I came upon a high road, for so I took it to be, though it served the inhabitants only as a footpath through a field of barley. Here I walked for an hour but could see little, for the grain rose forty feet into the air on either side. Coming at last to the end of the field, I found it fenced in with a hedge over one hundred feet high, and a stile impossible for me to climb.
I was trying to find a gap in the hedge when I saw a man as tall as a church-steeple approaching the stile. Hiding myself in the grain, I heard him call, but the noise was so high in the air that at first I thought it was thunder. Immediately seven monsters, each with a reaping-hook as big as six scythes, came to reap the grain in the field where I was.
I kept as far from them as I could, but I could move only with great difficulty, for the barley-stalks were sometimes less than a foot apart so that I could hardly squeeze between them. However, I struggled on till I came to a part of the field where the grain had been beaten down by the rain and wind. Here it was impossible to advance a step, for the stalks were so interwoven that I could not creep between, and the beards of the barley were so strong and pointed that they pierced through my clothes. At the same time, hearing the reapers close behind me, I threw myself down between two ridges, overcome with despair.
The next moment I saw an immense foot not ten yards away and the blinding gleam of a great reaping-hook above my head. I screamed as loud as fear could make me. The huge reaper stopped short, and looking about on the ground for some time, finally spied me. He considered a while as if he were planning how he could pick up a small, dangerous animal so that it could neither bite nor scratch him. At last he ventured to take me up by the middle, between his forefinger and thumb, and held me within three yards of his eyes.
Good fortune gave me so much presence of mind that I resolved not to struggle as he held me in the air, about sixty feet from the ground, although he grievously pinched my sides. Instead, I raised my eyes and clasped my hands, speaking some words in a humble tone and groaning to let him know how cruelly I was hurt by the pressure of his thumb and finger. He seemed to understand, for putting me gently into his pocket, he ran along with me to his master, the farmer I had first seen.
The farmer blew my hair aside to get a better view of my face, and then placed me softly on the ground on all-fours. But I got immediately up, and walked slowly backward and forward. Pulling off my hat, I made a low bow to the farmer. I fell on my knees, and spoke several words as loud as I could. I took a purse of gold out of my pocket and humbly presented it to him. He received it on the palm of his hand, and turned it with the point of a pin, but could make nothing of it.
A cat three times as big as an ox
He spoke to me, but the sound of his voice pierced my ears like that of a water-mill. I answered as loud as I could in several languages, and he laid his ear within two yards of me, but all in vain. We could not understand each other.
He then sent his servant to work, and taking out his handkerchief, spread it on his left hand, which he placed flat on the ground with the palm upwards. He beckoned to me to step up on it, which I could easily do, as it was not more than a foot thick. Wrapping me up in the handkerchief, he carried me home to his house. There he showed me to his wife; but she screamed and ran back as if I had been a spider. However, when she had seen how gentle I was, and how well I obeyed the signs her husband made, she became extremely tender to me.