Fairy Tales for Young Readers

by E. Nesbit

  Jack stopped about a hundred yards from the castle gates and began to dig; and I think that pickaxe must have been a magic one, because before dawn he had dug a pit twenty feet deep and ten feet wide. Then he cut trees down—no doubt with the magic pickaxe—and covered up the pit with the branches, and strewed earth and loose grass and stones, and made everything look as though it were solid ground.

  Then he ran back a dozen paces and blew on his horn, looking up at the castle windows in the chill grey of the dawn.

  The giant inside the castle was not used to getting up so early in the morning, for he was a luxurious dog, and often lay in bed as late as nine o’clock. He put his big ugly head out of the castle window—the one that was over the front door—and saw Jack dancing about a little way down the mountain blowing like mad on his aggravating horn.

  “You saucy scoundrel!” said the giant. “You shall pay for this. I’ll grill you for my breakfast.”

  And next minute the heavy door opened, and out came the giant. Jack just laughed, and the giant strode down the mountain shaking a fist at him as big as a leg of Leicester mutton.

  And next minute, crash! smash! the boughs broke under his weight, and there was the giant in the pit Jack had dug for him.

  “What now?” cried Jack, still laughing. “Will nothing serve you for breakfast but poor little Jack?”

  And with that he hit the top of the enormous head with the pickaxe, and so Giant Cormoran came by his death.

  Then Jack ran to the town just as people were beginning to open their shops and sweep in front of their doors, and he climbed to the top of the market cross, and from there told the good news to the people who crowded round.

  All the justices and persons of importance, when they came to know what Jack had done, decided that he ought to have a reward, so they gave him a sword of blue steel, and a squire’s belt, and on the belt the young ladies of the town worked in gold thread certain words:

  “This is the valiant Cornishman

  Who killed the giant Cormoran.”

  So Jack went home to his father very proud and happy, but less inclined than ever to be a ferry-man.

  Now everyone was talking of Jack’s courage and cleverness, and a giant named Blunderbore took an oath before seven other giants who happened to be dining with him at Easter that he would kill Jack and avenge Cormoran’s death.

  And Jack heard of it, and kept out of the way. But when October came, and Blunderbore was brewing his autumn ale, he went to the river with a tub to get water for his brewing, and by the river lay Jack, fast asleep.

  The giant knew him by the words on his belt, so he picked him up very gently with his finger and thumb, and carried him off to the enchanted castle in a wood, which was Blunderbore’s home, and Jack woke up to find himself where he had no wish to be. For the giant flung him into a horrible room half filled with the bones of his victims, and said:

  “You are going to be my supper, and I am going to fetch a friend to sup with me.”

  He started off, and Jack, left alone, set his wits to work. From every side came shrieks of poor people shut up in other dungeons, and this worried him a good deal. But it did not prevent his seeing that two stout cords hung from pulleys to a beam in the roof.

  Jack made a running noose in each cord, and watched through the window, and when the two giants came along arm in arm he dropped the two ropes over their two giant heads just as they were coming in at the door. Then he pulled away till both were strangled, and that was the end of them. He slid down one of the ropes and stabbed each of the giants with his sword, to make sure, and then he took the keys out of Blunderbore’s pocket and set all the other poor prisoners free.

  Then he started to go home again, but the giant had carried him a long way, and now it was quite dark, and he was still far from the ferry. So, coming to a comfortable-looking house, he knocked at the door to ask for a night’s lodging. And who should open the door but a giant—that was the sort of thing that would happen to Jack—and the giant had two heads.

  However, both heads nodded, and the two mouths smiled in a friendly way, and he took Jack in, gave him pork and beans for supper, and showed him a bedroom with a good bed in it, and plenty of blankets for coverings.

  But Jack had no sleep in his eyes, and as he lay awake he heard the giant in the next room mumbling to himself, and presently he heard what it was that the giant was saying. It was this:

  “Although ye lodge with me this night,

  Ye shall not see the morning’s light—

  My club shall smash your brains outright.”

