Chapter 5: The Ogre in the Forest of Hazel Nuts

Ages ago, in the gloomy forests of Limburg, there lived a roaring giant named Toover Hek. Although the forest was so dense, yet there were many paths through it, for there was no other way of getting across from Germany, into Belgic Land and France and Holland. Toover Hek, the man-eating giant, or ogre, used to wait, where the paths crossed each other, or diverged, and here he would waylay travelers, seize them and run away with them, and, with his ogre wife, devour them in his cave.

This ogre, Toover Hek, roamed the woods and ate up all the people he could catch, who traveled that way. Terrible tales were told about his vrouw, also, who was reported to be even more cruel than her big husband. It was said that she was a cousin of another ogre, Hecate, who had once lived further east, in Greece. Both had been driven out by the holy saints, and had come into Belgic land, where one of them married the man-eating giant, Toover Hek.

Sometimes the children called this big fellow the Long Man, because he was so tall, and had such very long legs. In the local dialect, this became “Lounge Man,” which means the same thing.

One day, his ogre wife found some honey in the forest and brought it to him. He smacked his lips and always after that called his wife his Troetel, or Honey Bunch.

The first inhabitant of the country was a farmer, named Heinrich. He was a doughty fellow, who was not afraid of ogres or giants. He had long lived among people who celebrated the kermiss, but with such drunken brutality and coarse indecency, that he was disgusted, and went into the forest to live. Heinrich’s one weakness was pea soup, and his wife thought with him and rode the same hobby. All her neighbors said that she made the best and thickest pea soup in Limburg. Heinrich believed pea soup to be both food and luxury. He thought also that water and milk, and good soup, were all the liquids nature intended ever to pass the human throat.

Finding that the soil was fertile, and that plenty of hazel nuts would fatten his pigs, Heinrich trudged with his wife Grietje (Maggie), far into the hazel forest. He swung his axe diligently, chopped down the trees, and built a rough house of wood. This he made his home, and named it Hasselt.

Soon his goats, pigs, and chickens so multiplied that it was hard to keep them out of the house. So Grietje persuaded her husband, Heinrich, to saw the door in halves and put them on two sets of hinges. This was called a hek, or heck-door, after the name usually given to the feed-rack in the barn or stable.

In this way, the upper part of the door, when open, let in light and air, and the house was kept looking sweet and cheerful. The lower part of the door, or the heck, when shut, kept out the goats, pigs, and chickens.

Leaning over the top of the lower half, the good vrouw could throw out grain to feed the ducks, geese, pullets, hens, and roosters, and toss many a tidbit to the piggies. Farmer Heinrich was so pleased with this idea of a double door, that kept his wife in good humor, that he would always call on it to witness some act of his. He would even swear by this demi-door, as if it were something sacred or important.

So his wife often heard him say “By heck, that’s a fine hazel-nut,” or “By heck, what a fat pig!” or, “By heck, that pea soup is good!” and many such like expressions.

Being so extravagantly fond of the thick pea soup, which Belgians like so much, Heinrich planted a large pea patch. Every day, he went out to see how his vines were growing. When his crop was ready to be gathered, he had, besides having enjoyed a daily dish of green peas, or a good basin of thick pea soup, enough of the legumes dried, to furnish his table with thick pea soup, all winter long. He cultivated all the varieties of peas then known. The early, medium, late, and the wrinkled, smooth or split peas were, at one time or another, on his table.