THE AMAZING AND FANTASTIC TALE OF JACK AND THE MAGICAL BEANSTALK, ALSO KNOWN AS THE AWESOME AND FELL TALE OF JACK THE GIANT-KILLER
Sub-titled: When Giants Stalked the Land or In the Land of the Giants
England, 14th century
Oh, there you are! Are you waiting for another story? Sorry, I was finishing the washing-up. Best to get it out of the way, eh? Right-ho, what’s it to be today, then? I know. Jack the Giant Killer. Fourteenth century England. Shortly after the time of Robin Hood, and right about the time of the plague. No one was very happy at this particular point in history, there were a lot of bad things going on, wars, disease, that sort of thing. It didn’t do to be poor in those days, I can tell you.
Anyway, just outside the small village of Much-Gurning-in-the-Marsh, Jack Dogsbody lived with his mother, Gertrude, and his father, Giles Dogsbody. You may be wondering how the family came by the name of “Dogsbody”? I’ll tell you. Giles was a serf. That means nothing much more than a servant, really, and most people who were little more than servants were often called “dogsbodies”. Somehow, the name had stuck. Of course, Dogsbody wasn’t the real family name. Giles was of stout British stock. But, when the Normans came, all the family names were lost in the mists of time, and he had to be content with the name “Dogsbody”. In actual fact, his real name wasn’t Giles, either. He pinched that from the Norman lord who took over the local lands, as well. His real name was something like “Ug”, probably meant to be Hugh, or something like that. Giles, of course, was a French name, and Giles, or “Ug”, was a true Brit.
There, that’s cleared that up. Just in case of any misunderstandings, you understand. Best to get these things settled up front, as it were. Giles worked a very small piece of land belonging to the Lord of the Manor, paid most of what he earned in taxes and barely scraped a living for them all. They kept a few geese, a few chickens, a goat, and two cows, Polly and Daisy. The winter had been particularly hard, and when summer came, Giles decided that he would have to sell one of the cows.
‘Jack, you shall take Polly to market. Make sure you don’t come back with less than one whole shilling, or the equivalent. If you do, I’ll beat you till you’re black and blue.’
‘Yes, father,’ Jack said obediently. ‘What does equivalent mean?’
‘God help me!’ exploded his father. ‘Don’t they teach you anything at school nowadays?’
‘I don’t go to school, father. You make me work on the farm!’ wailed Jack.
‘What? Oh, very well! Equivalent means “having the same value”. Now get on with you. I need that shilling to buy bread and onions for tonight’s dinner.’
‘Bread and onions, what can you make with that?’ Jack asked himself as he trudged through the mud to the pen to tie a rope around Polly the cow. ‘Onion sandwiches, I suppose. Oh, well, better than nothing. Polly, come here, time for your walk.’
Polly turned her huge eyes on him and ambled over to him, still chewing the mouthful of grass she had torn from the field a minute or so ago.
‘Say goodbye to your friends, Polly. We’re off to market. I’m to sell you to buy bread and onions. Myself, I’d far rather starve and keep you, I’m not particularly partial to onion sandwiches. but you know what my father’s like!’
Jack set off for the village market, pulling Polly, who seemed reluctant to go. Really, she was too set in her ways. She had a nice life on Giles’ farm, eating all day, producing milk and the occasional calf, talking to her friends, the chickens, the geese and the goat, and she didn’t want to change her ways just now. Not what she had in mind at all. But Jack kept a tight rein on her, and before long they saw the houses and market stalls of Much-Gurning-in-the-Marsh. Incidentally, it won’t do to get too fond of Polly, because her part in this story is about to come to an abrupt end. ‘Here we are, Polly. Let’s see if we can get a better price and the shilling Dad’s after for you.’
Jack started to lead Polly to the market stalls when a tall man wearing a tunic of green cloth and a dark brown hood came up to him. ‘That’s a fine specimen, my lad,’ the man said. ‘How much do you want for her?’
‘Well,’ Jack said, rubbing his chin – he’d seen his father do the very same thing while haggling over the price of something – ‘I’d want at least a shilling, you see.’ It may have occurred to you at this stage in the story that Jack wasn’t particularly bright. I mean, it’s obvious, isn’t it? If you want to sell something for more than a shilling, you start off by asking for more than a shilling, don’t you? You’d say, “well, I couldn’t go lower than one shilling and sixpence”, and then you might get one shilling and three pence. That’s how it works. You never say “I’d want at least a shilling’, because that then becomes the most you’d get. Not all the people were stupid in those days. True, they didn’t have the same education that we have today, but that didn’t mean they were stupid. Well, not all of them.
Perhaps I should take a moment to explain that a shilling is a very old measure of money, worth about five pence in today’s money. There were twelve pennies in a shilling, twenty-four half-pennies, and forty-eight farthings. Four threepenny bits. A shilling doesn’t seem much for a cow, does it? Anyway, on with the story.
The man in green stroked his chin just as Jack had done. He could see he was in for some hard bargaining here. (Not really, he could see that Jack was just a simple young boy, but he wanted Jack to think that he was about to enter into some hard bargaining).
‘A shilling? I could get a similar cow for tenpence in that stall over there!’
‘Well, all right,’ said Jack. ‘You can have her for ninepence if you like. Father will still be able to buy bread and onions with ninepence, won’t he?’