  This was not a soothing lullaby, and Jack felt less sleepy than ever.

  “Fair and soft,” said he; “so these are your pleasant ways with poor travellers! I must try a match with you, my kind host.”

  He got up, and felt about in the dark for a big log of rotten wood that he had noticed on the hearth, put it on the bed, and covered it up in the blankets. Then he hid himself in the corner of the room behind some old saddles and sacks of hard pears.

  It was just as well he did, for before long the giant came in and beat on the bed with his great club till he thought he had killed his visitor.

  Therefore the giant was very much surprised when, the next morning, Jack tapped at his door and thanked him for his night’s lodging.

  “Bless my body!” said the giant (whose name was Red Morgan), “is it you? And how did you sleep last night? Did anything disturb you?”

  “Oh, no,” said Jack. “I slept sound enough; only once a rat or suchlike ran over the bed and tickled my nose with its tail.”

  The giant scratched his two red heads, for he was very much perplexed.

  “Well,” he said, “come you down to breakfast.”

  The breakfast was hasty pudding, and while the giant was ladling it out of the big black pot on the hearth Jack tied his leathern wallet round his neck so that it hung out of sight, between his shirt and his skin.

  Then, as fast as he could, he spooned up the hot pudding, pretending to put it in his mouth, but really he dropped it nearly all into the wallet.

  “Dear heart alive!” said Red Morgan, who was Welsh, “you eat as much as hur can hurself.”

  “That’s nothing,” said Jack. “I can do more than you can, good sir. I can walk on my little fingers with my heels in the air. I can cut off my head and stick it on again. I can rip up my paunch and bring back all your hasty pudding!”

  And with that he slit open the wallet with his knife, and two or three quarts of hasty pudding blobbed out upon the floor.

  “Odds splutterkins!” said the giant, “hur can do that hurself!”

  So saying, he plunged his great knife into his own fat stomach, and fell down on the stone floor as dead as mutton. Thus Jack settled yet another giant.

  Jack’s next adventure he had in the company of King Arthur’s only son, whom he chanced to meet when the Prince was on his way to rescue a lovely lady from the power of a magician. They agreed to travel together, and as the Prince was very kind and gave to all the poor who asked, the two presently found themselves without money for a night’s lodging.

  Jack, never at a loss, stopped at the first giant’s house they came to—the country seems to have been full of such houses—hid the Prince in a hollow tree, and knocked at the big front door. The giant put his head out of the window and said, “Who’s there?” just as you or I might if someone came to the door very late.

  “It’s only your poor little cousin Jack,” said the giant-killer.

  “Well, what’s the best news, cousin,” said the giant.

  “There’s nothing but bad news,” said Jack. “King Arthur has conquered all his enemies, and just to keep his hands warm he is sending his son to kill you and throw down your strong towers.”

  “Fiddlededee!” said the giant. “He can’t do it.”

  “Oh, cousin,” said Jack, “but he has two thousand soldiers with swords and two thousand men with battering-rams.”

  “T
hat’s a very different pair of shoes, Cousin Jack,” said the giant. “Come in and hide me in the stone cellar till they are gone. Blood’s thicker than water, and cousins should help each other.”

  So Jack locked the giant in the stone cellar, and then, of course, he and the Prince had the run of the house and larder. They ate well, and drank well, and slept in the giant’s best bed with the tapestry hangings.

  Next morning the two threw bread and bones about, and slopped red wine on the table and among the rushes on the floor, to make believe that many had been feasting. Then the Prince set out alone, and Jack lighted a torch at the kitchen embers, and went to let out the giant.

  He seems to have been a nice gentle, grateful giant, and I suppose Jack thought so too, for he did not try any of his deceitful giant-killing tricks here. Only when the giant had thanked him again and again for his kind help, and said, “How can I reward you?” Jack replied:

  “Give me only the old coat and cap and the old shoes, and the rusty sword and belt that hang under the tester of your best bed.”

