“Tho’ here you lodge with me this night,
You shall not see the morning light,
My club shall dash your brains out quite.”
“Say you so?” says Jack. “Is this one of your Welsh tricks? I hope to be as cunning as you.”
Then, getting out of bed, and feeling about the room in the dark, he found a thick billet of wood, and laid it in the bed in his stead, then he hid himself in a dark corner of the room. In the dead time of the night came the giant with his club, and he struck several blows on the bed where Jack had artfully laid the billet. Then the giant returned back to his own room, supposing he had broken all his bones. Early in the morning Jack came to thank him for his lodging.
“Oh,” said the giant, “how have you rested? Did you see anything in the night?”
“No,” said Jack, “but a rat gave me three or four slaps with his tail.”
Soon after the giant went to breakfast on a great bowl of hasty pudding, giving Jack but a small quantity. Jack, being loath to let him know he could not eat with him, got a leather bag, and, putting it artfully under his coat, put the pudding into it. Then he told the giant he would show him a trick, and taking up a knife he ripped open the bag and out fell the pudding. The giant thought he had cut open his stomach and taken the pudding out.
“Odds splutters,” says he, “hur can do that hurself,” and, taking the knife up, he cut himself so badly that he fell down and died.
Thus Jack outwitted the Welsh giant and proceeded on his journey.
King Arthur’s only son desired his father to furnish him with a certain sum of money, that he might go and seek his fortune in the principality of Wales, where a beautiful lady lived, whom he had heard was possessed with seven evil spirits.
The king, his father, counselled him against it, yet he could not be persuaded, so the favour was granted, which was one horse loaded with money, and another to ride on. Thus he went forth without any attendants, and after several days’ travel he came to a large market-town in Wales, where he beheld a vast crowd of people gathered together. The king’s son demanded the reason of it, and was told that they had arrested a corpse for many large sums of money, which the deceased owed before he died. The king’s son replied—