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 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,