GIANT KILLER
W. WALKER AND SONS. OTLEY,
2 THE HISTORY OF
IN the reign of the famous king Arthur,
there lived in Cornwall, a lad named Jack, who
took delight in hearing of giants and fairies ;
and used to listen to the deeds of the knights
of King Arthur's Bound Table.
In those days there lived n St. Michael's
Mount, off Cornwall, a huge giant, eighteen
feet high, and his fierce looks were the terror
of all. He used to go to the mainland in search
of prey, when he would throw half a dozen
oxen on his back, and march back to his home.
Jack resolved to destroy him. So he took a
horn, a shovel, a pick-axe, his armour and a
dark lantern, and one winter's evening, went to
the mount. There he dug a pit twenty-two
feet deep, and covered the top to make it loolv
like solid ground. He then blew such a
tantivy that the giant awoke, and cried out,
" You saucy villain, you shall pay for this ; I'll
broil you for my breakfast."
He had just finished, when, taking one step
further, he tumbled headlong into the pit, and
Jack struck him a blow on the head with his
pick-axe, which killed him.
Another giant, called Blunderbore, vowed to
be revenged on Jack. This giant kept an en-
chanted castle in the midst of a lonely wood, in
which Jack, being weary, sat down and slept.
The giant seeing Jack, carried him to his
castle, where he locked him up in a large room.
Soon after, the giant went to fetch his brother
JACK THE GIANT KILLEK. 3
to take a meal off his flesh ; and Jack saw,
through the bars of his prison, the two giants
coming. So seeing a strong cord, he made a
slip-knot and threw it over their heads, and tied
it to the window bars and choked them. Jack
took a great bunch of keys from the pocket of
Blunderbore, and let out three ladies who were
almost starved to death in the castle.
Jack came to the house of a Welsh giant, and
said he was a traveller who had lost his way, on
which the giant made him welcome, and led him
into a room where there was a good bed to
sleep on. Jack took off his clothes, but could
not go to sleep. Soon after this he heard tho
giant walking backward and forward in the
rext room, and saying to himself,
" Though here you lodge with me this night,
You shall not see the morning light ;
My club shall dash your brains out quite."
"Say you so?" thought Jack. Are these
your tricks upon travellers ? But I hope to
prove as cunning as you are." Then getting
out of bed, he groped about the room, and at
last found a large thick billet of wood. He
laid it in his own place in the bed, and then
hid himself in a dark corner of the room. The
giant, about midnight, entered the apartment,
and with his bludgeon struck many blows on
the bed, in the very place where Jack had laid
the log, and then he went back to his own room,
TEH HISTORY OF
thinking he had broken all Jack's bones. Jack
put a bold face upon the matter in the morning,
and walked into the giant's room to thank him
for his lodging. The giant started when he saw
him and began to stammer out " Oh ! dear
me ! is it you ? " Pray how did you sleep last
night ? Did you hear or see anything in the
dead of the night ? " " Nothing worth speaking
of," said Jack carelessly, "a rat, I believe,
gave me three or four slaps with his tail, and
disturbed me a little ; but I soon went to sleep
again."
JACK THE GIANT KILLEB,
The giant wondered at this ; yet he did not
say a word, but went to fetch two great bowls
of hasty-pudding for their breakfast. Jack
wanted to make the giant believe that he could
eat as much aa himself; so he contrived to
button a leathern bag inside his coat, and slipt
the hasty-pudding into this bag, while no
seemed to put it into his mouth.
When breakfast was over, he said to the giant,
" Now I will show you a fine trick. I can cure
all wounds with a touch : I could cut off my
head, and in one minute put it sound again on
THE HISTORY OF
my shoulders. You shall see an example." He
then took a knife, ripped up the leathern bag,
and all the hasty-pudding fell upon the floor.
" Odds splutter hur nails," cried the giant,
who was ashamed to be outdone by such a little
fellow, " hur can that hurself ; " so he snatched
up the knife, plunged it into his own stomach,
and dropped down dead.
Jack having hitherto been successful, resolved
not to be idle in future : he therefore furnished
himself with a horse, a cap of knowledge, a sword
of sharpness, shoes of swiftness, and an invisible
JACK THH GIANT KILLER
coat, the better to perform the wonderful en-
terprise that lay before him. He travelled till
he came to a large and spacious forest, when he
beheld a monstrous giant dragging along by
the hair of their head* a handsome lady and her
knight. Jack alighted from his horse, and
putting on his invisible coat, approached, and
aimed a blow at the giant's head, but missing
his aim, he only cut off his nose. On this the
giant seized his club, and laid about him most
unmercifully. " Nay, said Jack, if this be the way,
I'd better dispatch you at once ; " BO jumping
THE HI8TOBY OF JACK, ETC.
upon the block, he stabbed him in the back,
wnen he dropped down dead.
Jack then went up to the king, and gave his
majesty an account of all his fierce battles.
Jack's fame had now spread through the
whole country, and at the king's desire the duke
gave him his daughter in marriage, to the joy
of all his kingdom. After this, the king cave
him a large estate, on which he and his lady
lived the rest of their days in joy and content-
ment.
