This book contains the following stories:
Jack and the Beanstalk
Fee fie fo fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman. Be he alive or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread'. Lazy Jack lives with his poor mother in a little shack. They are so poor that one day she sends Jack off to market to sell their cow so they can buy food. On the way to market Jack meets a stranger who persuades him to part with the cow for some magic beans. When Jack returns home with no cow and no money his mother is furious and throws the beans out of the window. The next morning the two awake to find that a huge beanstalk has gronw from the beans. Jack climbs the beanstalk and finds a new land at the top complete with a castle and a very grumpy giant. Whilst the giant is asleep Jack steals a hen that lays golden eggs. On a second trip he steals bags of money. On the third trip he tries to steal a golden harp, but the harp calls for its master and the giant wakes up and follows Jack down the beanstalk. As soon as Jack reaches the ground, he sets to work to chop
The Princess and the Pea
A prince travelled the world to find a real princess to be his bride, but none of them would quite do. One night during a massive storm a girl knocked on the door claiming to be a princess from down the road looking for shelter. The queen was sceptical so placed a pea under the mattress of the spare bed. Then she piled more and more mattresses onto the bed so that it was so high the girl needed a ladder to climb into bed. Only a real princess will feel the pea under that many mattresses thought the queen. The next morning the queen asked the girl how she had slept and she complained bitterly about a hard lump in the bed. The queen was delighted and presented the girl to the prince. This is a real princess, she said. The prince was delighted and the two got married and lived happily ever after.
