Jack the Englishman

Jack was a boy who traded an old cow for magic beans that grew a beanstalk into a land in the clouds. The story is well known in the Other World. Jack should not be confused with Jack the Giant Killer.

Background
Jack and his mother were poor, there only possession was a cow that had stopped giving milk. On the way to market to sell the cow, Jack traded it to a man who offered him five magic beans--beans that would grow to the sky overnight. The man offered Jack a cow-back guarantee if they didn't work. Jack's mom was skeptical and upset, to say the least. She threw the beans away and sent Jack to his room without supper. The beans did grow, however, and Jack climbed to the top the next morning. There he met an ogre's wife who fed Jack breakfast and hid him in her oven so that her ogre husban wouldn't catch and eat him. When he arrived home, the ogre sniffed around and recited:


 * Fee, fi, fo, fum
 * I smell the blood of an Englishman!
 * Be he live, or be he dead,
 * I'll grind his bones to make my bread!

Actually, the ogre wanted Jack roasted or broiled, but he couldn't come up with the proper rhyme. Finding no one about, the ogre ate a few calves, counted a few bags of his gold, and then fell asleep. Jack stole the gold and escaped home. When the gold was all spent, Jack went up a second time and stole the hen that laid the golden eggs from the sleeping ogre Again he escaped. This wasn't enough for his greedy mother, who sent Jack back a third time. On his last trip, Jack stole a golden harp that kept screaming "Master! Master!" as it was carried away. This time the ogre followed Jack down the beanstalk, but Jack was able to cut the stalk through with an ax in time to plunge the ogre to his death. He and his mother lived happily ever after.