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GRIMM BROTHERS
Title:THE YOUNG GIANT AND THE TAILOR
Subject:FICTION
GRIMM
The Young Giant and the Tailor
A HUSBANDMAN had once a son, who was born no bigger than my thumb, and for many years did not grow a hair’s breadth taller. One day as the father was going to plough in the field, the little fellow said, ‘Father, let me go too.’ ‘No,’ said his father; ‘stay where you. are, you can do no good out of doors, and if you go perhaps I may lose you.’ Then little Thumbling fell a-crying: and his father, to quiet him, at last said he might go. So he put him in his pocket, and when he was in the field pulled him out and set him upon a newly made furrow, that he might look about. While he was sitting there, a great giant came striding over the bill. ‘Do you see that tall steeple-man?’ said the father: ‘he will run away with you.’ (Now he only said this to frighten the little boy if he should be naughty.) But the giant had long legs, and with two or three strides he really came close to the furrow, and picked up little Thumbling to look at him; and taking a liking to the little chap went off with him. The father stood by all the time, but could not say a word for fright; for he thought his child was really lost, and that he should never see him again.
But the giant took care of him at his house in the woods, and laid him in his bosom and fed him with the same food that he lived on himself. So Thumbling, instead of being a little dwarf became like the giant - tall and stout and strong: so that at the end of two years when the old giant took him into the wood to try him, and said, ‘Pull up that birch-tree for yourself to walk with;’ the lad was so strong that he tore it up by the root. The giant thought he should make him a still stronger man than this: so after taking care of him two years more, he took him into the wood to try his strength again. This time he took hold of one of the thickest oaks, and pulled it up as if it were mere sport to him. Then the old giant said, ‘Well done, my man, you will do now.’ So he carried him back to the field where he first found him. His father happened to be just then ploughing as the young giant went up to him, saying, ‘Look here, father, see who I am; — don’t you see I am your son?’ But the husbandman was frightened, and cried out, ‘No, no, you are not my son; begone about your business.’ ‘Indeed, I am your son; let me plough a little, I can plough as well as you.’ ‘No, go your ways,’ said the father, but as be was afraid of the tall man, he at last let go the plough and sat down on the ground beside it. Then the youth laid hold of the ploughshare, and though be only pushed with one hand, he drove it deep into the earth. The ploughman cried out, ‘If you must plough, pray do not push so hard; you are doing more harm than good;’ but he took off the horses, and said, ‘Father, go home and tell my mother to get ready a good dinner; I’ll go round the field meanwhile.’ So he went on driving the plough without any horses, till he had done two mornings’ work by himself; then he harrowed it, and when all was over, took up plough, harrow, horses and all, and carried them home like a bundle of straw. When he reached the house he sat himself down on the bench, saying, ‘Now, mother, is dinner ready?’ ‘Yes,’ said she, for she dared not deny him; so she brought two large dishes full, enough to have lasted herself and her husband eight days; however, be soon ate it all up, and said that was but a taste. ‘I see very well, father, that I shan’t get enough to eat at your house; so if you will give me an iron walking-stick, so strong that I cannot break it against my knees, I will go away again.’ The husbandman very gladly put his two horses to the cart and drove them to the forge, and brought back a bar of iron as long and as thick as his two horses could draw; but the lad laid it against his knee; and snap! it went like a broken beanstalk. ‘I see, father,’ said he, ‘you can get no stick that will do for me, so I’ll go and try my luck by myself.’ Then away he went, and turned blacksmith, and travelled till he came to a village where lived a miserly smith, who earned a good deal of money, but kept all he got to himself, and gave nothing away to any body. The first thing he did was to step into the smithy, and ask if the smith did not want a journeyman. ‘Aye,’ said the cunning fellow, (as he looked at him and thought what a stout chap he was, and how lustily he would work and earn his bread,) ‘what wages do you ask?’ ‘I want no pay,’ said he; ‘but every fortnight when the other workmen are paid, you shall let me give you two strokes over the shoulders to amuse myself.’ The old smith thought to himself he could bear this very well, and reckoned on saving a great deal of money; so the bargain was soon struck. The next morning the new workman was about to begin to work; but at the first stroke that he hit, when his master brought him the iron red hot, he shivered it in pieces, and the anvil sunk so deep into the earth, that he could not get it out again. This made the old fellow very angry; ‘Halloo!’ cried he, ‘I can’t have you for a workman, you are too clumsy; we must put an end to our bargain.’ ‘Very well,’ said the other, ‘but you must pay for what I have done, so let me give you only one little stroke, and then the bargain is all over ‘ So saving, he gave him a thump that tossed him over a load of hay that stood near. Then he took the thickest bar of iron on the forge for a walking-stick, and went on his way. When he had journeyed some way, he came to a farmhouse, and asked the farmer if he wanted a foreman. The farmer said, ‘Yes,’ and the same wages were agreed for as before with the blacksmith. The next morning the workmen were all to go into the wood; but the giant was found to be fast asleep in his bed when the rest were all up and ready to start. ‘Come, get up,’ said one of them to him, ‘it is high time to be stirring; you must go with us.’ ‘Go your way,’ muttered he sulkily, ‘I shall have done my work and get home long before you.’ So he lay in bed two hours longer, and at last got up and cooked and ate his breakfast, and then at his leisure harnessed his horses to go to the wood. Just before the wood was a hollow, through which all must pass; so he drove the cart on first, and built up behind him such a mound of faggots and briars that no horse could pass. This done, he drove on, and as he was going into the wood met the others coming out on their road home; ‘Drive away,’ said he, ‘I shall be home before you still.’ However, he only went a very little way into the wood and tore up one of the largest timber trees, put it into his cart, and turned about homewards. When he came to the pile of faggots, he found all the others standing there, not being able to pass by, ‘So,’ said he, ‘you see if you had stayed with me, you would have been home just as soon, and might have slept an hour or two longer.’ Then he took his tree on one shoulder, and his cart on the other, and pushed through as easily as though he were laden with feathers, and when he reached the yard showed the tree to the farmer, and asked if it was not a famous walking-stick. ‘Wife,’ said the farmer, ‘this man is worth something; if he sleeps longer, still he works better than the rest.’ Time rolled on, and he ...
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