They say that long ago, in a valley so deep that the sun needed an hour to reach the bottom of it, the sun failed to rise one morning. The east hill stayed black, and the rooster crowed three times, cleared his throat and gave up. For three days the village lived in the night. It grew cold, the cows gave no milk, and the bravest men began to whisper, in funeral voices, that the world had ended.
At last they climbed the hill with drums and ropes, shouted, threatened and pleaded, and came down again very pale. "There is a mountain up there that was not there before," they said. "And it breathes."
Nobody thought of sending the one person who might have known what to do. Mira was a girl of nine who said good morning to everything: the cows, the old well, the postman's dog, who had never once replied. On the third night she wrapped a loaf of warm bread, filled a jug with milk and climbed the hill alone. The mountain was, in fact, a giant, who sat with his chin on his knees and his eyes tightly shut, like someone hoping hard not to be noticed.
"Good morning," said Mira. "Excuse me, sir. I think you are sitting on the sunrise."
The giant opened one eye, as big as a pond. "Am I?" he said, in a voice like a cart crossing a bridge. "I sat down three days ago to rest. Everybody shouted at me, so I thought nobody wanted me here." He rose with a groan that shook the ground, stepped over to the next hill and sat down again as gently as a giant can. Through the gap the sun climbed up, red and then gold, and poured into the valley as if it had never been away.
The ridge is still called the Giant's Chair. Every morning Mira waves to him, and he waves back. And some say the sun there rises a few minutes late, because the giant likes to wait for her good morning.
