Book mom read to me

Cafe Society
1

When I was a kid my mom use to read to me. One of my favorite stories was about a giant. One giant was going to beat up or kill the other one. Well the wife of the one that was going to killed came up with an idea. She cooked some biscuits with rocks in them, and feed them to the bad giant. They broke his teeth. i think there were other things she did but I can not remember. There also was a baby giant that ate the biscuits without rocks.

2

No idea, I’m afraid, but you might also want to consider asking over on Goodreads - there’s a group called What’s The Name of That Book??? which, as the name suggests, specializes in tracking down half-remembered books.

3

Moved to Cafe Society.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

4

I’m wondering if it could be based on the Stone Soup folk tale.

5

Stone soup isn’t about eating stones, though.

6

You’re right. Well, maybe it’ll jog the OP’s memory anyway.

7

Those are Finn McCool stories, I believe.

8

I had forgotten all about that story! Using the name that hogarth provided, I found this book. I think it may be what you’re looking for!

9

Stump the Bookseller is another good site for identifying kids’ books.

10

It is a Finn McCool story from Ireland.

I just told that story for St Patrick’s day, actually.

The "bully"giant is CuCullain, and Finn McCool is the last giant in Ireland that he hasn’t beaten up yet, but Finn isn’t interested in being pounded, so he keeps one step ahead of CuCullain, and builds himself a house on top of a high hill so he can keep a lookout.

One day, he’s a bit slow on the getaway, and he ends up stuck in the house with his wife Oona, with CuCullain incoming. Oona dresses Finn up as an infant, sticks him in the cradle, and proceeds to soundly trick CuCullain into thinking that the “baby” is stronger than he is, by using bread with frying pans cooked into some of them, and with white cheese balls and matching rocks.

It ends up with Finn biting off CuCullain’s magic finger (where all his strength comes from) and thrashing him instead, either almost or all the way to death, depending on which version you encounter.

There are LOTS of children’s picture book versions of this story, and most collections of Irish folklore will include it in some variation or other.

It’s usually titled Finn McCool, the Giant of Knockmany Hill, but there are MANY variant spellings of Finn McCool - the most usual are Fin vs Finn, and McCool vs Mac Cool vs McCoul vs Mac Coul.