The Young Giant (Grimm)
Short summary
A thumb-sized boy insisted on accompanying his father to the field. A giant took the tiny child and raised him for six years, nursing him until he grew incredibly strong.
When he returned, his parents didn't recognize him and rejected him. After demonstrating his strength by plowing their field alone and eating enormous amounts of food, he left seeking an unbreakable iron staff. He worked for a greedy smith who refused wages but accepted one blow as payment. The youth kicked him over four haystacks. Next, he served a bailiff as head-servant, performing incredible feats like pulling loaded carts through barriers and wearing a millstone as a necklace. At a haunted mill, he fought invisible forces all night. When payment time came, the bailiff tried to avoid the agreed blows.
Then he gave her such a kick that she, too, flew out, and as she was lighter she went much higher than her husband. Her husband cried, 'Do come to me,' but she replied, 'Come thou to me, I cannot come to thee.'
Detailed summary
Division into chapters is editorial.
Thumblings abduction by the giant
A countryman had a son who remained thumb-sized and never grew larger despite several years passing. One day, when the father planned to plough his field, the tiny boy insisted on accompanying him. The father reluctantly agreed and placed his son in his pocket. Once in the field, he set the child in a freshly-cut furrow.
The giant, however, had scarcely taken two steps with his long legs before he was in the furrow. He took up little Thumbling carefully with two fingers, examined him, and without saying one word went away with him.
Life with the giant and return home
The great giant carried the boy home and suckled him. Under the giant's care, Thumbling grew tall and strong. After two years, the giant tested the boy's strength by asking him to pull up a stick. The boy easily uprooted a young tree, but this wasn't enough for the giant, who continued nurturing him for two more years.
When tested again, the boy could tear an old tree from the ground, but the giant still wasn't satisfied. After another two years of care, the giant finally tested him once more.
The boy tore up the strongest oak-tree from the earth, so that it split, and that was a mere trifle to him. 'Now that will do,' said the giant, 'thou art perfect,' and took him back to the field.
The young giant returned to his father, who was still ploughing the same field. When he announced himself as the farmer's son, his father was terrified and refused to acknowledge him.
Rejection at home and seeking work
The farmer was alarmed, and said, 'No, thou art not my son; I don't want thee leave me!' 'Truly I am your son; allow me to do your work, I can plough as well as you, nay better.'
Despite his father's protests, the young giant demonstrated his strength by pressing the plough so hard it went deep into the earth. He then unharnessed the horses and pulled the plough himself, completing two acres alone. He also harnessed himself to harrows and carried massive oak trees on his shoulders along with the farm equipment.
When he returned home, his mother didn't recognize the horrible tall man.
She prepared enormous amounts of food, enough to feed herself and her husband for a week, but the young giant consumed it all and still wanted more. Realizing he would never have enough food at home, he asked his father for an iron staff strong enough that he couldn't break it against his knees, so he could go out into the world. His father brought increasingly larger staffs, but the young giant broke each one effortlessly.
The smithy apprenticeship
The young giant left home and found work with a greedy smith who agreed to let him work without wages in exchange for giving the smith two blows every fortnight. On his first day, when the young giant struck the glowing iron, it flew apart and the anvil sank deep into the earth.
The angry smith tried to dismiss him, but the young giant insisted on giving him just one small blow. He kicked the smith so hard that he flew away over four loads of hay. Taking the thickest iron bar as his walking stick, the young giant continued on his journey.
The head-servant job
The young giant found employment with a covetous bailiff as head-servant, again working without wages in exchange for giving three blows per year. When the other servants went to the wood, the head-servant stayed in bed longer, claiming he would return before them. He eventually went alone, tore up the largest trees, and created a barricade that blocked the other servants' return.
He unharnessed his horses, laid them on his cart, and pulled everything through himself as easily as if it were feathers. When the year ended and it was time for his payment, the terrified bailiff begged for a fortnight's delay to find a way to escape the promised blows.
The bailiffs schemes
The bailiff's clerks devised a plan to kill the head-servant by having him clean a well and dropping a millstone on his head. When they rolled down the largest millstone, the head-servant merely complained about hens scratching sand into his eyes. He emerged wearing the millstone around his neck like a necktie.
The clerks then suggested sending him to grind corn at a haunted mill where no one had ever returned alive. The head-servant went there at night with eight bushels of corn. At eleven o'clock, invisible spirits served him food and wine, and when he ate with them, they began boxing his ears. He fought back all night, giving as good as he got.
Final confrontation and departure
When the head-servant returned to collect his reward, the terrified bailiff tried to escape through a window but received such a powerful kick that he flew far into the air. His wife suffered the same fate when she tried to refuse the remaining blow.
And they hovered about there in the air, and could not get to each other, and whether they are still hovering about, or not, I do not know, but the young giant took up his iron bar, and went on his way.