Jack the Giant Killer

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The giant Cormoran was the terror of all the country-side.
Illustration by Arthur Rackham from English Fairy Tales (1918) by Flora Annie Steel

"Jack the Giant Killer" is a fairy tale. As a variation on "The Brave Little Tailor", it shares some similarities to what we know today as "Jack and the Beanstalk".

The story is a series of encounters with giants. The first is caught in a pit trap and killed, for which Jack receives a belt engraved with the words "This is the valiant Cornish man, who killed the giant Cormoran". For this, Jack gains popularity within his village and throughout the land. He sets off on a series of challenges, where he encounters a second giant. The second, Blunderbore, is killed by being strangled with a cord along with his brother (also a giant). The third encounter is with a Welsh giant, who tries to kill Jack while he is resting at his castle. Jack is able to trick this giant, however, and also manages to trick the giant into stabbing himself at breakfast. In the fourth encounter, Jack uses his coat of invisibility, which he received in the castle of the third giant, to attack a giant and his brother with impunity. The final encounter is with the giant Galligantus, whom he first scares with a blast on a magic trumpet, then cuts off his head and sends it to King Arthur. Jack is rewarded by receiving the hand of the king's daughter in marriage.

As with most fairy tales, there is a large number of different versions of the same story. For example, Ruth Manning-Sanders's book A Book of Giants contains six variants.