10. Jack, the Giant-Killer

Once a poor farmer had a good son named Jack, who was wide-awake and always ready to help. Far up on the mountain in a great cave lived a wicked Giant named Carmoran, who was so fierce and frightful that everybody was afraid of him. Every time he wanted food he came down the mountain to the valley and carried off oxen on his back, and pigs and sheep tied around his waist. The people were in despair. One day Jack heard the town officers say: “All the treasure the Giant has hidden in his cave shall be given to whoever rids the land of this evil Giant!” Jack laughed and said to them, “I will try!” So he took his horn and pick-axe and shovel and began digging a pit, deep and broad, covering it with sticks and straw. Then he sprinkled earth over it until the place looked like solid ground. Then he stood on the other side of the pit, and just at the peep of day he put his horn to his mouth and blew, “Tan-tivy! Tan-tivy!” The old Giant awoke, rubbed his eyes and rushed out of his cave, and seeing Jack running away, cried, “You villain, I’ll pay you for troubling my sleep! I’ll boil you for breakfast!” Just as he said that down he fell into the pit, and the very foundations of the mountains trembled at his fall. “O Giant,” laughed Jack, “will no other food suit you than sweet Jack?” Jack was not long in killing the wicked old Giant in the pit. Then he went to the cave and brought out all the treasure. When the town officers heard of this good deed Jack, the farmer’s son, had done, they called him

“Jack, the Giant-killer.”

They gave him a sword and belt, and in the belt they wrote: