Though He Be Little
After buying some jam from a woman one day, a little tailor spreads the jam on a thick piece of bread. But, before he eats, he decides to finish sewing a jacket.Flies begin swooping down from the ceiling to taste the sweet food. Irritated with their incessant arrival, the tailor takes a cloth out and swings at them, killing seven with one blow.
He marvels at his own bravery and skill and decides that the town—no, the world—needs to know of his valor. He constructs a girdle for himself and embroiders these words on it: “Seven at one stroke!” He then puts a piece of old cheese and a bird (which had been trapped in the thicket outside) into his pocket and sets off for the world.
The little tailor journeys up a mountain until he comes upon a giant looking out onto the world below. He greets the giant: “Good day, comrade, so thou art sitting there overlooking the wide-spread world! I am just on my way thither, and want to try my luck. Hast thou any inclination to go with me?”
The giant mocks him, being unimpressed with his size and appearance. But the brave tailor responds by showing the giant his “Seven at one stroke” girdle. The giant thinks that perhaps the tailor killed seven men at once and begins to think differently about him.
Nevertheless, to test the mettle of the little man, the giant picks up a rock and squeezes it until water pours out. He then challenges the tailor to do the same. The tailor laughs at this challenge, pulls the old cheese out of his pocket, and squeezes until liquid pours from it.
Shocked, the giant issues another challenge. He picks up a rock and heaves it into the air, so that one can barely see it. But the tailor mocks him: “After all the stone came down to earth again; I will throw you one which shall never come back at all.” With this claim, the tailor throws the bird from his pocket high into the air and the happy bird flies away.
After outwitting the giant several times, the giant invites the tailor to spend the night in a cave with himself and several other giants. The tailor agrees and is given a giant bed to sleep in. Uncomfortable with the bed’s size, the tailor sleeps in a corner of the cave.
That night, the giant smashes the bed and wakes up believing the tailor to be dead. When the tailor walks up and greets him and the other giants, they all flee in fear.
The victorious tailor then makes his way to a kingdom, where the king enlists him in his military. Yet the other soldiers refuse to work with him, so the king decides to test the tailor by sending him on the most impossible journeys.
Through this tale, children can learn that size does not reflect character, bravery, or wit. As William Shakespeare says in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “And though [they] be but little, [they are] fierce.” Sometimes it is the littlest that proves the most extraordinary.
