One sunny morning, a little tailor was sitting by his window, sewing a jacket. He was in a fine mood, and he was singing to himself as he worked. Then he heard someone calling out in the street below.
“Fresh jam for sale! Lovely jam, cheap!”
The tailor was very fond of jam. He stuck his head out of the window and shouted down, “Up here! I’ll buy some!”
The woman climbed the steps to his room with her great basket. The tailor looked over every jar, sniffed each one carefully, and finally said, “This smells delicious. I’ll take four ounces, please.”
The woman sold him the jam, though she looked rather put out that he had bought so little.
The tailor spread the jam thickly on a slice of bread and set it aside.
“Mmm. That is going to be good,” he said. “But first I shall finish this jacket.”
He went back to his sewing. Before long, though, he noticed flies buzzing round his bread.
“Oi! Who invited you lot?” he said, waving them off. But the flies took no notice at all and came straight back.
The tailor lost his patience, snatched up a cloth, and — WHACK!
He looked. There on the table lay seven flies, legs in the air.
“Seven! Seven in one blow!” he said, thoroughly impressed with himself. He set to work at once and stitched himself a fine belt with the words Seven in One Blow embroidered right across it. “Everyone ought to know how strong I am,” he said, tying it round his waist. “Time to go and see the world!”
He put an old piece of cheese in his pocket and set off.
As he walked, he came across a little bird tangled in a bush.
“Poor thing,” said the tailor, and he freed it and slipped it gently into his pocket to look after later.
After a while he climbed a great hill, where he found a giant sitting and gazing out over the valley. The tailor walked straight up to him.
“Good day to you, friend! Lovely weather, isn’t it? I’m off to explore the world. Care to come along?”
The giant looked down and laughed. “You? Explore the world? You’re barely a mouthful.”
The tailor pointed at his belt. “Read that, big fellow. Seven in one blow.”
The giant’s eyes widened. “Seven… men?” he said, and his voice held a good deal more respect than it had a moment before. “Very well. Let’s see how strong you really are. Watch this.”
He picked up a stone and squeezed it in his fist until water dripped from between his fingers.
“Your turn,” said the giant, smirking.
“Easy,” said the tailor. He drew the old cheese from his pocket and squeezed it until the whey ran out and splashed on the grass. “There. Nothing to it.”
The giant was surprised, but he was not ready to give up. He picked up another stone and hurled it so high that it very nearly touched the clouds before falling back down.
“Beat that, little man.”
The tailor only smiled. He took the bird from his pocket and tossed it into the air. Up it went, up and up — and away it flew, and it never came down at all.
“How do you like that? My stone is never coming back.”
The giant scratched his head. “All right. You’re clever, I’ll grant you. But can you help me carry this tree?”
He pointed to an enormous tree lying on the ground.
“Certainly,” said the tailor. “You take the trunk, and I’ll carry the branches. The branches are the heavy end.”
The giant heaved the trunk onto his shoulder, and the tailor climbed up into the branches and settled himself comfortably. So the giant carried the tree and the tailor both, and never knew it. The tailor whistled a cheerful tune the whole way while the giant sweated and groaned.
At last the giant gasped, “I can’t go another step! I’m putting it down!”
The tailor hopped off, grabbed a branch, and pretended he had been holding it up all along.
“Well!” he said, laughing. “You’re a big fellow, but you do tire easily.”
The giant was far too worn out to argue, so instead he invited the tailor to spend the night with him and his friends. They went to a cave where other giants sat around a great fire, eating whole roasted sheep. His host showed the tailor to an enormous bed — but it was far too big to be comfortable, so the tailor curled up in a corner of the cave instead.
In the middle of the night, the giant thought to himself, I’ll be rid of that little pest, and brought an iron bar down on the bed with an almighty CRASH.
But the tailor was safe in his corner, and he strolled out in the morning smiling and stretching. When the giants saw him alive and well, they were so frightened that they fled the cave and never came back, certain he could not be harmed.
The tailor travelled on, and eventually he came to a palace. He was so tired by then that he lay down on the grass outside and fell fast asleep. People passing by read the words on his belt — Seven in One Blow — and decided he must be a mighty warrior, and they hurried to tell the king.
Now, the king was in need of help. Two giants had been causing havoc in his kingdom.
“Defeat them,” said the king, “and I shall give you my daughter’s hand and half my kingdom.”
“That,” thought the tailor, “sounds very fine indeed.” And he agreed.
He found the two giants asleep beneath a tree. The tailor climbed up above them and began dropping stones — one on this one, one on that one — until both woke up in a fury, each convinced the other had started it. They fought until they knocked each other flat.
The tailor had won without lifting a finger.
The king, however, had no real wish to hand over his daughter, so he set the tailor further tasks: to catch a wild unicorn, and then a savage boar. But the clever tailor used his wits again, tricking the unicorn into driving its horn deep into a tree, and shutting the boar inside a little chapel and bolting the door.
At last the king had no choice. He gave the tailor his daughter’s hand, and there was a great wedding, and the little tailor who had once sat sewing by his window became a king himself.
And even when the princess found out that he was only a tailor after all, no one ever dared trouble him — because everyone still believed he was the bravest man alive.
And so the brave little tailor lived happily ever after, as a king, with plenty of jam and no shortage of adventures to tell.