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A tailor who was a great boaster but a poor payer took it into his head to go out for a while and have a look around the forest. As soon as he could, he left his workshop and went wandering over bridges and footbridges, now here, now there, on and on.

Once he was out in the open, he caught sight of a steep mountain in the blue distance, and beyond it a tower as high as the sky, rising out of a wild, dark forest. “Thunder and lightning!” cried the tailor. “What is that?” And since his curiosity was keenly aroused, he strode boldly towards it. But how he gaped and stared when he drew near! The tower had legs, leapt over the steep mountain in a single bound, and stood before the tailor as a mighty giant. “What do you want here, you tiny fly’s leg?” he roared in a voice like thunder rolling in from every side. The tailor whispered, “I want to look around and see whether I can earn my daily bread in the forest.” “If that’s what you’re after,” said the giant, “you can enter my service.” “If I must, why not? But what wages shall I get?” “What wages shall you get?” said the giant. “I’ll tell you. Three hundred and sixty-five days a year, and if it’s a leap year, one more into the bargain. Does that suit you?” “Suits me,” answered the tailor, thinking to himself, “One must cut one’s coat according to one’s cloth. I’ll find a way to get free again soon enough.” Then the giant said to him, “Go, you little rascal, and fetch me a jug of water.” “Why not the whole well, spring and all?” asked the braggart, and went off to the water with the jug. “What? The whole well, spring and all?” muttered the giant into his beard, for he was rather clumsy and foolish, and he began to feel afraid. “That fellow can do more than roast apples: he’s got a mandrake spirit inside him. Be on your guard, old Hans; this is no servant for you.” When the tailor had brought the water, the giant ordered him to chop a few logs in the forest and carry them home. “Why not the whole forest at a single stroke, the whole forest, young and old, with all it holds, gnarled and smooth?”

asked the little tailor, and went off to chop the wood. “What? The whole forest, young and old, with all it holds, gnarled and smooth? And the whole well, spring and all?” muttered the gullible giant into his beard, growing more frightened still. “That fellow can do more than roast apples: he’s got a mandrake spirit inside him. Be on your guard, old Hans; this is no servant for you.” When the tailor had brought the wood, the giant ordered him to shoot two or three wild boars for supper. “Why not a thousand with a single shot, and bring them all here?” asked the conceited tailor. “What?” cried the cowardly giant, thoroughly alarmed. “That will do for today. Go and lie down to sleep.”

The giant was so terribly frightened that he could not sleep a wink all night, but lay turning over in his mind how he might rid himself of this accursed sorcerer of a servant as soon as possible. Time would bring an answer. The next morning, the giant and the tailor went to a marsh with a great many willow trees growing all around it. Then the giant said, “Listen, tailor, sit down on one of those willow shoots. I should dearly love to see whether you can bend it down.” In a flash the little tailor was perched on top, holding his breath and making himself so heavy that the shoot bent down. But when he had to draw breath again, it flung him so high into the air that he could no longer be seen, much to the giant’s delight, for unfortunately he had not put a tailor’s iron in his pocket. If he has not fallen down again, he must still be floating about up in the air.