The Blue Fairy Book eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 499 pages of information about The Blue Fairy Book.

The Blue Fairy Book eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 499 pages of information about The Blue Fairy Book.

Another giant, called Blunderbore, vowed to be revenged on Jack if ever he should have him in his power.  This giant kept an enchanted castle in the midst of a lonely wood; and some time after the death of Cormoran Jack was passing through a wood, and being weary, sat down and went to sleep.

The giant, passing by and seeing Jack, carried him to his castle, where he locked him up in a large room, the floor of which was covered with the bodies, skulls and bones of men and women.

Soon after the giant went to fetch his brother who was likewise a giant, to take a meal off his flesh; and Jack saw with terror through the bars of his prison the two giants approaching.

Jack, perceiving in one corner of the room a strong cord, took courage, and making a slip-knot at each end, he threw them over their heads, and tied it to the window-bars; he then pulled till he had choked them.  When they were black in the face he slid down the rope and stabbed them to the heart.

Jack next took a great bunch of keys from the pocket of Blunderbore, and went into the castle again.  He made a strict search through all the rooms, and in one of them found three ladies tied up by the hair of their heads, and almost starved to death.  They told him that their husbands had been killed by the giants, who had then condemned them to be starved to death because they would not eat the flesh of their own dead husbands.

“Ladies,” said Jack, “I have put an end to the monster and his wicked brother; and I give you this castle and all the riches it contains, to make some amends for the dreadful pains you have felt.”  He then very politely gave them the keys of the castle, and went further on his journey to Wales.

As Jack had but little money, he went on as fast as possible.  At length he came to a handsome house.  Jack knocked at the door, when there came forth a Welsh giant.  Jack said he was a traveler who had lost his way, on which the giant made him welcome, and let him into a room where there was a good bed to sleep in.

Jack took off his clothes quickly, but though he was weary he could not go to sleep.  Soon after this he heard the giant walking backward and forward in the next room, and saying to himself: 

  “Though here you lodge with me this night,
  You shall not see the morning light;
  My club shall dash your brains out quite.”

“Say you so?” thought Jack.  “Are these your tricks upon travelers?  But I hope to prove as cunning as you are.”  Then, getting out of bed, he groped about the room, and at last found a large thick billet of wood.  He laid it in his own place in the bed, and then hid himself in a dark corner of the room.

The giant, about midnight, entered the apartment, and with his bludgeon struck many blows on the bed, in the very place where Jack had laid the log; and then he went back to his own room, thinking he had broken all Jack’s bones.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Blue Fairy Book from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.