There was once a boy called Jack who lived with his mother and their most valuable
possession was their cow. But the day came when it gave them no milk and Jack's mother
said she must be sold. So Jack set out to market. After a while he sat down to rest by the
side of the road. An old man came by and Jack told him where he was going. The man
offered to buy the cow with three magic beans. Jack agreed. When he reached home, Jack
told hisow he had exchanged the cow for five beans and before he could finish his
account, his mother started to shout and box his ears. She flung the beans through the
open window and sent Jack to bed without his supper. When Jack woke the next morning
all he could see from the window was green leaves. A huge beanstalk had shot up
overnight. It grew higher than he could see. Quickly Jack got dressed and stepped out of
the window right onto the beanstalk and started to climb. Jack climbed until at last he
reached the top. Jack followed it until he came to a great castle Just as he reached the
door of the castle he nearly tripped over the feet of an enormous woman. Now the giant's
wife had a kind heart so she gave Jack a sandwich. He was still eating it when the ground
began to shake with heavy footsteps, and a loud voice boomed:
"Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman,
Be he alive or be he dead,
I'll grind his bones to make my bread."
A huge giant came into the room. Carefully he picked up two gold coins and ran as fast
as he could to the top of the beanstalk. He threw the gold down to his mother's garden
and climbed after it. At the bottom he found his mother looking in amazement at the gold
coins and the beanstalk. It was all the same as before, the long climb, the road to the
castle, the smell of breakfast and the giant's wife. This time Jack stole a hen that laid
golden eggs.* Jack and his mother now lived in great luxury. But in time Jack became a
little bored and decided to climb the beanstalk again. This time he did not risk talking to
the giant's wife in case she recognized him. This time he tried stealing a magic harp from
the giant. But the harp called out loudly, "Master, save me! Save me!" and the giant
woke. With a roar of rage he chased after Jack. Jack raced down the beanstalk the giant
followed, but at last he reached the ground and seized an axe and chopped at the
beanstalk down. “Look out, mother!" he called as the giant came tumbling clown, head
first. He lay dead at their feet. Jack and his mother and they lived happily and in great
comfort for a long, long time.
*Jack lifted himself onto the knotted, splintered table and crept along the edge. He
tried not to look down. If he fell, he knew he’d splatter like an egg dropped on the
massive stone slabs lining the dirty kitchen floor below.
The hen sat next to the giant’s boulder-sized fist, breathing slowly, its reddish
feathers lifting and sagging. Its beady, black eyes shined in the light of the giant’s torchsized candle as they watched Jack slink slowly past the brass candlestick.
Jack inched closer to the giant, trying to ignore the stench drifting from the
creature’s drooling, snoring mouth. It stank like the hog guts his uncle Staefner would
throw out to the dogs after the November butchering. Only the stink also bore the rot of
blood. Of terror. Jack tried not to look at the mangled leg sticking out from between the
giant’s double row of fence-picket fangs, but every time the creature let out a long snore
the leg would bounce like it was trying to run out from between the teeth.
He forced himself to look away when he saw the toes curl as the giant sucked in a
sloppy sleeping breath.
The hen was only a horse-length away, no farther than Jack had jumped when he
would play near the ditches at the edge of his uncle’s oat field.
“Kissy,” Jack whispered. “Kissy, kissy, chicky chick. Come into my hand so
quick.” His uncle Staefnar had taught him the rhyme last winter, just a few days before
he’d been killed by bandits while riding home one snowy evening after Christmastide.
Jack extended his pinky finger and wriggled it so that the hen might take it for a
pink, fat worm.
The hen craned her neck and rose on her yellow, scaly feet. Her small head tilted
and her black eyes watched his finger as she walked toward him, her nails clicking
against the wood. To Jack, they sounded like ice cracking in the forest, as though each
click might wake the giant behind them.
He stepped carefully, his leather shoes quiet – oh so carefully quiet – on the tableboards.
“Kissy, kissy,” Jack whispered. “Click and cluck, get and got, you’ll cook so
pretty in my pot…”
The hen froze. She stared at Jack’s hand.
He wriggled his pinky finger.
The hen hopped away as Jack lunged for her. She ran, jumping and flapping,
landing neatly on top of the giant’s scaly fist. She bobbed along the edge of the hand and
settled into the curve of a great, gnarled knuckle.
She clucked. Her black eyes blinked at Jack.
I bet you, they seemed to say. I bet you a loaf of whitest bread ground from the
finest bone. I bet you can’t catch me.