The Junior Classics, Volume 1: Fairy and wonder tales
General
The Junior Classics, Volume 1: Fairy and wonder tales
Children's literature
The little Tailor set out, and the hundred horsemen followed him. When
he came to the outskirts of the wood he said to his followers: “You
wait here, I’ll manage the Giants by myself;” and he went on into the
wood, casting his sharp little eyes right and left about him. After a
while he spied the two Giants lying asleep under a tree, snoring till
the very boughs bent with the breeze. The little Tailor lost no time in
filling his wallet with stones, and then climbed up the tree under
which they lay. When he got to about the middle of it he slipped along
a branch till he sat just above the sleepers, when he threw down one
stone after the other on the nearest Giant. The Giant felt nothing for
a long time, but at last he woke up, and pinching his companion said:
“What did you strike me for?” “I didn’t strike you,” said the other;
“you must be dreaming.” They both lay down to sleep again, and the
Tailor threw down a stone on the second Giant, who sprang up and cried:
“What’s that for? Why did you throw something at me?” “I didn’t throw
anything,” growled the first one. They wrangled on for a time, till as
both were tired, they made up the matter and fell asleep again. The
little Tailor began his game once more, and flung the largest stone he
could find in his wallet with all his force, and hit the first Giant on
the chest. “This is too much of a good thing!” he yelled, and springing
up like a madman, he knocked his companion against the tree till he
trembled. He gave, however, as good as he got, and they became so
enraged that they tore up trees and beat each other with them, till
they both fell dead at once on the ground. Then the little Tailor
jumped down. “It’s a mercy,” he said, “that they didn’t root up the
tree on which I was sitting, or I should have had to jump like a
squirrel on to another, which, nimble though I am, would have been no
easy job.” He drew his sword and gave each of the Giants a very fine
thrust or two on the breast, and then went to the horsemen and said:
“The deed is done; I’ve put an end to the two of them; but I assure you
it has been no easy matter, for they even tore up trees in their
struggle to defend themselves; but all that’s of no use against one who
slays seven men at a blow.” “Weren’t you wounded?” asked the horsemen.
“No fear,” answered the Tailor; “they haven’t touched a hair of my
head.” But the horsemen wouldn’t believe him till they rode into the
wood and found the Giants weltering in their blood, and the trees lying
around, torn up by the roots.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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