e might have a hundred horsemen, too, to back
him up." "That's the very thing for a man like me," thought the little
tailor; "one doesn't get the offer of a beautiful princess and half a
kingdom every day." "Done with you," he answered; "I'll soon put an end
to the giants. But I haven't the smallest need of your hundred horsemen;
a fellow who can slay seven men at a blow need not be afraid of two."

The little tailor set out, and the hundred horsemen followed him. When
he came to the outskirts of the wood he said to his followers: "You wait
here, I'll manage the giants by myself"; and he went on into the wood,
casting his sharp little eyes right and left about him. After a while
he spied the two giants lying asleep under a tree, and snoring till
the very boughs bent with the breeze. The little tailor lost no time in
filling his wallet with stones, and then climbed up the tree under
which they lay. When he got to about the middle of it he slipped along a
branch till he sat just above the sleepers, when he threw down one stone
after the other on the nearest giant. The giant felt nothing for a long
time, but at last he woke up, and pinching his companion said: "What did
you strike me for?" "I didn't strike you," said the other, "you must be
dreaming." They both lay down to sleep again, and the tailor threw down
a stone on the second giant, who sprang up and cried: "What's that for?
Why did you throw something at me?" "I didn't throw anything," growled
the first one. They wrangled on for a time, till, as both were tired,
they made up the matter and fell asleep again. The little tailor began
his game once more, and flung the largest stone he could find in his
wallet with all his force, and hit the first giant on the chest. "This
is too much of a good thing!" he yelled, and springing up like a madman,
he knocked his companion against the tree till he trembled. He gave,
however, as good as he got, and they became so enraged that they tore up
trees and beat each other with them, till they both fell dead at once on
the ground. Then the little tailor jumped down. "It's a mercy," he said,
"that they didn't root up the tree on which I was perched, or I should
have had to jump like a squirrel on to another, which, nimble though I
am, would have been no easy job." He drew his sword and gave each of
the giants a very fine thrust or two on the breast, and then went to
the horsemen and said: "The deed is done, I've put an end to the two o