SOURCE: "The Colossos of Ylourgne" by Clark Ashton Smith (Weird Tales, June 1934)

DESCRIPTION: "Fearfully, as one who confronts an apparition reared up from nether hell, Gaspard beheld the colossus that lay inert as if in Cyclopean sleep on the castle flags. The thing was no longer a skeleton: the limbs were rounded into bossed, enormous thews, like the limbs of Biblical giants; the flanks were like an insuperable wall; the deltoids of the mighty chest were broad as platform; the hands could have crushed the bodies of men like millstones.... But the face of the stupendous monster, seen in profile athwart the pouring moon, was the face of the Satanic dwarf, Nathaire -- re-magnified a hundred times, but the same in its implacable madness and malevolence!" ("The Colossus of Ylourgne" by Clark Ashton Smith)

NOTES: The Anakim or Colossus was made from the dead bodies of men. Nathiare the dwarfish sorcerer made the giant look like him, then infused his soul in the creature. Once resurrected, the giant went on a rampage, destroying villages and cities in Averoigne.

HISTORY: One of Smith's better fantasies, featuring a great rampage by the giant. (My favorite is when he threw all the cow manure into the churches!) The revenge of Nathaire is remonscient of "Hop-Frog" by Edgar Allan Poe. Talk about "Big Man" syndrome! Interesting to compare with Edgar Rice Burroughs' Joog, the Giant of Mars.

---