The Clever Youth

A young shepherd took shelter from a storm in a deep cave, not knowing that it was the lair of Tartalo, the terrible one-eyed giant. When the cyclops returned, he sealed the entrance with a rock that a hundred men could not have moved. The shepherd understood that he had fallen into the deadliest trap in the Basque mountains.

The shepherd watched Tartalo devour his companions one after another, choosing a victim each night amid sobs of terror. But while the giant slept his monstrous sleep, the young man quietly sharpened a stake. When Tartalo asked for wine, the shepherd kept filling his cup until the giant fell into a drunken slumber. Then he drove the burning stake into his only eye.

Blind and enraged, Tartalo sat beside the entrance and touched every sheep that came out, feeling their woolly backs to catch the shepherd. But the young man tied himself beneath the belly of the largest ram, and so escaped while the giant searched in vain along the animal?s back, never imagining that his prey was hanging below.

This story is told in Basque farmhouses as proof that cunning can defeat brute strength, and that even the weakest being can overcome the mightiest if he keeps calm and studies the weaknesses of his enemy. The shepherd became a local hero, and his tale has been passed down for centuries.