mittens reads with you but he's blinking slightly slower because he really likes this part

Instructions

!! TW fOR [BRIEF—ISH] DESCRIPTION OF G0RE AND SUCH THIS TIME !! PEOPLE GET EATEN !! With that I boarded ship and told the crew to embark at once and cast off cables quickly. They swung aboard, they sat to the oars in ranks and in rhythm churned the water white with stroke on stroke. But as soon as we reached the coast I mentioned—no long trip—we spied a cavern just at the shore, gaping above the surf, towering, overgrown with laurel. And here big flocks, sheep and goats, were stalled to spend the nights, and around its mouth a yard was walled up with quarried boulders sunk deep in the earth and enormous pines and oak-trees looming darkly...Here was a giant's lair, in fact, who always pastured his sheepflocks far afield and never mixed with others. A grim loner, dead set in his own lawless ways. Here was a piece of work, by god, a monster built like no mortal who ever supped on bread, no, like a shaggy peak, I'd say—a man-mountain rearing head and shoulders over the world. Now then, I told most of my good trusty crew to wait, to sit tight by the ship and guard her well while I picked out my dozen finest fighters and off I went. But I took a skin of wine along, the ruddy, irresistible wine that Maron gave me once, Euanthes' son, a priest of Apollo, lord of Ismarus, because we'd rescued him, his wife and children, reverent as we were; he lived, you see, in Apollo's holy grove. And so in return he gave me splendid gifts, he handed me seven bars of well-wrought gold, a mixing-bowl of solid silver, then this wine...He drew it off in generous wine-jars, twelve in all, all unmixed—and such a bouquet, a drink fit for the gods! No maid or man of his household knew that secret store, only himself, his loving wife and a single servant. Whenever they'd drink the deep-red mellow vintage, twenty cups of water he'd stir in one of wine and what an aroma wafted from the bowl—what magic, what a godsend—no joy in holding back when that was poured! Filling a great goatskin now, I took this wine, provisions too in a leather sack. A sudden foreboding told my fighting spirit I'd soon come up against some giant clad in power like armor-plate—a savage deaf to justice, blind to law. Our party quickly made its way to his cave but we failed to find our host himself inside; he was off in his pasture, ranging his sleek flocks. So we explored his den, gazing wide-eyed at it all, the large flat racks loaded with drying cheeses, the folds crowded with young lambs and kids, split into three groups—here the spring-born, here mid-yearlings, here the fresh sucklings off to the side—each sort was penned apart. And all his vessels, pails and hammered buckets he used for milking, were brimming full with whey. From the start my comrades pressed me, pleading hard, 'Let's make away with the cheeses, then come back—hurry, drive the lambs and kids from the pens to our swift ship, put out to sea at once!' But I would not give way—and how much better it would have been—not till I saw him, saw what gifts he'd give. But he proved no lovely sight to my companions. There we built a fire, set our hands on the cheeses, offered some to the gods and ate the bulk ourselves and settled down inside, awaiting his return ... And back he came from pasture, late in the day, herding his flocks home, and lugging a huge load of good dry logs to fuel his fire at supper. He flung them down in the cave—a jolting crash—we scuttled in panic into the deepest dark recess. And next he drove his sleek flocks into the open vault, all he'd milk at least, but he left the males outside, rams and billy goats out in the high-walled yard. Then to close his door he hoisted overhead a tremendous, massive slab—no twenty-two wagons, rugged and four-wheeled, could budge that boulder off the ground, I tell you, such an immense stone the monster wedged to block his cave! Then down he squatted to milk his sheep and bleating goats, each in order, and put a suckling underneath each dam. And half of the fresh white milk he curdled quickly, set it aside in wicker racks to press for cheese, the other half let stand in pails and buckets, ready at hand to wash his supper down. As soon as he'd briskly finished all his chores he lit his fire and spied us in the blaze and 'Strangers!' he thundered out, 'now who are you? Where did you sail from, over the running sea-lanes? Out on a trading spree or roving the waves like pirates, sea-wolves raiding at will, who risk their lives to plunder other men?' The hearts inside us shook, terrified by his rumbling voice and monstrous hulk. Nevertheless I found the nerve to answer, firmly, 'Men of Achaea we are and bound now from Troy! Driven far off course by the warring winds, over the vast gulf of the sea—battling home on a strange tack, a route that's off the map, and so we've come to you...