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Og—Son of Fire — Context and Discussion

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In Category - Childrens Adventures

Authors: Crump, Irving, 1887-1979, Bull, Charles Livingston, 1874-1932 [Illustrator] Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2019 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Animals -- Juvenile fiction; Cave dwellers -- Juvenile fiction; Fire -- Juvenile fiction; Prehistoric peoples -- Juvenile fiction Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 44,702

Reading time 195 min

Text sections 5

For Og—Son of Fire — Context and Discussion, the stored edition analysis reports 44,702 words, 3 hr 15 min estimated reading time, and 5 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 21.5 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Animals -- Juvenile fiction,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #61061

In a prehistoric world of volcanic upheaval and predatory beasts, a boy named Og discovers fire, tames wolf cubs, and challenges the old ways of his tribe. Irving Crump's 1922 adventure follows Og's resourcefulness as he learns to make tools, skin a sabre-tooth tiger, and carry a stolen flame across a landscape of fissures and lava flows.

Editorial Edition Score 4.7/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

Calculated from edition completeness, EPUB availability, text structure and catalogue metadata. Not a user rating.

How this score is calculated

Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg61061

Read the Text

ption he had witnessed was a forerunner of this great change.

He did know though that the nights were very cold and that the days were not the tropical days the old and weazened hairy men told about and as he lay there prone on the warm earth struggling with this new found power of reason, he wondered after all whether the Fire Demon was the fearsome thing the hairy people believed it to be. Here was good that it gave him: the good of warm food, warm air, warm ground to put his back against—yet, and he realized it with a shudder, here were these hundreds of dead horses on which he and the wolf-dog cubs had feasted, mute testimony of the wrath of the Fire Demon. Why was it that one who possessed so much good could be so fearful? Why was it—but here the problem became too perplexing for even the hairy boy and, being full of stomach and warm of body, he fell asleep, probably the first human being to sleep prone and lying on his back.

And as he slept the wolf cubs, seeing strange shapes in the swirling steam clouds, and hearing strange guttural sounds as of huge animals eating, searched him out and crept closer to him. They were frightened at these menacing apparitions, and being motherless they looked to the hairy boy for protection, for somehow they felt that it was his presence that had kept them safe from harm up there on the hillside under the cliff.

THE CRACK IN THE EARTH

It seemed strange to the hairy boy that he should awaken with the same thoughts in his brain that he had gone to sleep with. Why did they persist? He could not understand, yet his brain still turned over the problem of why the Fire Demon, who could give so much that was good, could also destroy hundreds of horses, the fleetest and wariest of the animals he knew. He could not answer the question but as he pondered it he began to understand that if all the good of warmth could be had from the Fire Demon perhaps it would be possible to make friends with him and not fall a victim to his wrath. The hairy boy did not know just how this could be done but his interest was stirred beyond anything heretofore.

He got up, and although still bloated with food, he could not resist tearing off a strip or two more of the roasted horse, then munching on one of these he began wandering through the swirling steam, the wolf cubs following him.

Presently he found himself walking through a layer of black ash that was still warm and felt very comfortable to his feet. He knew as he recalled the valley before the eruption that this had been a huge forest. The heat from the hot lava lake somewhere down there in the bottom of the valley had fired this and burned it to cinders. Only an occasional rampike, charred and gaunt and weird looking in the blowing steam, told of the forest that grew there before. The hairy boy looked at these mute monuments to the wrath of the Fire Demon with a mingled feeling of awe and wonder. To see these tree giants charred and blackened, their twisted limbs shorn from them and scattered half burned on the ground, revived to a certain extent the fear that he had had. He stood and stared at the charred mass a long time before going on, and then not until he had broken himself a stout knotted club from one of the fire hardened rampikes, as if to provide himself with some sort of a weapon with which to face the mysterious danger of the Fire Demon.

Yet, despite his fear and trepidation, the hairy boy was enough a master of his will power to force himself into exploring the valley further. Deeper he pushed his way through the misty, swirling steam, realizing the while that the air and the earth were growing hotter. From this he understood that he was approaching what had appeared to him from the hilltop to be a red hot lake where the lava had gathered in the valley bottom.

The steam grew thicker and hotter and ahead of him and on either hand he heard peculiar hissing noises, that agitated him a great deal, for he could not know that it was the hot lava cooling off by its contact with the cold and moist earth. He went on but he went with great stealth and caution, always peering through the steam with club raised as if expecting at any moment to come face to face with the Demon that made the fire.

