The little tailor went forth, and the hundred horsemen followed him.
When he came to the outskirts of the forest, he said to his followers,
“Just stay waiting here, I alone will soon finish off the giants.” Then
he bounded into the forest and looked about right and left. After a
while he perceived both giants. They lay sleeping under a tree, and
snored so that the branches waved up and down. The little tailor, not
idle, gathered two pocketsful of stones, and with these climbed up the
tree. When he was half-way up, he slipped down by a branch, until he
sat just above the sleepers, and then let one stone after another fall
on the breast of one of the giants. For a long time the giant felt
nothing, but at last he awoke, pushed his comrade, and said, “Why art
thou knocking me?” “Thou must be dreaming,” said the other, “I am not
knocking thee.” They laid themselves down to sleep again, and then the
tailor threw a stone down on the second. “What is the meaning of this?”
cried the other. “Why art thou pelting me?” “I am not pelting thee,”
answered the first, growling. They disputed about it for a time, but as
they were weary they let the matter rest, and their eyes closed once
more. The little tailor began his game again, picked out the biggest
stone, and threw it with all his might on the breast of the first
giant. “That is too bad!” cried he, and sprang up like a madman, and
pushed his companion against the tree until it shook. The other paid
him back in the same coin, and they got into such a rage that they tore
up trees and belabored each other so long, that at last they both fell
down dead on the ground at the same time. Then the little tailor leapt
down. “It is a lucky thing,” said he, “that they did not tear up the
tree on which I was sitting, or I should have had to spring on to
another like a squirrel; but we tailors are nimble.” He drew out his
sword and gave each of them a couple of thrusts in the breast, and then
went out to the horsemen and said, “The work is done; I have given both
of them their finishing stroke, but it was hard work! They tore up
trees in their sore need, and defended themselves with them, but all
that is to no purpose when a man like myself comes, who can kill seven
at one blow.” “But are you not wounded?” asked the horsemen. “You need
not concern yourself about that,” answered the tailor, “They have not
bent one hair of mine.” The horsemen would not believe him, and rode
into the forest; there they found the giants swimming in their blood,
and all round about lay the torn-up trees.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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