Types of Children's Literature: A Collection of the World's Best Literature for Children, For Use in Colleges, Normal Schools and Library Schools
General
Types of Children's Literature: A Collection of the World's Best Literature for Children, For Use in Colleges, Normal Schools and Library Schools
Children's literature
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 pocketfuls of stones
and with these climbed up a tree. When he was halfway 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 them both 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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