Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 4, 1893.djvu/197

 Rh your life?" Then said Jack, "The after-grass in our meadow is better than that."

"Well", said the king, "come here until I show you a great turnip which grows here beyond." So they went over.

"Did you ever see such a turnip as that?" said the king. Then said Jack, "When we were pulling our turnips, the little ones we were leaving after us, the smallest of them was bigger than that. When we had them all pulled we let in the sheep to the turnip-ground. One of them began to eat on the side of a turnip, and in three weeks she came out on the other side with two lambs!"

"Very good", said the king; "come up to the garden until you see a beanstalk which grows there." So they went up.

Said the king, "Did you ever see such a beanstalk as that in your life?"

"I did", said Jack; "there grew one in our garden. When it was two months old you could not see the top of it; so I prepared one day to climb the beanstalk. I was two days climbing, and I sat down and ate my supper, and I slept all night in the branches. I started to climb in the morning, and on the approach of evening I heard a great noise over my head; what was it but a nest of bees; so I went in on the door of the nest. The old queen-bee met me, she went to sting me, I drew my sword and cut off her right wing, it fell on me, and I lay under it for two days, for I could not get up; but the weather was so very warm the wing began to decay. The third day I got out from under it, so I went on further. I heard another great noise over my head; what was it but a nest of wasps. I got afraid, and says I to myself, 'I will leap'; so I did, and sank to my shoulders in the rock! I could not get out, so I cut off my head and sent it away for help to take me out of the rock. A fox came out of a den and began snarling at my head. I gave one leap, and I bursted the rock for two miles, and I ran over and hit the fox one kick, and I