Spriggans!

Now it had been well known that the giant had hidden his crock of gold, deep within the crevices that remained from his castle on Trencrom Hill, before he levelled the castle and died distraught from killing the wife of his best friend. Those times had long past and here was a man come to find the treasure of the giant. He had searched and measured and was sure of his plotting, so much that he could not bear to wait any longer to thrust his pickaxe into the granite and prise out of the rock the gold that he was certain had lain there for more centuries than one could remember. 

He dared not attempt it during the day for fear of folk stopping and asking him what he was doing. He dared not attempt it in the early evening or the sheep would miscarry with the noise. He had to wait till the dead of night with only the moon and a candle to help him see his blows hit in the right spot. The wind blew up as he trudged up Trencrom Hill. The waves surged as if to tell him nay, not tonight. 'I am a man who is afraid of nothing and no one,' he chanted under his breath as he climbed the hill. 'Giants are long gone from this place and I will be the one to discover what they left behind.'

 A white owl glided past his head. He flinched yet stumbled on further. When he reached his chosen spot he lit the candle and put it in the lantern. The slit allowed only a shaft of light to shine out. He placed the lantern carefully so he wouldn’t knock it as he raised the pickaxe and brought it down time and again. The rock cracked as he hoped it would do. He could see in the depths a gleam of the gold he was seeking. His heart leapt for joy. 'I have found it. The giant’s treasure! Only a few more blows and it will be mine.'

 He raised the pickaxe over his head to strike when from out of the rocks spilled a torrent of tiny creatures. Dark they were and knobbly. They swarmed over the rocks and raced towards him, yelling and cursing. The man rooted to the ground in terror, dropped the pickaxe . The creatures were growing as they got nearer. Huge they became, huge and knobbly. Spriggans! Defenders of the giant’s treasure, trusted by him to guard it from all comers. They jabbered at the man and brandished wooden clubs that grew with them. As a cloud rolled over the moon, dousing her light, the spriggans grew in size again. The man dared not wait to find out what these terrible beings would do to him. He turned tail and ran down and away as fast as he could.

 'They were horrible,' he said in the pub. 'Spiky teeth, green skin, knobbly all over, the most dreadful creatures you could ever meet. And I for one will never go back there. My heart couldn’t stand it.' The other men drank their beer and hmmed. That’s not to say they believed him nor not neither. But there wasn’t one of them who’d go up Trencrom Hill after the giant’s treasure at night . Spriggans!