Jack and the Bean Stalk

                               

                              Jack and the Bean Stalk

Once upon a time there was a poor widow who lived
with her son Jack in a little house. Their wealth consisted solely of a milking
cow. When the cow had grown too old, the mother sent Jack to sell it. On his
way to the market, the boy met a stranger.

"I will give you five magic beans for your

cow," the stranger offered. Jack was unsure and hesitated for a while but
then, enticed by the idea of such an extraordinary deal, he decided to accept.
When he returned home, his mother was furious and reprimanded him sternly:

"You fool! What have you done? We needed the

money to buy a calf. Now we don't have anything and we are even poorer."
Jack felt guilty and sad.

"Only a fool would exchange a cow for five

beans," his mother fumed.

Then, at the height of her exasperation, she threw

the five beans out of the window and sent Jack to bed with no dinner.

The morning after, when he stepped outside, Jack

saw an amazing sight. A gigantic beanstalk, reaching far into the clouds, had
grown overnight.

"The beans must have really been magic,"

Jack thought happily. Being very curious, the boy climbed the plant and once he
reached the top of the stalk he found himself over the clouds.

While looking around in amazement, Jack saw a huge

castle of grey stone.

"I wonder who lives there," he thought.

Jack was very surprised to see a path leading to the castle. He cautiously
stepped on the clouds and, when he saw that they held him up, he walked to the
castle. As he stood in front of the huge gate, his curiosity increased. He
knocked several times on the gigantic door, but no one came to open it. Jack
noticed that the door wasn't locked. With great effort, he was able to push it
until it creaked open.

"What are you doing here?" a thundering

voice asked. The biggest woman he had ever seen was scowling at him. Jack could
only mutter:

"I am lost. May I have something to eat? I am

very hungry." The woman, who did not have children, looked at him a little
more kindly: "Come in, quick. I will give you a bowl of milk. But be
careful because my husband, the ogre, eats children. If you hear him coming,
hide at once."

Jack was shaking with fear but, nonetheless, he

went inside. The milk the woman gave him was very good and Jack had almost
finished drinking it when they heard a tremendous noise. The ogre was home.

"Fee fl fo fum! I smell the blood of an

Englishman!" the ogre shouted.

"Hide, quick!" the woman whispered,

pushing Jack into the oven.

"Do I smell a child in this room?" the

ogre asked suspiciously, snifflng and looking all around.

"A child?" the woman repeated. "You

see and hear children everywhere. That's all you ever think about. Sit down and
I'll make your dinner." The ogre, still grumbling, filled a jug of wine
and drank it all with his dinner.

After having counted again and again all the gold

pleces of his treasure, the ogre fell asleep with his feet propped up on the
table. After a little while, his thundering snoring echoed throughout the
castle. The ogre's wife went to prepare the ogre's bed and Jack, who had sneaked
out ot the oven, saw the gold pieces on the table and filled a little bag full
of them.

"I hope he won't see me, otherwise he'll eat

me whole," Jack thought while shivering with fear. Jack's heart was
beating faster, not just faster because he feared the ogre but because he was
very excited. Thanks to all the gold coins, he and his mother would be rich.
Jack ran down the path over the clouds.

Jack arrived at the top of the giant beanstalk and

began to descend as quickly as possible, hanging on the leaves and the
branches. When he finally reached the ground, he found his mother waiting for
him. The poor woman had been worried sick since his disappearance.

She had been frightened by the giant beanstalk.

When she saw Jack come down and then triumphantly hold up the bag full of gold,
she burst out crying:

"Where have you been, my son? Do you want me

to die worrying? What kind of plant is this? What . . ." Jack cheerfully
interrupted her, emptying the contents of the bag before her.

"You see, I did the right thing exchanglng

that cow for the magic beans. Now I'll tell you the whole story . . ."

And Jack told his mother everything that had

happened in detail. In the days that followed, the widow's humble house was
made into a comfortable home. The gold pieces were spent to buy a lot of things
Jack and his mother never had before. Mother and son were very happy. But as
time went by, so did the money. When the last gold piece had been spent, Jack
decided to go back to the castle above the clouds. This time the boy went
inside through the kitchen and hid once again in the oven. Shortly after, the
ogre came in and began to sniff about.

