Long, long ago, when the only sounds were wind on snow, rain on trees, and wave on stone, the tallest trees around today were nothing but acorns and conkers. There was only wilderness, hill, forest and river, and Giants, each as big as a mountain.

The giants moved slowly around these lands, eating leaves off trees, fruits, nuts and plants from the ground, and never ever saying Fee Fi Fo Fum. Despite their size, they trod on the ground lightly and carefully, for they loved the world they lived in.

Now, two of these giants were called Gryffydd O’Crymych and Tegwyd yn y Cymylau, but they knew each other as Gryff and Tegg. They got their names from the language the giants spoke, which was very much like the language of Welsh people. Gryff’s name meant “Griffith of the Bend in the River”, and Tegg’s name meant “Tegwyd of the Clouds”. They were named after their favourite places.

Most of their time was spent thinking great thoughts like huge puffy clouds and little thoughts like the horsetail cirrus wisps high, high in the sky in summer. They thought huge things like Why does the Sun shine? Why does the Moon change shape in the sky? What is the water in rivers running away from? And little thoughts like Why does the wind rush so? Are the trees sad when their leaves fall? What do flowers dream of when they close up at night and go to sleep? How does a tiny spider make a thing of such beauty as a web? Who follows the snail’s trail? How does a raindrop feel as it hits the ground?

Sometimes, the giants gathered, and sat together discussing these questions and suggesting answers, often arguing but never falling out of friendship.

Giant Gryff, who was quite short as giants go, could usually be found crouched down by the bend in the river. It was his river, called Clough Brook, and it began its trickling at a place called Bottom-of-the-Oven, for reasons the giants knew, but we have forgotten, snaking its way down the valley to become the River Dane. Gryff loved the river, and he would scoop up great pools of it in his giant hands, watching as tiny fish swam in circles, or miniature ducks quacked back at him, but his favourite of all the creatures were the damselflies, with their splendid luminous bodies and their lacey wings. Gryff’s thoughts were usually small ones.

Tegg’s nose however, was always in the air, and often lost in cloud. He thought BIG thoughts about the night sky and the changing Moon. He wondered why the Sun stayed for longer some days, and sank early when it was cold, leaving all the world in the dark. He also wondered why it was sometimes red, and thought that this was when it was tired and needed to sleep, because it had been shining too brightly for too long. Tegg was also puzzled by the air and the clouds, and wondered why the sky was sometimes dry and warm, and sometimes blustery and wet. Tegg was obsessed with the weather.

Yes, Tegg thought about nothing as much as he did about goings on in the sky, and because of this, he noticed some things that other giants like Gryff didn’t.

He noticed when the air smelt or felt different, when it was heavy and when it felt light and airy, and one day, he noticed that the sky felt very heavy indeed, almost as if it were about to come crashing down around them. He could feel it in his whiskers, and deep in his ears.

“Gryff! Look up!” he whispered, “Look at the sky! I can feel that change is coming! I feel like the sky’s about to fall!”

Gryff looked up briefly, and shrugged his shoulders. The sky looked fairly normal to him, and he was soon back to gazing at his beautiful river, and the creatures in and around it.

There was a distant rumble of thunder. Tegg shivered.

“Gryff, Gryff! I think the sky is hungry! I think it wants to eat up the world. Can’t you hear its tummy rumbling?”

The sky darkened over the two friends, and to Tegg, the air felt fizzy. Several bright flashes flickered far away. Once again, he spoke up,

“Gryff!!!! I think the sky is angry!”

Gryffydd O’Crymych stood up slowly, and when he had reached his full height, he opened his mouth to tell Tegwyd to be quiet, but his words were obliterated by a deafening clap of thunder. He was about to speak again once silence had returned, but was distracted by flocks of his beloved birds which were nervously flitting from one tree-top to another.

“I think you may be right, Tegg. The birds are nervous. They can feel it too”, and he looked down at his river, where the ducks were taking refuge underneath the overhanging river bank, and the damselflies were nowhere to be seen. The fish had swum deeper in the river, and Gryff could no longer see them either.

They both watched as a string of birds skated through the sky between them, past their elbows, followed immediately by a jagged bolt of lightning which missed them by a feather, and struck a tree instead, splitting it down the middle.

It was a terrible storm. Tegg and Gryff, and the other giants took shelter as best they could, but when you are as big as a mountain, shelter is very difficult to come by. They could shelter from the wind between the hills, but the rivers at the bottom of the valleys flooded, and the giants’ boots got very wet.

As the days and nights of rain and howling wind passed by, the giants began to feel the cold, and, one by one, they started to fall ill.

An emergency meeting was called, and it was decided that there was no choice but to move away to where the sky was brighter and less angry. They turned to Tegg for advice about the sky, and which direction to head for, and Tegg said,

“I caught a glimpse of the red, tired sun through all these black clouds, just as it was going to bed. I think we should head that way.”

There was much sniffling and sneezing and sad nods of agreement amongst the giants, but amongst the noise was a soft voice.

“I’m going to stay. I know it’s wet and stormy, but I love my river, and all the creatures, and I don’t want to leave them to face the storm alone!”

It was Gryff, and argue as the other giants might, he refused to change his mind. And so the giants left these lands, all except Gryffyth O’Crymych.

And what happened to him, nobody knows. But some say he can be found still amongst the small hills here, and they also say that the other giants finally found places to settle in Wales.