A long time ago,
a widow and her son, Jack, lived together in a small house in the country far away from London.
Jack was her only son.
He was an easy going, lazy boy but his nature was very gentle.
His mother spoiled him too much,
so he never helped with the house chores, and just played around.
The mother had a tough life;
no luck, no job, no money.
She sold everything she could and then had only one cow left to sell.
One day, she told Jack,
“I have to sell the cow.
Losing the cow is like somebody cutting me in half, but we have no other way to survive.
Can you bring the cow to the market?
Try to find a rich man and sell the cow for as much as you can.”
Jack left his house with the cow.
After walking for a while, a butcher approached him and asked,
“Hey lad, where are going with the cow?”
”I am on the way to the market to sell the cow,” replied Jack.
“Oh really?”
The butcher, holding his hat in one hand, shook it.
The hat made a rustling sound.
Jack was curious so he looked into the hat.
There was a bag and some strange shaped beans inside it.
‘What beautiful beans!’
He was attracted to the beans and wanted them.
The butcher saw Jack was interested in the beans and decided to trick him.
He opened the bag wide and said,
“You want the beans, don’t you?”
Jack smiled shyly at the butcher who read his mind.
“No, no, these are magic beans. I can’t give them to you for free. Sorry.
You seem to really like them, though.
Hmm, how about exchanging the beans for the cow?" the butcher asked slyly.
Jack accepted his offer and exchanged the cow for the beans.
Both Jack and the butcher thought they had a good deal and said goodbye to each other.
Holding the bag of beans, Jack ran back to his house.
“Mother, I got a good deal today,” said Jack proudly.
His mother was not happy and scolded him.
“Oh my goodness! What a stupid thing to do.
I can't believe it. You exchanged our precious cow for worthless beans.
We got nothing out of it!”
‘Oh God, what should I do with this child?’
She was so upset, she threw all the beans out the window.
She sighed and started to cry miserably.
Jack was expecting that his mother would be happy with the deal.
He was sad to see her getting angrier than he had ever seen before.
There was nothing to eat in the house so he went to bed on an empty stomach.
The next morning,
Jack woke up and noticed that it was unusually dark outside
so he looked out the window to see what was wrong.
He was surprised!
A strong stalk grew from a bean his mother had thrown out.
It occupied the whole garden and had grown very high.
Jack jumped off his bed and went out to the garden.
The beanstalk was climbing up to the sky.
Tangled stalks and leaves were standing like a ladder high up into the sky.
‘If I climb the stalk, where could I go?’
He started to climb step by step.
Each time he looked down from the stalk, his house got smaller and smaller.
Finally, the house went out of view but he still hadn't reached the top.
Jack was a little worried about how much more he needed to go but kept climbing.
He felt dizzy, and his hands and legs got shaky from climbing for such a long time,
but he finally reached the top.
Jack looked around.
The place was, so to speak, a wonderland.
There was a lush green forest,
a field covered with beautiful flowers and the river streaming crystal clear water.
He was taken by surprise.
Who would expect to see such a beautiful land in the sky?
Suddenly, a bizarre looking old woman with a red hood appeared in front of him.
Jack gazed at her strange face.
“Don't be scared boy,” the old woman said gently.
“I am a guardian of your house.
I have been bound by a spell for several years by a giant demon.
Without a house guardian, your mother must have had a hard time.
But I am free from the giant demon now so it’s time to help you and your mother.”
There is a mansion not far from here where a giant demon lives.
You and your parents used to live in the mansion.
But one day the giant demon murdered your father and took the mansion and all the treasures he had.
After this awful incident, you and your mother had to live in poverty.
What a poor child you are!
Falling down to the human world,
your mother had to suffer a miserable life with you held in her arms,"
the guardian told the story of Jack's family in one breath.
Hearing all the sad incidents that happened to his family, Jack lost his composure but told himself to be strong.
He missed the father he never knew
and decided to fight the giant demon to reclaim all his family treasures.
Once he made a decision,
his courage peaked
and he forgot about all the complaints he had including hunger and tiredness.
After he thanked the guardian, he headed for the mansion as quickly as he could.
When the sun was setting, Jack arrived at the mansion.
“Knock, knock.”
Jack knocked on the door of the mansion.
The one-eyed wife of the giant demon came out.
She looked at Jack who was very hungry and shook her head,
and said gently in spite of her scary face:
“No, I’m sorry. I can’t let you stay here.
This is the demon’s house and you’ll be his dinner if he finds you.”
“Please missus? Only one night. Let me hide and sleep somewhere.
I am so tired and I can’t walk another step,” Jack said desperately.
“You don’t understand, do you? Well, I’ll let you stay only tonight.
Leave here early in the morning.”
During their conversation, huge footsteps could be heard from inside the house.
“Stomp! Stomp!”
The giant demon had come back home.
The wife quickly hid Jack inside the fireplace.
“I smell a human!” He looked around and sniffed but couldn’t find Jack.
He gave up searching and sat on a chair.
Jack sneaked a peek at the giant demon
and was surprised to see him gobbling food and gulping water.
After his stomach was full, he said to his wife,
“Bring the chicken.”
It was a magic chicken.
The giant demon put the chicken on the table and said,
“Lay an egg!” The chicken laid a golden egg.
The giant demon said again, “Lay an egg!”
The chicken laid another golden egg.
“What a profitable chicken!
This must be one of the treasures the giant demon took from my father,” thought Jack.
