
In the Enchanted Forest
by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Thick as Honey was the one who discovered the man in the glass coffin. She was on her way to the mines with her six dwarven sisters, but decided to cut through the forest to check on her clay pits She had a pottery project she wanted to work on, and she wondered if the pits were flooded.
In a forest clearing on the way to the pits lay a glass coffin of exquisite work. Thick as Honey worked in clay, but her sister Heart-Shaped worked with glass; they made household objects to sell when the veins of tin and gold they mined were thin. Each of the seven dwarves had extra skills to supplement their mining, skills that brought them into contact with the world of giants.
Here was a giant in an artful glass box.
Thick as Honey went to the coffin and looked in at the man. He was too lengthy for her to appreciate. But the glass of the coffin, etched with sprays of leaves and flowers, spirals and symbols, that was beautiful.
She raced back to the usual path and called her sisters, who followed her to the clearing and studied the casket and the giant within.
Golden Glow tapped the casket with her flute, appreciating the clear ringing noise it made.
"That's good glass," said Heart-Shaped, the glass-blower.
Silent and Still, the hunter and tracker among them, circled the casket, searching for tracks. She knelt and touched the earth, lifted some grass blades and sniffed them. She frowned and shook her head. "No sign of whoever left it. Perhaps it dropped from the sky."