‘I should think he could buy a whole cartload of onions and a hundred loaves for ninepence,’ the man in green said. ‘But I don’t have ninepence. I was on my way to market when I was set upon by three men. They beat me within an inch of my life, and stole all my money. All I have left is some magic beans!’
Now it is a measure of just how simple Jack was that he believed the man in green in the first place, for there was no evidence he had been beaten at all. Moreover, when he heard the words “magic beans”, his eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. As soon as he’d closed it, he said: ‘Magic beans, you say?’
‘Yes, magic beans. I’d give you the magic beans in exchange for your cow, but you might not think that was such a good bargain,’ the man in green said.
‘Not much of a bargain? Are you kidding? It’s a deal!’ cried Jack. The man in green could hardly believe his luck. The hard bargaining had not been as hard as he might have thought. He thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out a handful of beans. He took one bean and put it back in his pocket.
‘I’d better keep one bean, just for luck,’ he said. ‘Here you are, nine beans for your cow. I say again, in front of witnesses, is it a deal?’
‘I’ll say!’ said Jack. He could hardly believe his luck. Magic beans! His father would be so proud of him for striking such a fantastic bargain! He handed over Polly’s rope to the man in green, and turned around to start walking back to his father’s smallholding. Then he stopped. The man in green immediately tightened his grip on Polly’s rope. He already had a buyer for the cow, and had been promised four shillings for her.
‘Just a minute!’ Jack said, turning back. ‘What beans are they? Will they grow dwarf beans, runner beans, haricot beans? Franch Beans, maybe? Baked beans? Or what?’
The man in green breathed a sigh of relief. The boy may know about all kinds of beans, but he was still as stupid as they come. ‘Ah! A good question. I should have told you. Okay. These beans, if you plant them in the right place, will grow a hundred feet high. They will take you to the land of the giants, and there you will find a goose that lays special eggs. They will bring you good fortune, these beans.’
Jack frowned. ‘I already have eight geese.’
‘Yes, but not like this one!’ the man in green said. ‘This one lays golden eggs. Eggs made from pure gold!’
Now it could be that the man in green was also stupid, though not as stupid as Jack. Or it could just be that he had no idea that what he was telling was very near the truth. Which was that they were magic beans, and that they would grow very tall, and that if anyone were to climb them, they would find themselves in another land, where there were indeed to be found all manner of wonderful things, and not a few things that were not quite so wonderful, too. And the other thing the man in green did not realise was that he should have kept back two beans and given Jack eight. That way, the beans would always be able to multiply in his pocket. One bean was absolutely worthless, but two beans together were indeed magic. Well, it served him right, didn’t it? Because he was out to cheat Jack out of his cow by handing over what he thought was a handful of worthless beans.
‘Oh, I see,’ Jack said. ‘So they won’t produce beans of any kind, then?
‘Oh, yes, runner beans,’ the man said, then added, ‘I think. I’m not sure. No, Haricot beans. No, definitely runner beans.’ Jack seemed satisfied. He thrust the beans into his pocket and started off back to the farm. How pleased his father would be that he had struck such a bargain. Then he remembered something else he should have asked, and ran back again to the man in green, who by this time was about to sell Polly to another man for four shillings. In fact, the buyer was just handing over the coins to the man in green when Jack arrived, breathless.
‘What is it now?’ the man in green demanded furtively.
‘The special place. You said I had to plant the beans in a special place. What special place?’
The man in green scowled. He’d had enough of the stupid young boy. All he wanted was to spend his ill-gotten gains. ‘In the middle of a great big cow-pat!’ he said, and pushed his way through the crowd until he was lost from sight.
‘A cow-pat!’ whispered Jack. And again, the peculiar thing was, the man in green had got it just right once again, without realising it. The magic beans grew best if they were planted in the middle of a cow-pat. That’s why not many people get their bean plants to grow hundreds of feet tall and lead them to treasures beyond their wildest dreams – because they are just not prepared to plant them in the middle of cow-pats. Well, I mean to say – you wouldn’t would you? Not even if someone were to pay you.
Anyway, Jack trudged home, arriving at sundown. His father and mother were in the kitchen. His father was smoking his pipe, his mother was watching a pan full of boiling water and rice whilst cradling Jack’s baby sister, Jemima.
‘Well, did you get me my shilling?’ his father demanded.
‘Not exactly, no. I got something much better!’ Jack cried, beaming with pride.
‘Two shillings? Three shillings? A whole crown?’
‘Er, no. Not money at all. But these. Magic beans.’ Jack opened his palm and held out the handful of magic beans. At that moment the rice boiled over and the baby began to cry, loudly.
‘Magic beans!’ roared Jack’s father. ‘I told you to sell Polly for a shilling! What do you mean by coming back here with magic beans?’
‘Well,’ Jack said innocently, ‘they’re magic. They will bring us good fortune.’
Now Jack’s mother began to cry, too.
‘Mother, please don’t cry. The man said they were magic beans and they would bring us good fortune.’
Jack’s mother put the baby in the crib, still crying, and went to her son. For a moment he thought she was going to comfort him, but instead she slapped him hard across the side of the face – people did in those days – and scowled at him. ‘You stupid boy!’ she said. ‘You’re just a simpleton. Believing anything they tell you. There is no such thing as magic beans! Now we don’t even have enough money to buy bread and onions!’
‘Bread and onions, bread and onions!’ Jack cried through his tears. ‘What can you do with bread and onions? Make onion sandwiches? Urrgh! I don’t want onion sandwiches! I want sausages, and potatoes, and eggs, and bacon, and milk, and honey! Why are you so obsessed with bread and onions?’
‘Onion soup with croutons, you moron,’ shouted his father. ‘I said I’d beat you black and blue, and by God I will! Come here, boy!’
‘Give me those beans,’ demanded his mother.
‘I shan’t!’ Jack cried. ‘I got you magic beans and all you can think of to repay me is to beat me! I’ve had enough! I’m leaving home!’
He dodged his father’s outstretched arms and ran to the doorway. Both of his parents came after him, menacingly, their faces consumed with rage. Jack sprinted through the door and into the yard.
‘Let him go!’ his father said. ‘He’s worse than useless. One less mouth to feed!’
‘Time he left home anyway,’ his mother agreed. ‘He’s old enough to work.’ For it was a sad fact that families were not so close and loving as they are now, and children had to go out to work from a very early age. Jack, who was only a boy, about thirteen years old, was old enough to make his own way in the world, and by now should have been contributing to the family fortunes. Moreover, his mother and father were not particularly nice people. They were of good peasant stock, but they had no love for their son, whom they saw as a simpleton, a boy with little brains, and a drain on their resources. As his father said, “one less mouth to feed”.
So Jack trudged through the mud to the very edge of the land his father worked for the Lord of the Manor. At the edge of the field was a fence, beyond which was the steep slope of the hill. Away in the distance Jack saw his father’s other cow, Daisy, and ran to greet her. Daisy had always been his favourite of the two. That was not to say that he did not like Polly, but there was always a special bond between him and Daisy. He hugged her fiercely and poured out his troubles to her. Naturally enough, Daisy said nothing, just chewed away, probably wondering why a small boy was clinging to her talking in a language she simply did not understand. But it made him feel better. As for Daisy, well, she stood with her back end over the fence and did her business, right there and then.
Jack was almost knocked over by the stench of the enormous cow-pat, and started to move backwards, away from Daisy, but he tripped over a fallen branch and fell headlong. As he did so, his hand flew open and the beans sailed out of it and into the air, coming down to land – you guessed it – smack in the middle of Daisy’s fresh outpourings. And just then, it began to rain. Heavily.
Easy come, easy go, Jack thought. If they are magic beans, they’ll grow. If not, I’ll do as I said, I’ll leave home and seek my fortune. Jack stood up, brushed himself down and thought nothing more about the beans. Instead, he looked longingly at the steep hill, knowing that it was far too steep an incline for him to climb. God only knew what lay at the top of the hill. He would never find out. The smallholding his father managed for the Lord of the Manor lay in a valley, surrounded on all sides by hills and mountains. As far as he knew, no one ever left the valley, and no one ever came into it. The hills were simply too steep. It never occurred to anyone to wonder how the community had come to settle in the valley in the first place, for they were, by and large, simple, God-fearing folk who asked few questions. Jack sat gazing up at the huge green wall of grass, knowing that someone must have entered the valley some time ago in the long, distant past. One day he would find a way to leave the valley. He was aware that his mother and father did not value him. His future lay not with them, but elsewhere. Only right now, he knew not where. All he had been able to find to eat was a handful of wild mushrooms he had chanced upon beneath one of the trees in the little orchard that produced apples in the autumn. They tasted a little funny, so he saved them for the morning. He walked through the pouring rain back to an old, disused barn, and curled up for the night in a bale of straw that had been there for donkey’s years. Donkey’s years? That’s another expression I can’t explain. What, exactly, is a donkey’s year? Is it somehow different to one of our years, a standard three hundred and sixty-five day year? If somebody knows what a donkey’s year is, perhaps they can tell us next time. Right. On with the story.
In the morning, the sun was bright and early, if a little watery after all that rain. Jack got up, stretched, pinched an egg from the hen house and ate it raw – people did in those days, especially if they had drunk too much ale the previous evening, which Jack hadn’t, of course. Then he finished the wild mushrooms he had found the previous night. No, they didn’t taste any better this morning. He washed himself in the rain barrel outside the barn and went off through the mist to find Daisy to bring her back to the shed for milking. But when he got to the fence, the most amazing sight greeted his eyes. There, growing out of the middle of Daisy’s cow-pat, was the enormous trunk of what looked like a tree. Only it wasn’t a tree, it was a runner bean plant. And it didn’t grow straight upwards, it sort of grew up against the slope of the hill.
Jack guessed that the trunk of the bean plant was at least a foot thick, if not more. Now as he had never had any schooling, this was just a wild guess on his part. In fact the trunk was about fifteen inches in diameter. I just thought I ought to mention it – for the record. You may be wondering how such a tree came to grow overnight. Well, the answer to that is simplicity itself. They were, after all, magic beans. What else did you expect? Without the beans being magic, there’s no story, is there? So you’ll just have to accept it. They were magic beans, and they grew into an amazingly huge bean tree, overnight. In fact it was still growing, even as Jack stumbled on it, though he wasn’t to know that. All he knew was that here, at last, was a possible means of getting to the top of the hill. He could leave the village, leave the valley, and make his way in the wide world beyond!