The giant demon enjoyed demanding eggs from the magic chicken
and continued until he fell asleep.
The sound of his snoring almost shook the walls!
Jack sneaked out of the fireplace when the wife left for the kitchen,
and grabbed the magic chicken from the table.
Tiptoeing, he continued out of the mansion.
He ran, ran, and ran to the beanstalk, and then climbed down to his house.
Jack’s mother was worried that he might have been kidnapped by a witch,
but then he was back as if nothing happened.
The mother cried with joy to see him again.
Thanks to the magic chicken that lays golden eggs, that Jack brought back,
he and his mother became very rich and happy.
A while after returning from the sky, Jack decided to go back there.
This time he was in a different outfit when he climbed up the stalk.
He arrived at the giant demon’s mansion.
When he knocked on the door, the giant demon’s wife came out to greet him.
She didn’t notice that it was Jack so he asked if he could stay there.
“No, no, you can’t stay here.
I let a poor-looking boy stay one time and he stole my husband’s precious chicken.
Since then, my husband scolds me every night. I don’t want any trouble,”
said the wife shaking her head.
But he asked her over and over and at last she let him in.
The giant demon came back soon and sniffed around.
“Hmm, I smell something.”
Jack was hiding in a copper box so the giant demon couldn’t find him.
The giant demon ate like a pig just as he did the last time.
After eating, he brought out a heavy bag of coins.
He emptied the bag on the table and started counting them.
Spreading gold and silver coins, he played with them for a while.
Then he put them back in the bag and tied it with a string.
Again as before, he fell asleep with a thunderous snore.
After making sure that the giant demon was sleeping,
Jack sneaked out from the copper box and grabbed the bag,
and began to run out of the mansion.
This time there was a dog guarding the bag, and the dog started barking.
‘Oh no,’ thought Jack.
‘The giant demon will wake up!’
Thank God, he was still sleeping like a log.
Jack dashed straight to the beanstalk and climbed down as before.
The bag was heavy with coins, not like the chicken, but he managed to carry it down.
It took two days to reach the bottom.
Finally, he arrived home.
His mother was worried sick for two days and just lay in bed.
When she saw Jack at the door, she quickly jumped up and hugged him.
Hearing his joyful news made her feel like a spring chicken.
Jack stayed home for a while.
But by and by he had an itch to climb up into the sky again.
He just stared at the beanstalk every day.
He could not stop thinking about the beanstalk so finally he climbed it again.
Jack disguised himself again as a different boy
so the giant demon’s wife again wouldn’t realize it was him.
After begging to stay the night, she let him in and hid him in a pot.
As soon as the giant demon came in, he sniffed around and said.
“I smell a human again! I’ll find him.”
He carefully looked around and checked everywhere in the room.
He came to the pot and touched the lid.
Jack was shaking in fear.
‘This is it!’ Then the giant demon changed his mind.
“Well I guess I’m hungry. Let’s eat dinner first.”
Probably the house guardian was helping Jack remain hidden from the giant demon.
After eating dinner and drinking his fill of beer, the giant demon complained to his wife.
“The precious chicken was stolen, the bag of coins was stolen;
I have nothing left to play with other than this harp.”
Jack took a peek and saw a gorgeous harp decorated with jewels.
The giant demon put the harp on the table.
“Play,” said the giant demon.
What a surprise!
The harp started playing music by itself.
The sound of the harp was heavenly.
No other musical instrument could have made such a wonderful sound.
Jack wanted it more than the precious chicken or the bag of coins.
The giant demon fell asleep at the sound of the harp’s lullaby.
‘Good!’
Climbing out of the pot, Jack grabbed the harp and ran.
But unexpectedly, this spell-cast harp suddenly cried out:
“Wake up! Wake up, my master.”
The giant demon woke up and saw a small boy running with the harp.
“Wait! Dam lad! You stole my chicken, my bag of coins, and now you are trying to steal my harp!"
The giant demon roared as he ran after Jack.
“Catch me, if you can,”
Jack shouted back, and ran like crazy.
The drunken giant demon stumbled, got up, and ran again to catch Jack.
Meanwhile, the harp kept sounding,
“clunk, clunk.”
Finally, Jack got back to the beanstalk and said to the harp,
"Why don't you shut up?"
The harp became quiet.
Jack started climbing down the beanstalk while holding the harp.
Far below Jack,
his mother was looking up at the beanstalk all teary-eyed.
“Don’t cry, mother!” Jack shouted.
“Mother, please get an axe right now.”
There was no time.
The giant demon was climbing down the beanstalk.
Stomp! Stomp!.
Jack was in cold sweat.
He jumped from the beanstalk with the harp.
He then flipped in the air like a flying swallow, and landed on the lowest step.
His mother came with the axe and handed it to Jack who cut the beanstalk at the bottom.
“Snap!”
Still holding onto the cut beanstalk, the giant demon fell to the ground with a “CRASH!”
He was dead.
The house guardian appeared again.
This time she showed up as a beautiful young woman.
She told Jack.
“You think you got the magic bean from the butcher,
but I set you up to see how you would handle the situation.
It was up to you to open the door to the adventure.
If you hadn't done anything but look at the beanstalk, nothing would have happened.
You wouldn't have gotten back your father’s treasures.
You and your mother would have stayed in poverty.
You took a risk, climbed the beanstalk, and you were rewarded.”
Then the house guardian left after saying goodbye to him and his mother.