  Then the giant laughed, and said, “You are as crafty as I am big. Well, well, take them. The coat’s the coat of darkness, and when you wear it no one can see you; the cap is the cap of knowledge, and will show you all things; the shoes are the shoes of swiftness—no one can catch you when you run in them; and the sword is the sword of sharpness, and will cut through iron bars as easy as through a nettle-stalk. Take them, Cousin Jack, and my blessing with them; and so goodbye, cousin.”

  These four gifts made it an easy matter to find the magician, cut off his head, and free the Prince’s lady; and when this was done the three went to Court, and the Prince and the lady were married, and Jack was made a Knight of the Round Table.

  But Jack wanted more adventures; so he set out, and had the good luck to meet a giant who was carrying away a knight and a lady. This giant also he killed, and then sought out the giant’s twin brother, who lived in a cave, and finished him off too, all in one day. It was mere child’s-play now to Jack, killing giants, because he had the wonderful coat and sword and shoes and cap.

  Then he went and supped with the knight and the lady in their castle. There was a splendid banquet, and the harper made a great song of Jack’s mighty deeds, and the knight gave him a gold ring with a picture on the bezel of the giant carrying off the knight and the lady.

  And just when everything was at its jolliest a white-faced messenger rushed in and cried out in a terrible voice that the great two-headed Cornish giant, Thundel, was coming to avenge the death of his cousins, whom Jack had killed that day. Instantly all was confusion. The archers ran to the narrow windows; the crossbow men took up their station on the battlements. Some ran to raise the drawbridge, others to lower the portcullis, and yet others made haste to heat lead to pour through the holes in the great gateway.

  But Jack said, “Now you shall see some sport.”

  He ordered the men to let down the drawbridge and saw it nearly in two in the middle. Then he put on the coat of darkness and the shoes of swiftness, and went out to meet the giant, who came lumbering along, shaking the earth as he came, and sniffling and turning his two heads this way and that. He cried out in a voice as big as a church-bell’s voice:

  “Fee, foh, fah, fum,

  I smell the blood of an Englishman;

  Be he alive or be he dead,

  I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.”

  “You must catch your bird before you cook him,” said Jack, and pulled off his coat and ran. The giant ran clumsily after him, and Jack ran three times round the moat, just to show off, and then over the drawbridge. It bore his light weight easily, but when the giant reached the middle it broke, and he fell into the deep moat, and floundered there like a whale. Jack called for a rope, noosed the giant’s heads, and drew them close to shore, so that he could cut them off with his sharp sword, and he sent the heads in a hired waggon, with six horses to draw it, as a little present to King Arthur.

  Nothing ever seems to have happened to Jack except things that had to do with giants. In later years he won his wife from a giant and an enchanter who had changed her from a woman to a snow-white deer. She was the Count Palatine’s daughter, and he was very much annoyed about it. And no one could rescue her, because she was in a magic castle guarded by sleepless griffins.

  However, the coat of darkness made it easy to hoodwink the griffins, and Jack got safely to the castle gate. There hung a golden horn, with these words on it:

  “Whoever can this trumpet blow

  Shall cause the giant’s overthrow.”

  “Come, that’s simple,” said Jack, and blew till he was out of breath.

  And the gates flew open, and the castle fell into a heap of loose stones, crushing the giant and the magician. But the snow-white deer and a crowd of other enchanted creatures were unhurt, and as the dust of the falling castle settled down they found their own shapes again, and there was the Count Palatine’s daughter, looking as pretty as a pink in June. The Count Palatine gave Jack her hand in marriage, which King Arthur said was the very least a grateful father could do. And the King himself added a handsome castle and a settled income, so that the pair were very well to do, and as happy as the day was long. Jack’s father was sent for to Court, and well provided for.

  Perhaps all the giants were dead, or perhaps Jack’s wife thought he had killed enough giants for one man, or perhaps he was tired. At any rate, it is certain that after his marriage he killed no more giants.

