“We are in sad distress, you see,
Under a giant’s fierce command;
But gained our lives and liberty
By valiant Jack’s victorious hand.”
Now, among the vast assembly there present were five aged gentlemen who were fathers to some of those miserable captives which Jack had lately set at liberty, who, understanding that he was the person that performed those great wonders, immediately paid their venerable respects. After this their mirth increased, and the smiling bowls went freely round to the prosperous success of the victorious conqueror, but, in the midst of all this mirth, a dark cloud appeared which daunted all the hearts of the honourable assembly.
Thus it was. A messenger brought the dismal tidings of the approach of one Thunderdel, a huge giant with two heads, who, having heard of the death of his kinsmen, the above-named giants, was come from the northern dales in search of Jack to be revenged of him for their most miserable downfall. He was now within a mile of the knight’s seat, the country people flying before him from their houses and habitations, like chaff before the wind. When they had related this, Jack, not a whit daunted, said—
“Let him come. I am prepared with a tool to pick his teeth. And you, gentlemen and ladies, walk but forth into the garden, and you shall be the joyful spectators of this monstrous giant’s death and destruction.”
To which they consented, every one wishing him good fortune in that great and dangerous enterprise.
The situation of this knight’s house take as follows: It was placed in the midst of a small island, encompassed round with a vast moat, thirty feet deep and twenty feet wide, over which lay a drawbridge. Jack employed two men to cut this last on both sides, almost to the middle, and then, dressing himself in his coat of darkness, likewise putting on his shoes of swiftness, he marches forth against the giant, with his sword of sharpness ready drawn. When he came up to him, yet the giant could not see Jack, by reason of his invisible coat which he had on. Yet, nevertheless, he was sensible of some approaching danger, which made him cry out in these following words—
“Fe, fi, fo, fum!
I smell the blood of an Englishman;
Be he alive or be he dead
I’ll grind his bones to make me bread.”
“Sayest thou so?” quoth Jack, “then thou art a monstrous miller indeed. But what if I serve thee as I did the two giants of late? On my conscience, I should spoil your practice for the future.”
At which time the giant spoke, in a voice as loud as thunder—
“Art thou that villain which destroyed my kinsmen? Then will I tear thee with my teeth, and, what is more, I will grind thy bones to powder.”