For a moment he thought about his duties on the farm, and about Daisy, but she was nowhere to be seen. He climbed over the fence and put his foot on the lowest branch of the runner bean tree. Hand over hand he pulled himself up until, before he knew it, he had climbed a hundred feet! Turning carefully, he looked down. There, the size of a small rabbit, stood Daisy, looking up at him. Walking towards Daisy was Jack’s father. For a moment he thought of calling out to his father, but he seemed far too occupied with Daisy and the fact that she needed milking, so Jack didn’t bother. Instead he carried on climbing, stopping occasionally to wish that he’d thought to being something to eat and drink with him, It was hard work, climbing. By mid morning he estimated that he had been climbing for three hours, which was about the truth. Still the top of the tree was shrouded in fog. He rested for a half hour, then continued his climb, and by midday the sun came out at last and he found himself at the top of the hill.
What a sight greeted him! Giant trees, tall grass, fields of ripe corn, a broad river where huge salmon leaped, enormous berries…. Jack leaped for joy. This was a magic land, a land of plenty, a place where he could easily make his fortune and return home to rescue his poor parents from poverty. But wait a moment! Hadn’t his parents wanted to beat him and send him out into the world to fend for himself? Jack frowned. He didn’t bear a grudge. All he wanted was for them to think good of him. Well, if they didn’t welcome him back with open arms when he returned home with his fortune, that was their problem. At least he would have tried.
In the far distance, Jack could see a building of some sort. Even from where he stood, it looked really huge. He picked a handful of the giant berries and started to eat them. They were really good. On his way to the building he saw what he thought was a giant cow, and when it mooed, the ground shook, but he never really got a good look at it. The nearer he got to it, the bigger the building looked. Quite logical really, because things do look really small when they are a long way off, until you actually reach them, and there they are, their actual size. But this building was enormous even when it was a long way off, it was far and away the biggest building Jack had ever seen in his entire life.
It was nearly sunset when he finally reached the building. Standing before it, he tried to guess the size of the front door, and all he could think of was that it was at least four times as tall as his own father, who was himself exceptionally tall, well over six feet. Who on Earth could possibly have built such a place, he wondered. Did he dare go inside? Well, by this time the sky had clouded over. In the evening sky there were rumbles of thunder that sounded like the whole world was exploding, and the lightning was so big and so bright it lit the sky like daylight. Jack was frightened, and that was putting it mildly. He was too small to knock on the knocker, so he tried pushing the door, and found that he was able to move it a few inches. He squeezed through the opening and found himself in an enormous hallway. The first thing he saw was a pair of boots, and his heart gave an enormous leap inside his chest. For the boots were as tall as he was! He crept past the boots, and through another door. Now he found himself in the kitchen, and again his mouth dropped open in amazement. Everything in the kitchen was four times the usual size. There was a mug the size of a kettle, a saucepan the size of a small tin bath, and a kettle as big as a rain barrel!
There was a table that was as big as his whole house, and two chairs, both twice as tall as he was. But on the table there was bread, and cheese, and slices of ham and chicken, tomatoes the size of coconuts, and a sugar bowl with as much sugar in it as one of his father’s sacks of flour from the mill. Jack was ravenous. He scaled the curved and twisted leg of the nearest chair and climbed onto the table. From here, the food looked even more appetising. He crawled across the table top and helped himself to a piece of bread the size of a loaf, a piece of cheese that would have lasted his family a whole two weeks, a piece of ham and a piece of chicken. And he ate as though he had not had a proper meal for two weeks, which, of course, was the truth. As I said at the beginning of this story, times were hard if you were poor, and they didn’t come much poorer than Giles Dogsbody and his family.
Jack rested with his back against the mug, and closed his eyes contentedly. He began to doze. As the sun started to drop from its lunchtime position in the sky, the shadows lengthened, and Jack woke up with a start. He’d been dreaming about geese, geese that laid golden eggs, like the man in green had told him. He dropped from the table onto the seat of the nearest chair, then climbed slowly down to the floor. He’d decided to have a look about, to see if he could find any geese. You may have forgotten that Jack was a bit simple. Anyone who believed there was such a thing as a goose that laid golden eggs had to be a bit simple, don’t you think? What would be the point of a goose laying golden eggs? The whole point of laying eggs in the first place is to produce baby geese. A golden egg, though it might be worth a fair bit to a human being, would be utterly worthless to the goose, because, as everyone knows, gold is a precious metal, hardly the most suitable material for the shell or the inside of an egg!
Jack searched the house from top to bottom, but found nothing of any worth except more food, whole hams hanging up in the scullery, along with strings of sausages, huge jars of jam, all manner of tasty foodstuffs. If he stayed here the rest of his life, he would certainly not go hungry. But then, if he stayed here the rest of his life, he would definitely run into the person that owned the house. It was spotless. Clean, tidy, not a speck of dust or mouse-dirt anywhere to be seen.
He decided to find somewhere to sleep for the night. Already the sun was on the horizon. In an hour or so, it would be dark. He went out of the house and looked for a shed or a barn, and found a lovely little shed round to one side. Actually, it was quite a big shed, and it was not actually a shed at all, but a kennel, and it was a lean-to, as it was joined to the house. Jack was not to know it, but this was home to the owner’s dog, a creature as big as a shire horse and really, really fierce. It was a good job Jack didn’t know about the dog, or he would not have dreamed of sleeping there! As it was, the dog was far away, rounding up sheep, and eating one or two while he was about it, for good measure, and he had been leant to a friend of the owner for a few days. So Jack was in luck. He found a pile of old sacks in one corner of the shed and fashioned them into a kind of bed for himself, and there he curled up and went to sleep.