  PUSS IN BOOTS

  THERE WAS ONCE a miller who had three sons, and all day they all worked in the mill, and were powdered white with the flour, that makes a sort of dun-coloured fog in mills, and at night they slept soundly because they had been working all day, and there is nothing like that to make you sleep like any old top. They used to get up very early in the morning, to get to work again. But the old miller was up earlier than any one. The four of them had saved enough money to keep the old man in comfort in the days when he should be too old for work, and they knew that by working as they had always done they could save enough to keep the three lads from the workhouse, or from having to beg, when they too should grow old. And they were all happy and contented. And then suddenly a dreadful thing happened. The miller lent all his money to a farmer friend, who promised to pay it back after harvest; but there was a flood, and the harvest was ruined. The farmer hanged himself to his own barn-beam, and the shock of losing at once his money and his friend was too much for the old miller, and he died. On his deathbed he said: “My dear sons, I leave the mill to Bertrand, who is the eldest, the donkey to Alain, my second son, and the mill cat to Yvo, my youngest, with my last blessing to you all.”

  So he died and was buried, and the two eldest brothers, with their mill and donkey, set to work to keep the trade going. But Yvo’s cat was of no use in the mill except for mouse-catching, so Alain and Bertrand told him that he must look out for a home elsewhere.

  Then they went off to cut sedge to mend the thatch-roof with, and Yvo was left alone with his cat, who sat looking at him with big round, yellow eyes.

  “Much good you are to me, old fellow,” he said to the cat. “You can catch mice and do pretty well for yourself—and that’s a good thing. But the most you could do for me would be to die, and then I could make a cap out of your soft skin. And I’d rather you didn’t die, so keep your life and enjoy it, old Michau, for I’m off to the wars for a soldier.”

  “Don’t you be in such a hurry,” said the cat. “Who told you I was only good for catching mice?”

  “Eh?” said Yvo, who was as much astonished as you would be if your cat said anything more to you than “Miaow!” or “Purr.”

  “You’re a good boy all the same,” said the cat, licking his long white whiskers. “You don’t wish me dead so as to have my skin, so I’ll show you what I am good for. You go up into the back attic, where the beans and peas and roots are stored, and in the chink between the third and fourth boards close by th
e old cradle you’ll find a ten-penny piece that has lain there this last hundred years. You take that to the shoemaker, and tell him to make me a pair of boots. Then you make me a bag—cut the tails of your shirt off if you haven’t any other cloth—and run strings in the bag. Let me have them by Sunday, and then you shall see what you shall see.”

  Yvo did exactly as he was told, which was very sensible of him, and by Sunday the cat had his boots and his bag. The boots were beautiful boots—topboots with yellow heels—and the bag was made of the tails of Yvo’s best blue shirt.

  Very early on Monday morning Puss got up and went over the hill to a rabbit warren. The rabbits were out already nibbling the dewy grass; but the grass, though dewy, was short, and the rabbits were very hungry.

  Michau laid out his bag, with parsley and bran in it, fixed the mouth of the bag open by a strong frond of bracken, and then hid himself behind a stone, holding the strings of the bag in his paws.

  The silly bunnies saw and sniffed, and sniffed and longed, and longed and tasted, and two, bolder than the others, went head first into the bag, and plunged their greedy, nibbling noses right into the heap of bran.

  That was what Puss had been waiting for. He pulled the strings, the strings drew up the mouth of the bag, and there were two fine fat rabbits kicking and struggling inside.

  Michau killed each with a quick bite at the back of the neck, and then set out for the King’s palace. When he got there he went to the side door, and asked to see the King, and all the handmaids and footmen and scullions and turn-spits laughed aloud at the very idea.

  “You see the King?” said the cook; “you’re much more likely to see the bottom of the moat, my fine fellow.”

  “Do you think so,” said the cat. “I shouldn’t be lonely there, anyhow—for you’d all be thrown after me as soon as the King knew that that was how you treated the messenger of my Lord the Marquis of Carabas.”