Continue Reading →

The first chapter of Og—Son of Fire opens not with a character but with a planet in convulsion: “The earth rocked. The sky was of purple blackness.” The prose immediately establishes a world where geological violence is the norm—thunder rumbles under the crust, mountains tremble, and “great clots of lurid red molten lava” bubble from fissures. Against this backdrop, a boy cowers under a cliff, accompanied by two whimpering wolf cubs. The setting is not merely scenic; it is a constant, active threat that shapes every decision Og makes.

Crump’s narrative voice favors short, percussive sentences that mirror the instability of the environment. The opening paragraphs alternate between panoramic destruction and the close-up of a single frightened boy, a pattern that recurs throughout the excerpts. The volcano is not a one-time event but a persistent presence, and the lava flows “crawling slowly down the mountain side” become a kind of antagonist in their own right.

Tools, Trophies, and the Value of a Good Flint

One of the most striking patterns in the excerpts is Og’s evolving relationship with material objects. Early on, he is described as “beginning to appreciate the value of good tools,” and the narrative lingers on his search for a flint that will make “a satisfactory skinning knife.” This is not a generic survival skill; Crump specifies that Og resolves not to throw the sharp stone away “as most hairy people did.” The detail suggests a cultural contrast between Og’s growing sense of craftsmanship and the throwaway habits of his tribe.

Later, after killing a sabre-tooth tiger, Og’s first thought is of the skin as wealth: “He was wealthier now than any hairy man had ever been.” He methodically removes the claws and sabres, treating them as trophies. The narrative treats these actions with the same gravity as the hunt itself. The flint knife, the hammer head he has chipped, the tiger pelt—each object carries weight in the story, marking Og’s departure from the tribe’s norms.

Even the wolf cubs are, in a sense, tools: they “looked silently on” as Og works, and later they devour the tiger meat he rejects. The bond is practical before it is emotional.

The Hairy People and the Tree People: Two Tribes Observed

The excerpts introduce two groups: Og’s own “hairy people” and the “tree people” who find him skinning the tiger. The tree people are described as “wondering and thoroughly frightened,” squealing and jabbering among themselves, too afraid to enter the canyon. Their reaction contrasts with Og’s focused labor; he “paid small heed” to them. The narrative does not explain the relationship between the groups, but the tension is clear.

Within Og’s own tribe, the figure of Gog, “the scarred and irritable old war leader,” is mentioned as the keeper of a small piece of tiger skin used “at feasts and on other state occasions.” This detail implies a hierarchical society where rare trophies confer status. Og’s possession of a whole skin would upend that order. The excerpts do not reveal Gog’s reaction, but the setup suggests a coming conflict between Og’s individual achievement and tribal tradition.

The tree people’s fear of the canyon—and of Og—hints at territorial boundaries and perhaps a history of predation by the sabre-tooth. Their presence adds a social dimension to what might otherwise be a solitary survival story.

Fire as a Stolen, Not Discovered, Force

Despite the title Og—Son of Fire, the excerpts show that fire is not Og’s invention. The chapter headings include “Stolen Flames” and “The Fire Lighter,” and the narrative describes Og carrying a flame—presumably taken from the volcano or another source. The volcano itself is a “Fire Demon” and a “Fire Monster,” a destructive force that Og must learn to control or steal from.

The language around fire is consistently violent: the volcano “vomits” smoke, lava flows like “giant reptiles of fire,” and the earth cracks open. Og’s relationship to fire is therefore ambiguous—he is both its son and its thief. The excerpts do not show him creating fire, only using it. This distinguishes the book from many prehistoric stories where a lone hero invents fire. Here, fire is a dangerous, existing element that Og must appropriate.

The wolf cubs’ reaction to the tiger meat—they eat it greedily while Og finds it “not pleasant”—further underscores the theme of domestication, both of animals and of natural forces. Fire, like the cubs, must be tamed.

Readers should pay attention to the recurring contrast between Og’s solitary resourcefulness and the collective fear of the tribe. The excerpts suggest a story less about the discovery of fire than about the social consequences of possessing it. The volcano is not a one-time event but a constant backdrop; the real drama may lie in how Og’s new tools and knowledge change his standing among the hairy people and the tree people alike.

Og spent so long carrying that flame, afraid it would die before he reached his people. I still think about that quiet fear, how some things feel too fragile to hold. The Wreck of the Mail Steamer — A Reader’s Guide carries a similar ache for me—watching something precious slip away across cold water, and the strange peace that comes after letting go.