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 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.’