literature

Fairytales :Prologue:

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Literature Text

Prologue:

Once upon a time there lived a poor widow and her son Jack. They lived in a cottage and barely had enough to eat. One day, Jacks mother told him that he must take their old dry dairy cow to market and sell her, lest he and his mother starve during the winter.

On his way to market, Jack met an old woman who had with her six strange looking, clear apple green beans.

She told the simple lad that they were magical and persuaded him to trade her his cow for them.

Jack was thrilled, but when his mother saw what her son had brought home instead of money, she grew so angry that she took the beans from him and threw them out the window into the garden.

That night Jack went to bed hungry and sad. But when he woke up the next morning, what did he see but that the magic beans had sprouted and grown into a gigantic beanstalk that reached into the heavens.

Without a moments hesitation, jack took hold of a low branch and started to climb.
Higher and higher he went, and when he finally reached the top, why, he found himself in a beautiful garden, filled with flowers and bushes that towered far over head. Feeling reckless after his exhilarating climb up the beanstalk, Jack began to explore. He wandered around the over sized garden, until he caught sight of a towering castle.

“Surly the owner of this garden must live there.” He said. And made his way to it.

Only when he reached it did he find that the castle must be the home of some sort of ogre. The steps were almost twice his size and he found that he could slip under the door quite easily.
Once inside Jack smelled something wonderful. Baking and roasting and all sorts of food. He followed the smells until he found himself in a giant dining room. And there, far overhead on the table was laid out the most wonderful banquet Jack had ever seen.

He immediately ran over and began to climb the leg of the table, for Jack had not eaten well in a very long time, and the food smelled too good for him to stay away from.

Once on the table, Jack ran from dish to dish, sampling a little bit of everything. When he was finally full, Jack sat down with his back leaned against a giant goblet and sighed with contentment. He was just about to doze off, when suddenly the whole room seamed to shake with thunder. Jack looked up and saw a terrifying giant enter the room.
Tacking fright, Jack ran and hid behind a flower vase which sat decorating the table with roses cut from the garden.

The giant stood in the doorway and seamed to sniff the air. Then a fearsome scowl crossed its face.

“Fe Fi Fo Fum!
I smell the blood of an Englishmen!
Be he living or be he dead,
I’ll grind his bones to make my bread!”

Jack was terrified and shook dreadfully. The giant thundered around the room, searching for him. After quite a while it gave up and sat at the table. Jack was horrified to see how much it ate. Stuffing whole oxen in its mouth at a time.
After it had had its fill, it clapped its mighty hands and a line of giant servants filed in. They all carried away the dishes and cleaned the table. None seaming to spot Jack.
After the table was clear, the giant clapped its hands again and another servant appeared.

“Bring me my golden goose and magic harp.”

The giant servant disappeared for a few moments, then returned with the requested items and placed them on the table in front of its master. Once the servant had disappeared from the room again, the giant turned to the goose and demanded,

“Lay.”

Immediately the goose laid a beautiful golden egg.

“Lay!” Ordered the giant again, and again the goose laid a large golden egg.

‘If only I had that goose’ Jack thought, ‘My mother and I would never have to worry about money again!’

After the giant had its eggs, it brought out the harp.

“play.” It ordered, and the harp began to play a beautiful song. Indeed the song was so soothing, that the giant fell asleep right there at the table.

Once the giant was snoring fit to bring the roof down, Jack crept out of his hiding place and grabbed the goose and harp. Unfortunately, as he grabbed the harp it made a terrible sharp noise which woke the giant. It opened its huge eyes and saw Jack running across the room with both its harp and goose in hand.

The giant roared and chased Jack all the way to the beanstalk.
Jack quickly scrambled down and when he reached the ground looked back up the beanstalk. The giant was climbing down after him. Jack quickly grabbed an axe from his shed and chopped the beanstalk clean through. The giant fell to the earth and landed with a mighty crash, dead.

Jack and his mother grew very rich off of what the lad had stolen, and they both lived happily ever after.

The End.

More or less.

The giants wife, who had been out shopping with her twelve year old son, was rather startled to learn upon returning home that her husband had died in a freak beanstalk accident. They were both a bit shaken and more than a little astonished to find that one actually could die in a freak beanstalk accident.

Eventually the giants son grew up and inherited the castle. One day while he was out relaxing by the river, he met a very nice giantess who had been out gathering herbs. They hit it off very nicely, soon fell in love, got married, and started a family of their own.


The giants descendants eventually spread out and moved far away. The two true descendants of the Giant, now live in a huge and luxurious manor. But we’ll get to them later.


Jack and his mother lived full, rich and happy lives until they both grew old and died.
Jack married a pretty girl from the town and had a handsome son who went on to start his own family.
At some point the goose and the harp were lost and Jacks descendants became poor once more. some of them moved to America in the hopes of making a better life, which they unfortunately never found. That is where the true descendant of Jack is living today. We'll get to her in a minute.

People these days don’t believe in fairy tales. And with good reason. Who in their right mind would believe that trolls really lived under bridges? Or that giants lived in the sky?
The idea is, scientifically speaking, complete and utter bull honky.
Just stories to amuse children. Interestingly enough, that’s exactly how the trolls and the giants feel about fairytales as well.

They don’t believe in humans. And why should they? They’ve never seen them, at least, not for several hundred years. To them, humans are as fictional as fairies.

Of coarse, there are no real fairies any more. Even they felt the need, much as Jack and the giants son did, to settle down and raise young. They mostly did this with humans. Heaven knows why. And as a result the closest things to fairies we have now are simply, more humans. Humans who through their strange lineage have inherited the work of the fairies.

Which is, quite simply, stories.

The care and upkeep of fairytales. Making sure that the stories don’t get forgotten or to far twisted out of shape. Moving along plots or creating whole new stories.

And every now and again, they refresh them. Not simply retelling the old tales, but making people relive them.

This is the story of how the whole retched beanstalk business was relived, some hundreds of years after Jack’s initial adventure.
As long as I can remember I’ve always hated the story of Jack and the beanstalk. He broke into a guys house, stole his stuff and then killed him! The fact that the Giant wasn’t very nice is immaterial.
There wasn’t even a morel! Not something I normally grip about, but it always felt like Jack needed one.

So why have I decided to redo a story that I hate? Who knows!
The story will be very different than the original though.

I thought using the fairytale itself as the prolog would be a good idea, what did you think? I hope it didn’t bore you guys too much. >.>

Next chapter: [link]
© 2007 - 2024 Ridel
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CDupre's avatar
Lost it at "They were both a bit shaken and more than a little astonished to find that one actually could die in a freak beanstalk accident." :D (Big Grin)