Page:The Allies Fairy Book.djvu/32

 he would tie them round his waist like a bunch of tallow-dips, He had done this for many years, so that all Cornwall was in despair.

One day Jack happened to be at the Town Hall when the magistrates were sitting in council about the Giant. He asked: “What reward will be given to the man who kills Cormoran?” “The giant’s treasure,” they said, “will be the reward.” Quoth Jack: “Then let me undertake it.”

So he got a horn, shovel, and pickaxe, and went over to the Mount in the beginning of a dark winter’s evening, when he fell to work, and before morning had dug a pit twenty-two feet deep, and nearly as broad, covering it over with long sticks and straw. Then he strewed a little mould over it, so that it appeared like plain ground. Jack then placed himself on the opposite side of the pit, farthest from the giant’s lodging, and, just at the break of day, he put the horn to his mouth and blew, Tantivy, Tantivy. This noise roused the giant, who rushed from his cave crying: “You incorrigible villain, are you come here to disturb my rest? You shall pay dearly for this. Satisfaction I will have, and this it shall be: I will take you whole and broil you for breakfast.” He had no sooner uttered this than he tumbled into the pit and made the very foundations of the Mount to shake. “Oh, Giant,” quoth Jack, “where are you now? Oh, faith, you are gotten now into Lob’s Pound, where I will surely plague you for your threatening words: what do you think now of broiling me for your breakfast? Will no other diet serve you but poor Jack?” Then, having tantalized the giant for a while, he gave him a most weighty knock with his pickaxe on the very crown of his head and killed him on the spot.

Jack then filled up the pit with earth, and went to