Once upon a time there was a poor widow who lived in a little cottage with her only son Jack.

Jack was a thoughtless boy, but very kind-hearted and affectionate. There had been a hard winter, and after it the poor woman was very ill. Jack was unemployed and they gradually grew dreadfully poor. The widow saw that there was no way to stop Jack and herself from starving. They had to sell the only thing that they had left - their cow; so one morning she said to her son,

“I am too weak to go myself, Jack, so you must take the cow to market for me, and sell her.”

Jack liked going to market very much; but as he was on the way, he met a butcher who had some very large, green beans in his hand. Jack stopped to look at them, and the butcher told the boy that they were very valuable, and persuaded him to sell the cow for those beans! And Jack was so silly that he agreed to give his cow for some worthless beans.

When he brought them home to his mother instead of the money she expected for her nice cow, she was furious and upset, shouting at Jack for his stupidity. He was very sorry; but, he said, he might as well make the best of his bargain, so he put the seed-beans into the ground close to the cottage. After he planted the beans, Jack went to bed.

The next morning when he got up, he found that the beans had grown, till the bean stalks had reached the sky and Jack couldn’t even see the top of the bean stalk. Greatly surprised, Jack called his mother, and they both gazed in amazement at the beanstalk, which was not only very high, but was thick enough to bear Jack’s weight.

“I wonder where it goes?” said Jack to his mother; “I think I will climb up and see.”

His mother didn’t want him to climb such a dangerous height, but Jack managed to persuade her to allow him to start climbing it. He knew that there must be something wonderful in the beanstalk.

Jack instantly began to climb, and went up and up on the ladder-like bean till everything he had left behind him, the cottage, the village, and even the tall church tower, looked tiny, and still he did not see the top of the bean stalk.

Jack felt a little tired, and thought for a moment that he would go back again; but he was so curious that he didn’t want to give up. So after resting for a moment he went on, and at last reached the top of the bean, and found himself in a beautiful country, surrounded by trees; and not far from the place where he had got off the beanstalk was a fine and strong castle.

Jack was surprised that he had never heard of or seen this castle before and was thinking who could possibly live there.

While Jack was standing looking at the castle, a very strange-looking woman came out of the wood and walked towards him.

Jack took off his hat to the old lady, and she said, pointing to the castle,

“Boy, that castle belongs to you. A wicked giant killed your father, and took it from your mother; you must win it back from the monster who now has it.”

As she stopped speaking, she suddenly disappeared, and of course Jack knew she was a fairy.

He was surprised; however, he walked up to the castle door and knocked, and an old giantess came out. She did not wait until he spoke, but pulled him in at once, for she thought he would make a nice supper for her when her husband was asleep. Just at that moment, however, she heard the giant’s loud steps approaching, so she put Jack into a box, and told him to hide there, or the giant would eat him. As soon as the Ogre came in, he cried in a terrible voice.

“Fee, fa, fie, fo, fum,

I smell the breath of an Englishman.”

“Oh!” said his wife, “there is nobody here. You only smell a bird that is flying over the chimney.”

Then the giant sat down to dinner, which was quite ready, and when he had eaten a whole sheep, he said, “Bring me my hen.”

The giantess brought a hen, and put it on the table before him, and then she went away.

“Lay,” said the giant to the hen, and she laid a golden egg.

Jack could see clearly through a little hole from his box. Three times the giant said “Lay,” and each time the hen laid a solid gold egg. Then the Ogre, getting tired, shut his eyes, and soon snored very loudly.