“Faix, Jack,” says the king, “it was a wondherful beanstalk, that, entirely.”
“You might say that,” says Jack, trying to make the most of it, for he was now on his last leg. “You might say that,” says he. “Why, I mind one year I went up the stalk with the harvestmen, an’ when I was nine thousand mile up, doesn’t I miss my foot, and down I come. I fell feet foremost, and sunk up to my chin in a whinstone rock that was at the foot. There I was in a quandhary—but I was not long ruminatin’ till I hauled out my knife, an’ cut off my head, an’ sent it home to look for help. I watched after it, as it went away, an’ lo an’ behould ye, afore it had gone half a mile I saw a fox set on it, and begin to worry it. ‘By this an’ by that,’ says I to meself, ‘but this is too bad!’—an’ I jumped out an’ away as hard as I could run, to the assistance of my head. An’ when I come up, I lifted my foot, an’ give the fox three kicks, an’ knocked three kings out of him—every one of them a nicer an’ a better jintleman than you.”
“Ye’re a liar, an’ a rascally liar,” says the king.
“More power to ye!” says Jack, givin’ three buck leaps clean into the air, “an’ it’s proud I am to get you to confess it; for I have won yer daughter.”
Right enough, the king had to give up to Jack the daughter—an’ be the same token, from the first time she clapped her two eyes on Jack she wasn’t the girl to gainsay him—an’ her weight in goold. An’ they were both of them marrid, an’ had such a weddin’ as surpassed all the weddin’s ever was heerd tell of afore or since in that country or in this. An’ Jack lost no time in sendin’ for his poor ould mother, an’ neither herself nor Jack ever after knew what it was to be in want. An’ may you an’ I never know that same naither.
Hans in Luck
Hans had served his master for seven years, when he one day said to him: “Master, my time is up; I want to go home to my mother; please give me my wages.”
His master answered, “You have served me well and faithfully, and as the service has been, so shall the wages be.” And he gave him a lump of gold as big as his head.
Hans took out his pocket-handkerchief and tied up the gold in it, and then slung the bundle over his shoulder, and started on his homeward journey.
As he walked along, just putting one foot before the other, a man on horseback appeared, riding gaily and merrily along on his capering steed.