The Lazi People:
The huge temperate rain forest which still covers the mountains of the eastern Pontos has wild animals: boar, bear and deer. The Lazi, or perhaps only the older Lazi in their more remote villages, think that it also contains monsters. The Germakoci, for instance, is a giant creature, human in form but covered with fur, which sometimes approaches hunters in the high forest. Slow-witted, the Germakoci reacts to human beings with curiosity rather than aggression, and likes to imitate whatever they do; the way to be rid of him to set fire to a twig and wave it around, so that the giant seizing the burning brand, sets light to his own fur. Roaring with alarm, he plunges downhill and runs until he reaches the Black Sea and leaps into it.
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