But not for long. It was still very dark when he awoke to the sound of boots on the gravel path, and as he looked out he saw, against the moon, the silhouette of a giant man striding along towards his house. Jack’s blood froze. He dared not move, in case the man heard or saw him. He waited until the man had gone inside his house and closed the door, and then ran to the nearest window, climbed up on a pile of old logs and peered through. The man really was a giant! At least fifteen feet tall, with hands the size of whole hams, and a head of hair that looked as though it had never seen a comb or a brush. There were even a couple of robins nesting in it! The man muttered to himself as he took off his boots, and then his nose started to twitch, and he frowned. To Jack’s horror, the man started to recite a little poem.
‘Fee, fie, fo, foy! I smell the blood of a very small boy! If he’s alive or maybe dead, I’ll grind his bones to make my bread!’
Jack’s foot got caught on one of the branches of one of the logs and he felt himself slipping. A second later the whole pile of logs cascaded to the ground with Jack tumbling onto them. The noise was enough to wake the dead, especially as Jack himself started to yell when a branch scraped his shin, drawing blood. The giant looked up and lumbered towards the door. Jack tried to get up but his foot was still caught. The door opened and the giant came out. He was even bigger than Jack had thought. He towered over Jack menacingly.
‘A boy! Well, what luck! I won’t go hungry this winter! I’ll skin him and cut him into big, juicy steaks, bung him in the cold store and live off him for months! Come on, up with you, boy! What’s your name?’
‘J – J – Jack!’ whispered Jack, who was petrified.
‘Well, J – J – Jack,’ the giant said. ‘Welcome to my house. I see you’ve already made yourself comfortable and eaten half my supper!’
‘I only had one slice of chicken, one slice of ham, a piece of cheese and a piece of bread,’ stammered Jack, who had at last managed to free his foot.
‘Did you pay for it? Did you earn it? Was it yours to take? Did you ask anybody?’ the giant asked.
‘Please, Sir, there was no one to ask.’
‘So you simply helped yourself? I suppose you were so hungry, you couldn’t wait to see who lived here and whether or not they would mind if you helped yourself? Answer me, boy!’ the giant roared.
‘Sorry, Sir,’ mumbled Jack.
‘Sorry’s not good enough. You’ll stay here and work for me until you’ve paid for what you’ve eaten! By my reckoning, that’s fourteen years, four months and twenty-five days.’
‘F – f – fourteen years?’ stammered Jack. ‘But all I had was…..’
‘Well, that’s how much it costs to repay, at a penny a year!’ roared the giant. ‘And if you don’t like it, I’ll revert to my original plan. Little boy’s bones make nice flour if they’re ground up very finely. Well? What’s it to be?’
‘I’ll do the work, Sir,’ said Jack, terrified. ‘What should I do?’
‘There are fields to be tilled, crops to be harvested, animals to be exercised, fences to repair. There are all manner of things to be done. You’ll start in the morning. In the meantime, I’d better chain you up.’
The giant fetched a long length of chain with an ankle bracelet one end. This he put around Jack’s ankle and secured the other end to an iron ring in the wall of the house, which was made of stone. When the giant had retired to eat his supper, Jack tried pulling on the chain with all his strength but found that it just would not move. At least the chain was very long, and he could get back inside the lean-to, where it was warmer and drier. Already he had felt one or two spots of rain, and didn’t fancy staying outside all night and getting wet. Oh, how he wished he had never climbed up the bean-tree. Most of all he wished he had managed to escape from the giant’s house before he had been discovered.
Jack spent a miserable night in the lean-to, finding it very difficult to sleep, but when he did at last manage to drop off, the sun woke him, along with the crowing of a cockerel nearby. There was no sign of the giant. Jack saw that he was sharing his bedroom with a number of chickens. There were plenty of eggs. He also found an old primus stove already filled with oil, which he managed to light with a match from a box he also found, and soon had a pan of eggs on the boil. Well, it was the giant’s fault if he had to break wind after eating four hard-boiled eggs! Served him right, in fact. Just what he deserved. After all, he had not been particularly nice to Jack, had he?
Jack pushed the lean-to door open and went out into the daylight, just in time to see the giant disappearing with enormous strides, out across the fields, singing another of his disgusting songs.
‘Fee, fie, fo, faggots, the boy can fetch a box of maggots. Then I can go fishing. That’s your job for this morning. I’ll find you something else to do this afternoon. Make sure they’re big and fat and juicy! Like you!’ the giant called.
Jack shuddered. He hated maggots, just as he hated slugs and snails. Nasty, slimy things. Urgh! He tried pulling on the chain once again, but it would not budge. Disgusted with himself for getting into such a pickle, Jack went inside the house, only to find that the giant had once again left ham and cheese and chicken and bread on the table. It was tempting. But Jack didn’t want to get into further trouble, and in any case, he had just eaten four hard-boiled eggs, and his stomach was beginning to suffer the consequences.
‘I know. I’ll have a look upstairs,’ he told himself. The stairs, of course, were three times as steep as in his own house, and it was a full half hour before he reached the top. But when he got there, he was glad he’d made the attempt, for in the very first room was an enormous bed, big enough for a dozen people. Jack somehow managed to climb onto the bed and lay back on the soft mattress, his head on the deep, soft pillow. This was more like it! He dozed for a while, then decided to explore some more. There were two other rooms. The first was a sort of water closet, only when Jack opened the door, the most foul stench assailed his nostrils and almost sent him tumbling back down the stairs. The giant must have completed his toilet and forgotten to flush it away, Jack decided, and pulled the door shut quickly. The final room was more like a barn than a bedroom.
