"What do you mean?" says Jack.
Says she: "Didn't you hear what the whole world has heard, that the King of Ireland has a daughter who hasn't laughed for seven years, and he has promised to give her in marriage, and to give the kingdom along with her to any man who will take three laughs out of her."
"If that is so," says Jack, says he, "it is not here I should be."
Back to the house he went, and gathers together the Bee, the Harp, the Mouse, and the Bum-clock, and putting them into his pocket, he bade his mother good-bye, and told her it wouldn't be long till she got news from him, and off he hurries.
When he reached the castle, there was a ring of spikes all round the castle and men's heads on nearly every spike there.
"What heads are these?" Jack asked one of the king's soldiers.
"Any man that comes here trying to win the king's daughter and fails to make her laugh three times, loses his head and has it stuck on a spike. These are the heads of the men that failed," says he.
"A mighty big crowd," says Jack, says he. Then Jack sent word to tell the king's daughter and the king that there was a new man who had come to win her.
In a very little time the king and the king's daughter and the king's court all came out and sat themselves down on gold and silver chairs in front of the castle, and ordered Jack to be brought in until he should have his trial. Jack, before he went, took out of his pocket the Bee, the Harp, the Mouse, the Bum-clock, and he gave the Harp to the Bee, and he tied a string to one and the other, and took the end of the string himself, and marched into the castle yard before all the court, with his animals coming on a string behind him.
When the queen and the king and the court and the princes saw poor ragged Jack with his Bee, and Mouse, and Bum-clock hopping behind him on a string, they set up one roar of laughter that was long and loud enough, and when the king's daughter herself lifted her head and looked to see what they were laughing at, and saw Jack and his paraphernalia, she opened her mouth and she let out of her such a laugh as was never heard before.