But the other officers resented the success of the little tailor, and wished him a thousand miles away.  “What’s to come of it all?” they asked each other; “if we quarrel with him, he’ll let out at us, and at every blow seven will fall.  There’ll soon be an end of us.”  So they resolved to go in a body to the King, and all to send in their papers.  “We are not made,” they said, “to hold out against a man who kills seven at a blow.”  The King was grieved at the thought of losing all his faithful servants for the sake of one man, and he wished heartily that he had never set eyes on him, or that he could get rid of him.  But he didn’t dare to send him away, for he feared he might kill him along with his people, and place himself on the throne.  He pondered long and deeply over the matter, and finally came to a conclusion.  He sent to the tailor and told him that, seeing what a great and warlike hero he was, he was about to make him an offer.  In a certain wood of his kingdom there dwelled two giants who did much harm; by the way they robbed, murdered, burned, and plundered everything about them; “no one could approach them without endangering his life.  But if he could overcome and kill these two giants he should have his only daughter for a wife, and half his kingdom into the bargain; he 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