Tradition / Region: Catalan mythology, Spanish Mythology
Alternate Names: —
Category: Giant
The Myth
In the high mountains above the valley of Ribes there once lived a giant named Puigmal.
He towered above the forests and peaks, a mighty being who watched over the trees and the wild animals. No hunter could loose an arrow without feeling his presence. No woodcutter could strike a trunk without sensing the mountain’s silent warning. Puigmal guarded nature fiercely, defending it from careless human hands.
One day, as he wandered the slopes, he milked a wild doe and made cheese from her milk. He brought this cheese to a human and offered it as a gift. “As long as you do not eat it all,” he said, “it will grow again and again. You will never hunger, and you will not need to hunt the creatures of these mountains.”
The gift was a covenant: live with restraint, and the mountain would provide endlessly.
But the balance between humans and nature is fragile. In time, the giant was turned to stone, his immense body becoming the very mountain that now bears his name—Puigmal. His stony form rises above the valley still, silent and watchful.
They say he remains there as guardian still, the mountain itself standing as his petrified body, overlooking the forests and animals he once defended.
Sources
creatures-of-myth.fandom.com contributors. (n.d.). Puigmal. In creatures-of-myth.fandom.com, from https://creatures-of-myth.fandom.com/wiki/Puigmal
