# The Selfish Giant _Oscar Wilde_ · 9 min read · ages 5-10 A giant comes home after seven years away and shuts the children out of his garden, where spring refuses to return until he lifts a small boy into a tree and knocks the wall down himself. Years later the boy comes back, and that afternoon the children find the old giant dead beneath a blossoming tree. --- Every afternoon, on their way home from school, the children went to play in the Giant’s garden. It was a large, lovely garden with soft green grass. Flowers stood here and there in the grass like little stars, and twelve peach trees broke into pink and pearly blossom every spring and bore rich fruit every autumn. The birds sat in the branches and sang so sweetly that the children would stop their games just to listen. “How happy we are here!” they called to one another. One day the Giant came back. He had been away for seven years, staying with his friend the Cornish ogre. The Giant had so little to say that it took him all seven years to say it, and then he decided to go home to his own castle. And when he arrived, there were the children, playing on his grass. “What are you doing here?” he shouted in a gruff voice, and the children ran away. “My own garden is my own garden,” said the Giant. “Anyone can understand that, and I will let nobody play in it but myself.” So he built a high wall all the way round it, and put up a notice board. TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED He was a very selfish Giant. Now the children had nowhere to play. They tried the road, but the road was dusty and full of hard stones, and they did not like it at all. When their lessons were over they wandered round and round the high wall, talking about the beautiful garden inside. “How happy we were there!” they said to one another. Then the Spring came, and all over the country there were little blossoms and little birds. Only in the Selfish Giant’s garden was it still winter. The birds did not care to sing where there were no children, and the trees forgot to blossom. Once a flower put her head up out of the grass. She saw the notice board, felt so sorry for the children that she slipped back into the ground, and went off to sleep. The only ones who were pleased were the Snow and the Frost. “Spring has forgotten this garden,” they cried, “so we shall live here all the year round.” The Snow covered the grass with her great white cloak, and the Frost painted every tree silver. Then they invited the North Wind to stay, and he came. He was wrapped in furs, and he roared about the garden all day and blew the chimney pots down. “What a delightful spot,” he said. “We must ask the Hail to visit.” So the Hail came. Every day for three hours he rattled on the roof of the castle until most of the slates were broken, and then he ran round and round the garden as fast as he could go. He was dressed in grey, and his breath was like ice. “I cannot understand why the Spring is so late in coming,” said the Selfish Giant, sitting at his window and looking out at his cold white garden. “I do hope the weather changes soon.” But the Spring never came, and neither did the Summer. The Autumn gave golden fruit to every garden in the land, and to the Giant’s garden she gave none. “He is too selfish,” she said. So it was always winter there, and the North Wind and the Hail and the Frost and the Snow danced about among the bare trees. One morning the Giant was lying awake in bed when he heard lovely music. It sounded so sweet that he thought the King’s musicians must be going past. It was really only a little linnet singing outside his window, but it was so long since he had heard a bird sing in his garden that it seemed to him the most beautiful music in the world. Then the Hail stopped dancing over his head, and the North Wind stopped roaring, and a delicious scent came in through the open window. “I do believe the Spring has come at last,” said the Giant, and he jumped out of bed and looked. What he saw was a wonderful sight. The children had crept in through a little hole in the wall, and they were sitting in the branches. In every tree he could see there was a little child. The trees were so glad to have the children back that they had covered themselves with blossom and were waving their arms gently above the children’s heads. The birds flew about and twittered with delight, and the flowers looked up through the green grass and laughed. Only in one corner was it still winter. It was the farthest corner of the garden, and in it stood a little boy. He was so small that he could not reach up to the branches, and he went round and round the tree, crying bitterly. The poor tree was still covered with frost and snow, and the North Wind blew and roared above it. “Climb up, little boy,” said the tree, and it bent its branches down as low as they would go. But the boy was far too tiny. And the Giant’s heart melted as he looked out. “How selfish I have been!” he said. “Now I know why the Spring would not come here. I shall put that poor little boy up in the tree, and then I shall knock down the wall, and my garden will be the children’s playground for ever and ever.” He was truly sorry for what he had done. So he crept downstairs, opened the front door quite softly, and went out into the garden. But the moment the children saw him they were so frightened that they all ran away, and the garden turned to winter again. Only the little boy did not run, because his eyes were so full of tears that he never saw the Giant coming. The Giant came up quietly behind him, took him gently in his great hand, and set him up in the tree. At once the tree broke into blossom, and the birds came and sang in it. The little boy stretched out his two arms, flung them round the Giant’s neck, and kissed him. And when the other children saw that the Giant was not wicked any longer, they came running back, and the Spring came running back with them. “It is your garden now, little children,” said the Giant, and he took a great axe and knocked down the wall. At noon, when the people went past on their way to market, they found the Giant playing with the children in the most beautiful garden they had ever seen. All day long the children played, and in the evening they came to the Giant to say goodbye. “But where is your little friend?” he asked. “The boy I put up into the tree.” He loved that little boy the best, because the boy had kissed him. “We don’t know,” the children answered. “He has gone away.” “You must tell him to be sure and come tomorrow,” said the Giant. But the children said they had never seen the boy before and did not know where he lived, and the Giant felt very sad. Every afternoon, when school was over, the children came and played with the Giant. But the little boy he loved was never seen again. The Giant was very kind to all the children, and still he longed for his first little friend, and he spoke of him often. “How I would love to see him,” he used to say. The years went by, and the Giant grew very old and feeble. He could not play about any more, so he sat in a huge armchair and watched the children at their games and admired his garden. “I have many beautiful flowers,” he said, “but the children are the most beautiful flowers of all.” One winter morning he looked out of his window while he was dressing. He did not hate the winter now, for he knew that it was only the Spring asleep, and the flowers resting. Then suddenly he rubbed his eyes and looked, and looked again. It was a marvellous sight. In the farthest corner of the garden stood a tree covered with lovely white blossom. Its branches were all golden, silver fruit hung down from them, and underneath it stood the little boy he had loved. Down the stairs ran the Giant in great joy, and out into the garden. He hurried across the grass and came close to the child. And when he was quite close his face went red with anger. “Who dared to hurt you?” he said. For on the palms of the child’s hands were the marks of two nails, and there were the marks of two nails on the little feet. “Who dared to hurt you?” cried the Giant. “Tell me, and I will take my great sword and go after him.” “No,” answered the child. “These are the wounds of Love.” “Who are you?” said the Giant, and a strange awe came over him, and he knelt down before the little child. The child smiled at the Giant and said, “You let me play once in your garden. Today you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise.” And when the children ran in that afternoon, they found the Giant lying under the tree. He had died there, and white blossom covered him all over. --- - Read online: https://talerie.com/en/tales/the-selfish-giant - Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1199626 - Source: The Happy Prince and Other Tales, by Oscar Wilde (Project Gutenberg #30120) (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30120) - Public-domain basis: Talerie contemporary retelling (CC0 2026), based on: The Happy Prince and Other Tales, by Oscar Wilde (Project Gutenberg #30120) — original: author died 1900 (+70 passed) - License: CC0-1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)