"I smell children," he said to his wife.

But since she had seen no one come in, she didn't pay any attention to him.

After dinner, the ogre placed a hen on the table.

The hen laid golden eggs. Jack saw the miraculous hen from a crack in the oven
door. He waited for the ogre to fall asleep, jumped out of the oven, snatched
the hen and ran out of the castle. The hen's squawking, however, woke up the
ogre.

"Thief! Thief!" he shouted. But Jack was

already far away. Once again, he found his mother anxiously waiting for him at
the foot of the beanstalk.

"Is that all you stole? A hen?" she asked

Jack, disappointed. But Jack ran, happy, to the courtyard.

"Just wait," he said to his mother. As a

matter of fact, a little while later the hen laid a golden egg and continued to
lay such an egg every single day after that.

By now, Jack and his mother were very wealthy.

Their house was completely rebuilt. Teams of carpenters replaced the roof,
added new rooms and elegant marble columns. Then they bought paintings,
tapestries, Persian rugs, mirrors and many other beautiful fumishings. Their
miserable shack was transformed into a luxurious home.

Jack and his mother had not forgotten their

previous years of poverty and deprivation. So they chose to welcome any
traveller who needed food or shelter. But wealth doesn't always bring
happiness. Jack's mother suddenly fell ill or so it seemed. But not one of the
many doctors who visited her could discover what her illness was. The woman was
sad, ate less and less and showed no interest in life. She rarely smiled, and
then only when Jack was near to her. Her son tried to cheer her up, but nothing
could save the mother from her slow but inevitable decline. Even a circus's
famous clown, who had been invited especially for her entertainment, received
only a sad greeting.

Jack was desperate and didn't know what to do. All

the hen's gold was not enough to make his mother well again. So he had another
idea.

"What if I went back to the ogre's castle?

Maybe there I could find the answer," he thought. He shivered with fear
thinking about the giant's huge hands and mouth, but the hope of helping his
mother encouraged him to face the danger again. One evening he gathered all his
courage and climbed once more the giant beanstalk. This time he entered the
castle through an open window. He sneaked in the darkness to the kitchen and
hid inside a huge pot until the following day. After dinner the ogre went to
get his magic harp, an instrument that sang and played marvellous music. While
listening to the harp's sweet melody, the ogre fell asleep. In his hiding
place, Jack was captivated by the harp's song as well. When he finally heard
the ogre snore loudly, he lifted the pot's lid and saw the extraordinary
instrument: a golden harp.

He quickly climbed on the table and ran away with

the harp in his hands. The instrument woke up the ogre screaming:

"Master, master! Wake up! A thief is taking me

away!" The ogre woke up suddenly, was disorientated for a couple of
seconds but then realized what was happening and began chasing Jack. The boy
ran as fast as he could and the harp kept calling out.

"Shut up! Shut up! If you'll play for me,

you'll be happier," Jack kept telling it breathlessly. He finally arrived
to where the leafy top of the beanstalk poked through the clouds. Jack crept
along the ground and slipped down the stalk quietly. The harp did not make a
sound and the ogre didn't see Jack go down the plant. When Jack got down to
earth he called to his mother,

"Look what I've brought you!" The harp

began to play an enchanting melody and his mother smiled happlly.

But up there in the clouds someone else had heard

the harp's beautiful song and Jack soon realized with terror that the thick
beanstalk was shaking under a very heavy weight. The ogre was coming down to
earth!

"Hide the harp and bring me an axe! I must

chop down the plant before the ogre gets here," Jack said to his mother.
They could already see the ogre's huge boots when the plant and the ogre
finally crashed to the ground. The ogre fell down a cliff nearby. The ogre's
wife never found out what had happened to her husband and as time passed Jack
no longer felt in danger.

The magical sound of the harp cured his mother's

sadness and she was once again happy and cheerful. The hen kept on laying
golden eggs. Jack's life had gone through a lot of changes since he had
accepted the magic beans. But without his courage and his wit, he and his
mother could never have found happiness.