Origins and setting
“Jack and the Beanstalk” is an English wonder tale from the family of “boy-thief vs. ogre/giant” adventures. Its core has remained steady since the early nineteenth century: a poor widow’s son trades the family cow for magic beans, climbs a beanstalk into the clouds, and outwits a flesh-eating giant (often called an ogre) to win back wealth that, in some tellings, belonged to his father. The tale’s unforgettable heartbeat is the giant’s thunderous rhyme—“Fee-fi-fo-fum!”—and the final race down the beanstalk to an axe and daylight.
The tale
There was once a widow who lived with her boy, Jack, in a cottage so poor that even the clock had been sold to pay the baker. At last there remained only their cow, Milky-white. One bleak morning the widow said, “We have no choice. Take the cow to market, Jack, and mind you bring back money.”
Jack set off, leading the cow by a frayed rope. He had not gone far when he met a little old man with eyes as bright as pins.
“Good day,” said the stranger. “A fine cow. Will you sell her?”
“For the best price I can get,” Jack answered.
“I will give you five beans,” said the man, and he opened his hand to show them—big, glossy, oddly warm to the touch. “These are magic beans. Plant them at night and by morning—well, you shall see wonders.”
Jack thought of an empty cupboard and a mother who had run out of hope. The man’s eyes glittered. “It is a bargain,” Jack said—and he handed over the cow.
When Jack came home with the beans, his mother stared as if he had brought her a handful of fog. “Beans? Beans! Oh, you foolish boy! What have you done?” In a fury she flung the beans out of the window, sent Jack to bed without supper, and sat by the hearth with her apron over her head.
The beanstalk
At dawn Jack woke to a strange green glow. He ran to the window and saw that the beans had thrust up a great beanstalk, thick as a mill post, shooting into the sky until it lost itself in cloud. Jack’s heart leapt. “I’ll climb it,” he said, “and see where it goes.”
Up he went—hand over hand, leaf after leaf—past the swallows, past a drifting lark, past the level of the highest hills. At last he came out above the clouds to a broad road and, beyond it, a castle with doors big enough for a barn and a knocker like a blacksmith’s sledge.
He knocked. Boom, boom, boom, the sound went into the stone. The door opened a crack and a giant’s wife peered out, a woman tall as a haystack with a face not unkind.
“What do you want, little lad?” she asked.
“Breakfast, please,” said Jack, as bold as bread. “I am starving.”
“You had best be gone,” she said, looking over her shoulder. “My husband is a giant, and he eats boys on toast. But your ribs are counting themselves—come in quick.” She hid Jack in the oven (with the door open, for air), and gave him a heel of bread and a thimble-cup of milk big as a pail to him.
Hardly had Jack swallowed when the castle shook with heavy steps and a voice like a drum rolled through the hall:
“Fee-fi-fo-fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman;
Be he alive, or be he dead,
I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.”
“Nonsense,” said the giant’s wife. “You smell the scraps of last night’s broiled ox.” She set before him huge platters, and he ate until the dishes looked licked by weather. Then he called, “Bring me my money!” She set on the table a great bag of gold. The giant counted and nodded, and after a while, heavy with meat and content, he fell asleep, snoring like thunder.
Jack slid from the oven, hoisted the bag—near bursting with coins—and ran. He found the beanstalk, scrambled down as fast as hands could fly, and spilled the gold on the cottage floor.
“Jack,” said his mother, when she could speak for astonishment, “God forgive me for calling you a fool.”
For a time they ate well and paid every debt. But gold runs like water through poor fingers, and the purse grew light again.
The hen that lays golden eggs
“Mother,” Jack said, “I must climb the beanstalk once more.”
“Oh, Jack, don’t,” she begged. But Jack was already at the window.
Up he went to the castle and knocked again. The giant’s wife frowned. “You again? My husband was raging for two days about a lost bag of gold.”
“I’ll do the washing up for you,” said Jack, “and mend that kettle.”
She hesitated, then waved him in and set him behind the copper this time. Soon the footsteps fell like cartwheels and the voice boomed:
“Fee-fi-fo-fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman.”
“Rubbish,” said the wife, though she sniffed a little herself. “It is the barn-cats.”
The giant ate a mountain, wiped his beard, and shouted, “Bring me my hen!” His wife brought a plump brown hen and set it before him.
“Lay!” roared the giant.
The hen laid a golden egg—perfect, heavy, shining. “Lay!” he commanded again, and again the hen laid. After a dozen the giant chuckled, folded his arms, and dozed.
Jack slipped from behind the copper, tucked the hen under his coat, and ran with all his might. The hen clucked once, softly, as if she knew. Down the beanstalk Jack came, and this time he hid the hen under his bed and whispered, “Lay!” The hen laid a golden egg for Jack and his mother every day thereafter. They were rich as candlelight.
But greed was not what drew Jack back; it was curiosity, and the half-heard song that had drifted through the giant’s hall.
The singing harp
A third morning, Jack climbed again. “You’ll be the very death of me,” groaned the giant’s wife, yet she could not quite turn him away. She thrust him into a chest and dropped the lid.
The giant came home:
“Fee-fi-fo-fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman.”
“It’s the weather in your nose,” said his wife, but the giant stomped about, sniffing like a hound. At last he sat and shouted, “Bring me my harp!”
His wife set on the table a marvellous harp carved of dark wood, with strings the colour of corn-silk. “Sing!” said the giant, and the harp began to play and sing of its own will, music as clear as water.
When the giant slept, Jack edged the chest lid up, crept forth, and reached for the harp. The moment his fingers closed upon it, the harp cried out in a small, silver voice:
“Master! Master!”
The giant woke, roared, and sprang. Jack fled with the harp under his arm; the giant crashed after him, tearing up flagstones with each stride.
Jack reached the beanstalk and slid. The leaves burned his palms; the clouds spun. Above, the giant began to climb, hand over hand, bellowing rage.
“Mother! An axe!” Jack shouted as soon as his feet struck earth. His mother ran with the axe, white as flour with fear. Jack swung once—chop—and the beanstalk shivered. He swung again—CHOP—and the green pillar cracked like a mast in a gale. The beanstalk toppled; the giant fell, crashing through branches and cloud into the field, where he lay very still and troubled no one ever after.
The harp settled on Jack’s knee and sang a soft tune of home. The hen laid them eggs enough but not more than they needed. Jack and his mother mended the cottage, gave honest alms, and kept a garden. In some say, the widow told Jack at last that the giant had stolen their fortunes long ago, and so what he brought down was only restored; in any case, he learnt to measure daring with care.
And if anyone asked Jack what he had learnt up there in the sky, he would say, “Be bold—but not without wit; and when a harp cries ‘Master,’ run.”
Iconic lines and moments
- The giant’s rhyme:
“Fee-fi-fo-fum, / I smell the blood of an Englishman; / Be he alive, or be he dead, / I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.” - The bargain at the lane: “Five magic beans.”
- The mother’s fury: “Beans? Beans! What have you done?”
- The commands that reveal the treasures:
- “Bring me my money!”
- “Bring me my hen—Lay!”
- “Bring me my harp—Sing!”
- The harp’s alarm: “Master! Master!”
- The ending shout: “Mother! An axe!” and the two chops that fell the beanstalk.
Thus ends “Jack and the Beanstalk”: a ladder to the clouds, three raids by courage and cunning, and a last great CHOP that brings a bully down to earth.
Leave a Reply