My club shall dash your brains out quite."
"Forewarned is forearmed;" so Jack substituted a billet of wood for himself, which the giant duly belaboured, and, being utterly astounded at seeing Jack alive and well in the morning, asked him how he slept—whether he had been disturbed? "No," said the self-possessed Jack; "a rat gave me three or four flaps with his tail."
Crafty Jack, however, made the foolish giant destroy himself, as follows:—"Soon after the Giant went to breakfast on a great bowl of hasty pudding, giving Jack but little quantity; who being loath to let him know he could not eat with him, got a leather bag, putting it artfully under his coat, into which he put his pudding, telling the Giant he would shew him a trick; so taking a large knife he ripped open the bag which the Giant thought to be his belly, and out came the hasty pudding; which the Welsh Giant seeing, cried out, Cot's plut, hur can do that hurself; and taking up the knife he ripped open his belly from top to bottom, and out dropped his tripes and trullibubs, so that he immediately fell down dead."
King Arthur's son was travelling about, and meeting with Jack, they joined company. The prince seems to have been too lavish with his money, and soon was in want. Jack then proposed they should sup and sleep at the house of a three-headed giant, who rather prided himself upon his fighting qualities. Stratagem succeeded; Jack made the giant believe that the prince was coming with a thousand men to destroy him, and the human Cerberus (who, although he was a match for five hundred, did not dare to overweight himself with double that number) begged Jack to bolt and bar him in a vault till the prince had gone. Jack and the prince ate and drank of the best, slept well, and in the morning took the giant's cash. When the prince was well on his way, Jack let the big stupid lubber out, and he out of gratitude gave his preserver a coat which would render him invisible, a cap which would furnish him with knowledge, a miraculously sharp sword, and shoes of incredible swiftness.[†] Jack took them and followed the prince, whose life he afterwards saved, and, besides, made himself useful in casting an evil spirit out of a lad.
In the Second Part Jack turns professional giant-slaughterer, and of course these overgrown simpletons had no chance against Jack's magic paraphernalia. They had to give up their prisoners (Plate 4); they were cut in pieces without seeing their assailant (Plate 3); their very weight sometimes proved their destruction—notably one Thundel, who will always live in memory as the talented author of
"Fe, fa, fum
I smell the blood of an Englishman,
Be he alive, or be he dead,
I'll grind his bones to make me bread."
This Thundel was beguiled on to a drawbridge, which broke with his weight (see frontispiece, Newcastle edition), and, floundering in the moat, fell an easy prey. But Jack's supreme effort was masterly, and well rewarded him. A hermit told him of a giant, one Galligantus, who lived in an enchanted castle, in which, by the aid of a conjuror and two fiery dragons, he had imprisoned a duke's daughter, transforming her into a deer. Could Jack resist this charming adventure? Impossible. Clad in his invisible coat, he got into the castle, found that the way to break the enchantment was to blow a certain trumpet, did so—an act which had the effect of temporarily depriving the giant and sorcerer of their presence of mind, a fact which Jack took advantage of by decapitating Galligantus; at which sight the conjuror mounted in the air, and disappeared in a whirlwind. The two dragons, considering these proceedings equivalent to a notice of ejectment, promptly took their departure; whilst a quantity of beasts and birds resumed their former shapes of knights and ladies, and the castle vanished.