And there, in the corner of the room, sitting on a huge bale of hay, was a goose. Only this was no ordinary goose. It wore a frock coat and a bow tie, red with yellow dots. And beneath the coat, it wore a waistcoat of blue and green stripes. On its head was a hat, what you or I would call a curly-brimmed beaver. Well, not you, perhaps. But me, yes, that’s what I would cal such a hat.
‘I say, am I glad to see you!’ the goose said, and Jack did a sort of double-take, and fell backwards in the doorway.
‘Did you speak?’ he asked.
‘Can you see anyone else in the room?’ the goose asked.
‘N-no.’
‘Then it must have been me. What is your name?’
‘Jack.’
‘Well, Jack, do you think you could find the key to my handcuffs? They must be around somewhere.’
‘A talking goose? Who ever heard of a talking goose!’ Jack said, shaking his head and scrambling to his feet.
‘What do you mean, a talking goose? You surely don’t think I am a goose?’ the goose said, haughtily.
‘Well, if you’re not a goose, I don’t know what you are,’ Jack said.
‘Do I look like a goose?’ the goose said, in a voice that sounded a little like Sean Connery. Now I should point out here that Jack would not have recognised Sean Connery’s voice, for in the fourteenth century, Sean Connery had not been born. Although there must have been people before him that sounded like that. You’d think so, wouldn’t you?
‘As a matter of fact, you do. If you’re not a goose, what are you?’
‘Well, I’m a human being, just like you. Only Scragwort had me turned into – into this, by a witch or a fairy. I disremember which it was. It all happened such a long time ago.’
‘If he had you turned into a goose, then that’s what you are, at least temporarily,’ Jack said. ‘I don’t suppose you lay golden eggs, do you?’ he continued, remembering what the man in green had told him.
‘No, I do not!’ the goose snapped, indignantly. ‘Now, are you going to look for that key or aren’t you? Scragwort will be back soon.’
‘Scragwort?’
‘The giant.’
‘It’s a funny sort of name for a giant, isn’t it?’ Jack asked.
‘I don’t see why.’
‘Anyway, what’s your name?’
‘James Jam is the name the giant gave me,’ said the goose without hesitation. Jack nearly fell down again, he laughed so much. ‘What’s so funny?’ demanded the goose.
‘Jim Jam,’ Jack said, his sides aching. ‘Your name is Jim Jam!’
‘James, if you don’t mind. Anyway, it’s not my real name. Any luck with the key? You’re supposed to be finding the key?’
‘Oh, yes. Do you think it will fit my ankle bracelet, too?’
‘I shouldn’t be surprised. They’re very primitive locks. Now go and look for it.’
‘Suppose he took it with him?’
‘If he did, which is very unlikely, you’ll just have to wait until he’s asleep and get it off him. Then you can release us both and we can escape. Now please go and see if you can find it!’
‘I’m going,’ said Jack, frowning. Then he turned back in the doorway. ‘Are you sure you don’t lay golden eggs? It’s just that…..’
‘Go!’ hissed the goose. ‘And while you’re about it, see if you can find something, anything, with the fairy’s name on that put this spell on me. I have to get changed back!’
‘How did you say you got here?’ Jack asked.
‘I didn’t!’ shouted the goose. ‘Find the key and I might tell you! There again, I might just lock you up and leave you for Scragwort to find when he gets back. Hurry! I can here him coming across the fields right now!’
Sure enough, they could both hear the words of Scragwort’s song, booming through the bright daylight, ‘Fee, fie, fo, fossage, I fancy a great big juicy sausage!’ Jack ran to the window. The giant was still about a half a mile away, but he would be back in around ten minutes, his stride was so big.
‘I’ll have to look for the key when he’s asleep,’ he whispered. ‘Sorry, Jim Jam, I’ll be back as soon as I can. I daren’t let him find me here!’ And leaving Jim Jam the Goose staring open-mouthed at him, he ran to the doorway and carefully made his way down the steep stairs and out into the yard. Fortunately the giant was very tired after his morning excursion, and appeared to have forgotten that he had told Jack to collect maggots, slugs and snails, for he went straight indoors, ate a hearty lunch and then slumped down in his huge armchair for an afternoon nap. Jack had little difficulty in finding the key that unlocked his chains, for it was hanging from a big bunch that dangled from the giant’s belt, and pretty soon, Jack was free. He went quietly upstairs and tried the key in the goose’s handcuffs. To their delight, the cuffs opened and the goose was free.
‘Now,’ said Jim Jam, ‘we must find the person who cursed me and get them to reverse it so I can resume my normal shape!’
‘And that is?’
‘I am not at liberty to tell you,’ said the goose haughtily. ‘Just help me downstairs and we’ll go off in search of the nearest village. They should be able to tell us where there’s a witch or a fairy that can lift the spell. You’ll have to carry me a little, I fear, because it’s such a long time since I’ve used my wings!’
‘Very well,’ said Jack, grumbling. He lifted the goose and placed it on his shoulder, then started off down the stairs. Pretty soon they could hear the giant mumbling in his sleep, and as they crept past the kitchen door, he almost woke up with an earth-trembling snore. But he continued to doze, and they made it safely out into the yard.
‘Which way? Do you remember?’
‘Well, it was dark,’ the goose said.
‘So you don’t know the way to the village, then?’
‘Nope.’
‘The giant went that way,’ Jack said, pointing to the east.
‘But he might have been going into the forest to shoot rabbits.’
