South Pole,” Kracknovag said when he saw me.

Kackanokack was the leader of the snow giants who were our friends at the North Pole. He was a wise giant, and knew how to take care of all kinds of giant ills. If anyone would know how to help this frozen giant, Kackanokack would.

We began to dig around the frozen giant, carefully chipping at the ice. Dozens of elves worked in the hole. The snow giants wanted to get in, took, but I was worried they might cause a collapse, So they just cleared away the ice from the hole.

As we cleared more ice form the body, some of the elves began building scaffolding around the frozen giant to hold him up. As we dug down closer to his waist legs, we feared he might suddenly fall down and be damaged.

“We’ve reached his feet,” an elf yelled at 6 p.m.

And suddenly the giant’s weight settled against the scaffolding.

Dozens of elf voices cheered, “He’s free!”

“He’s free!” bellowed a dozen snow giants.

The ice tears poured down, causing many an elf to run for cover!

Slowly, carefully, we pulled the scaffolding and the giant out of the ice cave we had dug.

Finally, he was lying on the ice outside the cave. Kracknovag and the other giants knelt beside him. Each touched the frozen giant. The all hummed a strange tune. The ice beneath our feet vibrated with their humming.

Finally, Kracknovag stood up and turned to me. The other giants stopped humming and looked at us.

“Thank your Santa and all our elf friends,” Kracknovag said. “Our brother is free. Now we wait for Kackanokack.”

He knelt down and touched the frozen giant again. Once again, all the giants began to hum.

I signaled to the elves, and we quietly left. This was a private moment for the giants.

I knew they would stay with their frozen brother until Kackanokack came.