The Brave Little Tailor

One summer morning, a little tailor sat sewing by his window in fine spirits when a woman came down the street calling that she had good jam to sell, cheap. He called her up, and she climbed the stairs with her heavy basket. He sniffed at every pot, chose one, and asked for four ounces, though he would not mind a bit more. She gave him what he asked and went off grumbling, disappointed at so small a sale.

“Now may this jam bring me health and strength,” said the tailor, and spread it thick on a slice of bread, but set it aside to finish his jacket first. The sweet smell rose to the wall where the flies sat, and soon they swarmed onto the bread. He shooed them off, but they came back in greater numbers, until he lost patience, snatched up a scrap of cloth, and struck at them with all his might. When he lifted the cloth away, seven flies lay dead before him.

“So that is the sort of fellow you are,” he said, marveling at his own courage. “The whole town shall hear of this!” He cut himself a belt and embroidered across it in large letters: SEVEN AT ONE BLOW. “The whole town? The whole world shall hear of it!” And his heart danced for joy.

He tied on the belt and decided his workshop was far too small for a man of his courage, so he resolved to see the world. He found nothing worth taking but a rind of old cheese, which he pocketed, and at the door a bird tangled in a bush, which went in after it. Then he set off, light and quick on his feet, feeling no weariness at all.

The road climbed a mountain, and at the top sat a great giant, looking comfortably out over the world. “Good day, friend,” said the tailor. “You sit here looking out over the whole world, while I am on my way to try my luck in it. Will you come along?”

The giant looked at him with contempt. “You ragged little scrap of a man.”

“Is that so?” The tailor unbuttoned his coat to show his belt. “Read that, and see what kind of man I am.”

The giant read SEVEN AT ONE BLOW, believing these had been seven men the tailor struck down, and felt a flicker of respect. Still, he wanted proof, and squeezed a stone until water ran from it. “Do that, if you have the strength.”

“Is that all? Child’s play, where I come from.” The tailor took out the soft cheese and squeezed it until the whey ran between his fingers. “A little better than yours, wouldn’t you say?”

The giant did not know what to answer. Next he threw a stone so high it nearly vanished from sight. “Now, little fellow, match that.”

“Well thrown, but your stone had to come down again. Mine will never come back at all.” The tailor tossed the bird into the air, and it rose up, glad of its freedom, and flew off and did not return. “How do you like that throw, friend?”

“You can throw,” said the giant, “but let us see if you can carry a proper load.” He led the tailor to a great felled oak. “Help me carry this out of the forest, if you are strong enough.”

“Gladly. Take the trunk on your shoulder, and I will manage the branches. They are the heaviest part, after all.”

So the giant hoisted the trunk, while the tailor settled among the branches, and since the giant could not look behind him, he carried the whole tree, and the tailor riding along with it, out of the forest, whistling merrily all the way. Before long the giant, worn out, called that he would have to let it fall. The tailor sprang down and seized the trunk with both arms as though he had been carrying it all along.

“You call yourself a big strong fellow,” he said, “and you cannot even carry a tree.”

They walked on, and when they passed a cherry tree, the giant bent down the crown, where the ripest fruit hung, and handed it to the tailor to eat from. But the tailor was too light to hold it, and when the giant let go, the branch flung him into the air. He landed unhurt.

“Have you not the strength to hold a slender twig?” said the giant.

“Nothing wrong with my strength. Do you think that troubles a man who has struck down seven at one blow? I jumped clean over the tree, for there are hunters shooting in the thicket below. Jump it yourself, if you can.”

The giant tried, but could not clear the tree, and hung caught in its branches, so once again the tailor had the upper hand. “If you are so bold,” said the giant, “come spend the night in our cave.”

The tailor agreed. Inside, other giants sat by the fire eating roasted sheep. Shown a bed far too large for him, he curled up in a corner instead. At midnight, thinking him fast asleep, the giant took an iron bar and smashed the bed through with one blow, certain he had finished off the little grasshopper. At dawn the giants, having quite forgotten him, went off to the forest and were astonished when he came strolling toward them, merry and unharmed. Terrified he might strike them all down, they fled.

The tailor went on, following his own nose, until he came to a royal courtyard, where he lay down in the grass, tired, and fell asleep. People gathered, read the words on his belt, and told the king such a warrior would be worth keeping if war broke out, so the king sent a courtier to offer him a place in the army as soon as he woke.

“That is exactly why I have come,” said the tailor, and he was welcomed with honor and given a fine lodging.