‘That’s true. That way back there is the hill I scaled using the magic bean-tree…..’
‘Magic bean-tree? You didn’t say anything about a magic bean-tree. Where did it come from?’
‘I sold a cow to a man in my village, and he gave me magic beans. I planted them in a cow-pat and it grew into a huge tree. I climbed the tree and found myself in the land of giants.’
‘Are there any wise women or fairies in your village?’ asked the goose.
‘Not that I know of. But then, if there were, I’d steer clear of them. Magic is dangerous, my father says.’
‘Yes, just look at me!’ said the goose, and Jack laughed.
‘Well, we ought to make a move in one direction or another. He’ll be awake soon. When he finds we’ve escaped there will be all hell to pay!’
‘Right, I’m in charge, we’ll go this way,’ the goose said, pointing south.
‘Wait a minute! Who elected you leader?’ Jack protested.
‘My superior brain,’ said the goose, and started off along the path leading south. Jack had little choice but to follow. He didn’t want to return to his village empty-handed, and the goose seemed to know what it was doing. Pretty soon they came to a village where the houses were all as big as the giant Scragwort’s, and they decided that Jack had been right to describe this land as the land of the giants. There were no people about, but from one or two of the houses they could hear the sound of snoring, and reached the conclusion that all of the giants had a kind of fiesta at this time of the day. They passed through the village and came to a forest. There was a trail clearly leading into the forest, but a number of warning signs were posted at the side of the path. One said “enter on pain of death – or worse”, while another said “Beware the witch of the woods”.
The goose looked at Jack. ‘Well, I guess this is where we find the witch, then.’
‘No, you don’t say?’ said Jack, sarcastically. ‘Are you going in, or are you just going to stand here waiting for Scragwort to catch us up?’
‘I’m going in,’ the goose said. But there was a note of hesitation in its voice. ‘You go first. You’re a human, after all.’
‘At the moment,’ Jack said. ‘Have you thought what you’re going to say to the witch when you find her?’
‘I was going to leave that to you.’
‘Great. She’ll want paying, you know.’
‘Well I don’t have anything! I’m a goose,’ said the goose.
‘And I didn’t have anything to start with. You know, this could be quite dangerous. If the giants are scared of her…..’
‘Yes, I’m aware of that! But if you think I’m going to spend the rest of my life as a goose, you’ve another think coming. Go on, what are you waiting for?’
Just then, coming from behind them, they heard the voice of Scragwort booming out. ‘Fee, fie, fo, firkin! I’ll have his skin to make my jerkin!’
‘Come on!’ said Jack. ‘He won’t follow us in here! Those signs are enormous. They were put there by the giants to warn other giants against entering the forest!’
They dashed inside the forest and hid behind a bush. A few seconds later they say Scragwort standing just outside the entrance.
‘Fee, fie, fo, fum!’ he bellowed. ‘I’ll use my axe to cut off his bum! Fee, fie, fo, fig! I’ll cut him up and feed him to the pig!’
‘I didn’t see a pig!’ Jack hissed.
‘He’s making it up, now!’ agreed the goose. Suddenly, Jack stood up, put his hands on his hips, and went out to stand in the centre of the path.
‘Scragwort! You’re nothing but a big fat bully and a coward! If you want us so badly, come and get us!’
The giant roared. Then, to Jack’s amazement, he tore a tree up by its roots and threw it to one side, then stepped inside the forest. Jack took Jim Jam’s wing and they tore off through the forest as fast as they could go, which was considerably faster than the giant, who soon became entangled in the overhanging branches. The pair had no way of knowing they were no longer being pursued, because they didn’t look back. They didn’t stop running until they no longer heard the giant’s footsteps behind them. Then they judged it safe to look back, and were considerably heartened to see that the giant was caught up.
‘Come on! The witch must live nearby!’ said the goose, and sure enough, as they rounded the next bend, they came to a little thatched cottage, with roses round the door, leaded windows, and a little stream trickling along beside it. It was a scene of pure enchantment. ‘Go on! Knock on the door!’ the goose said.
‘Why me? It’s you who wants changing back!’ said Jack, indignantly.
‘I think it might come better from a human being,’ the goose said.
‘This is a witch we’re talking about here,’ Jack said. ‘She won’t be too unused to seeing animals that were once human beings. Anyway, how do I know you’re not another giant? Maybe you’re the giant’s wife, and when the witch turns you back, you’ll take me back to him and you’ll both live off me for a month or two!’
‘You’ll just have to trust me,’ said the goose, and Jack knew, at that precise moment, that he did trust the goose, though he could not have told you why. He stepped fearlessly up to the door and rattled the little brass knocker. For a moment, nothing happened, and then the door creaked open, and there stood a young woman, wearing a long, silvery gown, her jet black hair hanging in ringlets round her lovely face.
‘You must be Jack!’ she breathed.
‘How did you know that?’
‘My sister warned me you were coming. Congratulations, Jack, you’ve passed the test!’
‘Your sister? What test?’ demanded Jack.
‘Jack, meet my sister, Jemima. My name is Gemma. The giants think I’m a witch, but I’m really a fairy, one of the fair folk. Scragwort forced me to turn my sister into a goose. We’ve waited for years for you to come along and rescue her. You brought her safely back to me, and now I can change her back.’
Gemma the witch-fairy uttered a few words in a language Jack did not recognise, and there was a flash of blinding light, then there, standing next to him, was Gemma’s twin sister, Jemima.
