Jack and The Beanstalk

Story: Jack is a young lad living with his widowed mother and a milk cow who is their only source of income. When the cow stops giving milk, Jack's mother has him take her to market for sale.

On the way, he meets an old man who offers "magic beans" in exchange for the cow, and Jack makes the trade. When he arrives home without any money, his mother becomes furious, throws the beans to the ground, and sends Jack to bed without supper.

A gigantic beanstalk grows overnight, which Jack climbs to a land high in the sky. There he comes to a house (or in some cases, a castle) that is the home of a giant. He asks at door for food and the giant's wife takes him in. When the giant returns, he senses that a human is nearby:

Fee-fi-fo-fum!

I smell the blood of an Englishman,

Be he alive, or be he dead,

I'll have his bones to grind my bread.^[3]

Jack is hidden by the giant's wife and he overhears the giant counting money. When the giant sleeps, he steals a bag of gold coins and makes his escape down the beanstalk.

Jack returns up the beanstalk twice more. Each time he is helped by the wife, learns of another treasure, and steals it when the giant sleeps: first a hen that lays golden eggs (the most common variant is a goose that lays golden eggs; hence the idiom "to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs."), then a harp that plays by itself. He is almost caught with the harp, however. The giant follows him down the beanstalk and Jack calls to his mother for an axe. Jack chops down the beanstalk, killing the giant, and they live happily ever after with their riches.

Jack and Isabelle marry and tell the story of the giants to their children. As time passes, the magic crown is crafted into St Edward's Crown and is secured in the Tower of London.

Origin: The earliest surviving version is The History of Jack and the Bean Stalk, a book printed by Benjamin Tabart in 1807, but the story is certainly older. A burlesque entitled The Story of Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Bean was included in the 1734 second edition of Round About Our Coal-Fire.

In the classic version of the tale, the giant is unnamed, but many plays based on it name him Blunderbore. (One giant of that name appears in the 18th-century Jack the Giant Killer.)

The giant's cry "Fee! Fie! Foe! Fum!" appears in William Shakespeare's King Lear

Original story video/animation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4Xxq7QAcsw

Moral value: When your mother sends you to the market do what she tells you. Jack had a simple task to do, take his cow to the market and sell it to get some money to buy his family food. He got taken in by a swift talking bean salesman. Moral to the story, listen to your mother when she tells you to do something. In the morning Jack wakes up and climbs the beanstalk This brings me to my next life lesson. Do not let your eyes become bigger then your wallet.Jack lays his eyes on the giant's possessions the harp, the gold coins and the hen which lays the golden eggs and he desires them. This simple act leads Jack down the wrong path which becomes my next life lesson.