But the king’s soldiers wanted nothing to do with him. “If we ever cross him,” they said among themselves, “he strikes seven at one blow, and none of us would survive it.” They went to the king in a body and begged to be dismissed. “We are not willing to serve beside a man who strikes seven at one blow.”

The king was sorry to lose his faithful soldiers for one man’s sake, but dared not dismiss him either, fearing he might strike down the whole court and seize the throne. After long thought, he sent word: since the tailor was so great a warrior, would he do him one service? Two giants in a nearby forest did great harm with robbing and burning, and no one dared approach them. If the tailor defeated them both, the king would give him his only daughter, half his kingdom, and a hundred horsemen.

A princess and half a kingdom are not offered every day, thought the tailor. “Very well. I will soon deal with the giants, and will not even need the hundred horsemen. A man who can strike seven at one blow has no cause to fear two.”

He set out with the horsemen behind him, and at the edge of the forest told them to wait while he finished the business alone. He soon found the two giants asleep beneath a tree, snoring so hard the branches shook. He filled both pockets with stones, climbed above them, and let stones fall one after another onto the first giant’s chest. The giant stirred and struck his companion. “Why are you hitting me?”

“I am not hitting you. You must be dreaming.”

They settled back to sleep, and the tailor dropped a stone on the second giant. “Why are you pelting me?” he cried.

“I am not pelting you,” growled the first.

They argued a while, then, being tired, let it go and closed their eyes again. The tailor threw his largest stone with all his strength at the first giant’s chest. “That is too much!” the giant roared, leaping up and shoving his companion against the tree until it shook. The other paid him back just as hard, and the two flew into such a rage that they tore up trees and beat each other with them, until at last they both fell down dead together. The tailor climbed down, glad they had not torn up the very tree he sat in, and went out to the horsemen.

“The work is done. It was no easy fight. They tore up trees and fought hard, but none of that helps against a man who can strike seven at one blow.”

“But are you not wounded?” they asked.

“Not a hair of mine was touched.”

The horsemen did not quite believe him until they rode into the forest and found the giants lying in their blood, with uprooted trees scattered all around.

The tailor came to claim his reward, but the king, regretting his promise, was already scheming to be rid of him. “Before you have my daughter and half my kingdom, you must catch a unicorn that is running loose in the forest, doing great harm.”

“I fear one unicorn even less than two giants. Seven at one blow is more my kind of business.”

He took a rope and an axe into the forest, and did not have to search long before the unicorn came charging at him, meaning to run him through without ceremony. “Gently now, it is not done as quickly as that.” He stood his ground until the beast was nearly upon him, then sprang behind a tree. The unicorn drove its horn so deep into the trunk it could not pull free, and so it was caught. The tailor looped the rope around its neck, chopped the horn free with his axe, and led it back to the king.

Still the king would not give him his reward, and set a third task: before the wedding, the tailor must catch a wild boar terrorizing the forest.

“Gladly. That is child’s play.” He left the huntsmen behind, glad enough themselves, for the boar had already given them trouble. When it saw him, it charged with foaming jaws, but he darted into a small chapel, out the window in one leap, and round to the door, slamming it shut as the boar came crashing in behind him. Too heavy to follow through the window, it was trapped. The tailor called the huntsmen to see the prisoner with their own eyes, then went to the king, who now had no choice but to keep his word. He gave the tailor his daughter and half his kingdom, and the wedding was held with great splendor, though rather less joy on the king’s part, for he never learned that the great warrior he had welcomed as a son was only a little tailor after all.

Some time later, the young queen woke in the night to hear her husband talking in his sleep. “Boy,” he was saying, “finish the doublet and mend those breeches, or I will rap the yardstick over your ears.” From this she understood exactly what sort of man she had married, and in the morning went to her father in tears, begging to be rid of a husband who was nothing more than a tailor.

“Leave your bedroom door open tonight,” the king told her. “My men will wait outside, and once he is asleep they will go in, bind him, and carry him aboard a ship that will take him far away.”

The queen agreed. But the king’s armor-bearer, fond of the young lord, had overheard everything and warned him of it.

“I will put a stop to that,” said the tailor. That night he went to bed with his wife as usual, and when she thought him asleep, she rose, opened the door, and lay down again. The tailor, only pretending to sleep, began to call out in a loud, clear voice.

“Boy, finish the doublet and mend those breeches, or I will rap the yardstick over your ears! I struck down seven at one blow, I killed two giants, I caught a unicorn, and I trapped a wild boar. Am I now to be afraid of the men standing outside this door?”

Such dread came over the men outside that they fled as though the wild hunt itself were at their heels, and never again did anyone dare move against him. So the little tailor remained a king to the end of his days.