‘Are you a witch too?’ Jack asked.
Jemima laughed. She was extraordinarily beautiful, just like Gemma, who looked a bit like Kylie Minogue, only a bit taller. ‘No, Jack. There can only be one person in a family who can weave magic. Gemma is not allowed to leave the forest. Soon men will come and kill all the giants, for they fear them, and with good reason, too, and the land of the giants will pass into history.’
‘What about you? Can you leave the forest? Of course you can – unless it’s only as a goose!’ Jack said.
‘Of course I can leave the forest! Would you want me to?’
‘I’d like you to come home with me and meet my folks.’
‘I thought you’d run away from home.’
‘I did, but I wish I hadn’t. In spite of the beatings, I like it better in my own village. Perhaps I’d like to leave it one day and seek my fortune, but certainly not in the land of the giants.’
‘There are conditions, Jack,’ said Jemima.
‘What conditions?’
‘Time in the land of the giants passes very much quicker than in your world. While you’ve been away from your village, several years have passed. You are now a young man, nearly twenty years old. Your parents will hardly recognise you if you go back now.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Oh dear,’ Gemma said. ‘I knew this was going to be difficult. Listen, I’ll try to explain. Time passes at different speeds depending on where you are. The land of the giants is a huge place, everything is three or four times as big as where you come from. So time passes much quicker. It may feel to you as though you’ve only been here a few hours, but in fact, you’ve been here a few years.’
‘Yes, but six years?’ said Jack. ‘That seems an awfully long time.’
‘There are places in this world where you cross time boundaries. The land of the giants is not a normal place. When you climbed the tree, you crossed one of the boundaries. Six years will have passed by the time you get back to your village.’
‘And it’s all right for Jemima to come with me?’
‘Only if you promise to bring her back to see me,’ Gemma said.
‘Of course! I just want her to see my world. It’s so different to this one!’
‘What about Scragwort?’
‘He’ll stay where he is, unless the spirits of the forest choose to release him,’ Gemma told them. ‘That’s unlikely, because he tore up one of their brethren, an old oak tree that had stood for five hundred years.’
‘So we can safely go back through the forest to Scragwort’s house?’ Jemima asked her sister.
‘Yes, you may. But why should you want to do that?’
‘Scragwort has something that may be of interest to Jack.’
‘What’s that?’ Jack and Gemma asked together.
‘A hoard of gold he’s stolen from visitors to the land of the giants over the years. I daresay if we were to investigate further, we would find their bones!’
‘You don’t mean to say he really does eat people?’ asked Jack, horrified. ‘I thought that was just one of his foul little songs!’
Jemima laughed merrily. ‘I don’t know for sure. He just wasn’t a very nice giant, that’s all.’
‘Are there any nice ones?’
‘Oh, yes. Almost all of the others are nice, they just don’t get on with the ordinary people. Come on, Jack! We can collect the gold and take it to your parents before sunset! Gemma, I’ll come and visit with you again very soon, I promise. And I’ll bring Jack with me! After all, it was he who rescued me, really!’
Gemma smiled sweetly. ‘I may not be here when you come again. As I said, the forest will disappear, along with all of the giants, and very soon. You’ll have to look elsewhere for me. I’ll leave you a trail. Be happy together, you two!’
Gemma waved as the two left the little clearing and made their way out of the forest. As they passed within a few feet of Scragwort, they were relieved to see he was still tangled up in the tree. Now he appeared not to be breathing, and the branches from the other trees were still winding themselves around his huge limbs.
‘I don’t know whether or not to feel sorry for him,’ Jack said.
‘I wouldn’t bother. As Gemma said, he wasn’t very nice to anyone. Come on, we’ve still a way to go if we’re to make your village by nightfall.’
But they did, just. First they returned to the giant’s house and collected a huge sack of gold coins Scragwort had stolen from his victims, then they climbed carefully down the bean-tree, and as they went, Jack felt himself growing bigger, stronger, and, well, it has to be said, a little older and wiser. By the time they walked into the little smallholding belonging to his parents, he felt quite grown-up.
‘Mother! Father!’ he called, and was surprised when a small boy, about seven years old, came running out to greet them.
‘You must be my older brother!’ the boy said, and Jack lifted him easily into his arms and placed him on his shoulders. A few moments later his parents emerged from the house, looking older, and poorer, if such a thing was possible.
‘Mother, father, I want you to meet Jemima. She and I are going to be married. I went away to find our fortune, and not only that, I found a wife, too. I have plenty of money. We can pay off all our debts and live in a much bigger house, and be happy together. What do you say?’
Well, there was such rejoicing in the Dogsbody house that night that the noise could be heard all over the village. Jack and Jemima were married, though he sensibly did not tell his parents that she had at one time been a goose. Jack bought them all a big house to live in with the gold Jemima had given him as her wedding dowry, and they all lived happily together for many, many years. Occasionally Jack and Jemima went back to the land of the giants. The first few times, they found Gemma’s hut still standing in the forest, and she was thrilled to see them. Then one day when they went to visit, the forest had been cleared away, and there was no sign of the little hut. Instead, there were acres and acres of golden corn and wheat and barley. Then, quite by chance, Jemima found a small pink ribbon tied to one of the fence posts.
‘This is Gemma’s,’ she said, and smiled contentedly. ‘It’s blowing towards the east. That’s where we shall find her, Jack. Come on, she’ll be waiting to see us!’
And off they went.
