"The Valiant Tailor" Part 2 - The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm

The Soldiers, however, bore him a grudge, and wished him a thousand miles away. ' What will be the end of it ? ' they said to each other. ' When we quarrel with him, and he strikes out, seven of us will fall at once. One of us can't cope with him.' So they took a resolve, and went all together to the King, and asked for their discharge. ' We are not made,' said they, ' to hold our own with a man who strikes seven at one blow.'

It grieved the King to lose all his faithful servants for the sake of one man ; he wished he had never set eyes on the Tailor, and was quite ready to let him go. He did not dare, however, to give him his dismissal, for he was afraid that he would kill him and all his people, and place himself on the throne. He pondered over it for a long time, and at last he thought of a plan. He sent for the Tailor, and said that as he was so great a warrior, he would make him an offer. In a forest in his kingdom lived two giants, who, by robbery, murder, burning, and laying waste, did much harm. No one dared approach them without being in danger of his life. If he could subdue and kill these two Giants, he would give him his only daughter to be his wife, and half his kingdom as a dowry ; also he would give him a hundred Horsemen to accompany and help him.

' That would be something for a man like me,' thought the Tailor. ' A beautiful Princess and half a kingdom are not offered to one every day.' ' Oh yes,' was his answer, ' I will soon subdue the Giants, and that without the hundred Horsemen. He who slays seven at a blow need not fear two.' The Tailor set out at once, accompanied by the hundred Horsemen ; but when he came to the edge of the forest, he said to his followers, ' Wait here, I will soon make an end of the Giants by myself.'

Then he disappeared into the wood ; he looked about to the right and to the left. Before long he espied both the Giants lying under a tree fast asleep, and snoring. Their snores were so tremendous that they made the branches of the tree dance up and down. The Tailor, who was no fool, filled his pockets with stones, and climbed up the tree. When he got half-way up, he slipped on to a branch just above the sleepers, and then hurled the stones, one after another, on to one of them.

It was some time before the Giant noticed anything ; then he woke up, pushed his companion, and said, ' What are you hitting me for ? '

' You're dreaming,' said the other. ' I didn't hit you.' They went to sleep again, and the Tailor threw a stone at the other one. ' What's that ? ' he cried. ' What are you throwing at me ? '

' I'm not throwing anything,' answered the first one, with a growl.

They quarrelled over it for a time, but as they were sleepy, they made it up, and their eyes closed again.

The Tailor began his game again, picked out his biggest stone, and threw it at the first Giant as hard as he could.

' This is too bad,' said the Giant, flying up like a madman. He pushed his companion against the tree with such violence that it shook. The other paid him back in the same coin, and they worked themselves up into such a rage that they tore up trees by the roots, and hacked at each other till they both fell dead upon the ground.

Then the Tailor jumped down from his perch. ' It was very lucky,' he said, ' that they did not tear up the tree I was sitting on, or I should have had to spring on to another like a squirrel, but we are nimble fellows.' He drew his sword, and gave each of the Giants two or three cuts in the chest. Then he went out to the Horsemen, and said, ' The work is done. I have given both of them the finishing stroke, but it was a difficult job. In their distress they tore trees up by the root to defend themselves ; but all that's no good when a man like me comes, who slays seven at a blow.'

' Are you not wounded ? ' then asked the Horsemen.

' There was no danger,' answered the Tailor. ' Not a hair of my head was touched.'

The Horsemen would not believe him, and rode into the forest to see. There, right enough, lay the Giants in pools of blood, and, round about them, the uprooted trees.

The Tailor now demanded his promised reward from the King ; but he, in the meantime, had repented of this promise, and was again trying to think of a plan to shake him off.

' Before I give you my daughter and the half of my kingdom, you must perform one more doughty deed. There is a Unicorn which runs about in the forests doing vast damage ; you must capture it.'