Jack and the Golden Egg

Once upon a time, Jack lived with his mother in a little cottage with smoke at the chimney and a gate that squeaked. They were poor, so poor that one morning there was nothing left in the cupboard but a crust and a cobweb.

“Take the cow to market,” said his mother, “and sell her for the best price you can.”

On the way, Jack met a funny little man with a hat full of feathers. “I'll swap you,” said the man, “your cow for five magic beans.” And Jack, who liked the sound of magic, said yes.

His mother did not like the sound of magic one bit. She threw the beans out of the window, and sent Jack to bed with no supper at all.

But in the night the beans began to grow. Up and up, past the chimney, past the clouds, curling and climbing, until in the morning a beanstalk stood outside Jack's window as tall as the sky.

So Jack climbed. Hand over hand, leaf over leaf, higher than the birds, until the cottage below was as small as a button.

At the top of the beanstalk, a path ran across the clouds, and at the end of the path stood a castle with its flag flying and its door wide open.

Jack tiptoed in. The table was as big as a field, and the chairs were as tall as trees, and from somewhere deep inside came a voice like thunder: “Fee, fi, fo, fum!”

Jack hid inside the bread tin. In stomped a giant, so big that the floor went boom, boom, boom. He sat down at the table and called for his hen.

“Lay,” said the giant. And the little brown hen settled herself, and fluffed her feathers, and laid an egg made of gold.

When the giant was snoring, Jack crept out of the bread tin. The hen looked at him, and Jack looked at the hen. “Would you like to come and live somewhere quieter?” he whispered. And the hen gave a small cluck, which meant yes.

Jack tucked her under his arm, and the golden egg in his pocket, and tiptoed back across the clouds.

He was halfway down the beanstalk when the snoring stopped. “Fee, fi, fo, fum!” roared the giant, and down he came, and the whole beanstalk swayed like a tree in a storm.

“Mother!” shouted Jack. “The axe!” And chop, chop, chop, down came the beanstalk, and the giant scrambled back up to the clouds in such a fright that he was never seen again.

The little brown hen lived happily in the garden behind the cottage. Every morning she laid one golden egg, and every morning Jack and his mother had a boiled egg for breakfast too, a plain one, from the other hens.

There was always something in the cupboard after that. And the gate still squeaked, because Jack liked it that way. The End.