that whatever he could not perform by strength, he completed by
wit and policy. Never was any person heard of that could worst him; nay,
the learned he baffled by his cunning and ready inventions.

For instance, when he was no more than seven years of age, his father
sent him into the field to look after his oxen; a country vicar, by
chance one day coming across the field, called Jack, and asked him
several questions--in particular, How many commandments were there? Jack
told him there were nine.

The Parson replied, "There are ten."

"Nay," quoth Jack, "Master Parson, you are out of that; it is true there
were ten, but you broke one of them with your own maid Margery."

The Parson replied, "Thou art an arch wag, Jack."

"Well, Master Parson," quoth Jack, "you have asked me one question, and
I have answered it; let me ask you another. Who made these oxen?"

The Parson replied, "God."

"You are out again," quoth Jack, "for God made them bulls, but my father
and his man Hobson made oxen of them."

The Parson, finding himself fooled, trudged away, leaving Jack in a fit
of laughter.

In those days the mount of Cornwall was kept by a huge and monstrous
Giant, of twenty-seven feet high, and three yards in compass, of a grim
countenance, to the terror of all the neighbouring towns. His habitation
was a cave in the midst of the mount; neither would he suffer any living
creature near him; his feeding was upon other men's cattle; for
whensoever he had occasion for food, he would wade over to the
mainland, where he would furnish himself with whatever he could find.
For the people at his approach would forsake their habitations; then he
would take their cows and oxen, of which he would make nothing to carry
over his back half-a-dozen at a time; and as for sheep and hogs, he
would tie them round his waist. This he had for many years practised in
Cornwall.

But one day Jack, coming to the Town Hall, when the Magistrates were
sitting in consternation about the Giant, he asked what reward they
would give to any person that would destroy him?

They answered, "He shall have all the Giant's treasure in recompense."

Quoth Jack, "Then I myself will undertake the work."

Jack furnished himself with a horn, a shovel, and a pick-axe, and over
to the mount he goes in the beginning of a dark winter evening, where he
fell to work, and before morning had digged a pit twenty-two feet deep
and as broad, and covered the same over wit