The Ogre of Oglefort

The Aunt-with-the-Ears was waiting for her, because she had heard her sister’s footsteps as soon as she left her cave. She was a giantess, with ears the size of footballs which drooped down on either side of her face. Her home was an old abbey with a carp pond which had been lived in by monks, and she kept to the inner rooms so that as little noise came to her as possible, but she also had outsize earplugs made from old footballs which she’d cut up. Even so, sometimes the sound of the rain plopping into the pond gave her a headache.

“Have you had your invitation from Dennis?” asked the Aunt-with-the-Nose.

Her sister nodded. “He seems to think he’s dying,” she said.

She wasn’t particularly upset because ogres don’t go in for family feeling. All the same, she thought they had better go.

“He says we can bring Clarence if we want to,” said the Aunt-with-the-Nose. “We could put him on a trolley.”

“Yes, we’d better do that. I don’t want to leave him—he just might be ready.”

The Aunt-with-the-Ears did not collect worms; she collected eggs. She collected every sort of egg, and because Norland was an unusual place she collected some very unusual eggs. Some of these had hatched into ordinary birds or reptiles; some had hatched into phoenixes or small dragons and flown away.

But Clarence hadn’t hatched. He was by far the largest egg that any of the aunts had seen—and though eggs can’t really keep on growing, it seemed to them that Clarence inside his egg was somehow forcing the shell outward without breaking it.

He had been with them for six years and still hadn’t made his way out into the world, yet they were certain that he wasn’t dead. Sometimes noises came from him—not cheepings, not cluckings, but . . . sighs, slight groans as though Clarence would have liked to get around to hatching, but couldn’t quite make the effort.

So now they put him on his special trolley and covered him with his egg cozy to stop him from getting chilled and wheeled him around to the third aunt, the Aunt-with-the-Eyes.

This aunt lived at the top of a tall tower which had once been a lighthouse. It was right at the edge of the sea, and when the aunt stood and looked out with her great eyes she could see every ship within hundreds of miles. She too collected things, but not worms or eggs—she collected the bones of sailors who had drowned. She gathered them up and bleached them and kept them in a special room in the tower: toe bones and ankle bones and thigh bones and ribs. This aunt was very thin because of running up and down the stairs of her tower. The Aunt-with-the-Ears was very tall and the Aunt-with-the-Nose was portly.

And when everything had been settled, the aunts set off, pulling Clarence behind them on his trolley.

“After all, Dennis is our nephew,” they told each other. “And we’ll have to see what’s to become of the castle.”

“Yes, that’s true. Who is he going to leave the castle to?”

They wondered about this all the way to Oglefort. The castle was the biggest and most important in the area—it must go to someone who mattered. And of course it should be someone from within the family.

If Clarence had only hatched and become someone remarkable, perhaps he would have had a chance to inherit—but the aunts were sensible women and they realized that the ogre couldn’t leave his castle to an egg.

CHAPTER21THE BATTLE

Oh when will the aunts come?” said the ogre in a weak and trembling voice. “I feel terrible. I’m sure I can’t last much longer.”

“You said it would take them at least a week to make the journey,” said Ulf. But he was getting worried. If the ogre died before it was decided which aunt was going to inherit the castle it would make a nasty muddle.

He felt the ogre’s pulse, which was indeed extremely feeble.

“Try a spoonful of this—just a small one,” said the troll, reaching for a plate of gruel which the Hag had made, but the ogre only turned his head away and sighed.

It was at this moment that the gnu, out in the garden, lifted his great head. His ears twitched; he rose to his feet.

“What is it?” asked Ivo.

The gnu was looking anxious. “I hear something,” he said. “Keep very still.”

The children did as they were told. At first they could hear nothing—antelopes have much more sensitive hearing than humans. But as they waited and listened they too heard it.

Hoofbeats. A large number of them. Horses were approaching the castle.

The gnu pawed the ground, ready to take off.

But at that moment the aye-aye came bounding through the branches and dropped to the ground beside them. Her eyes were wide with terror.

“There are men with uniforms riding toward us. I could see them coming over the hill. Many men—a whole army.” She began to whimper. “Men like that are bad—very bad. They have flags with many colors—green and yellow and blue, and foolish hats. When men have such silly clothes they are dangerous.”