The Valiant Little Tailor

One bright summer morning a little tailor sat sewing by his open window, cheerful and busy. A woman in the street called out that she had jam for sale. The cry pleased his ear; he leaned out and invited her up the three steps to his room. She came with a heavy basket. He made her unpack every jar, lifted each to the light, sniffed, and bargained for only a few ounces, adding that a quarter-pound would be no tragedy. She had hoped for a real sale and left muttering. Alone again, he declared the jam would give him health and strength, fetched bread from the cupboard, cut a slice right across the loaf, and spread it thick. He would finish the jacket, he told himself, before the first bite. The bread waited beside him while he sewed on, and happiness made his stitches larger and larger.

The sweet smell climbed to the flies that clustered in the room. They dropped onto the bread in hosts. “Who invited you?” he asked, and brushed them off; they understood no scolding and returned in thicker swarms. Patience broke. He pulled a scrap of cloth from the hole under his work-table, promised them a lesson, and struck without mercy. When he lifted the cloth and counted, seven flies lay dead with their legs stretched out. He could not help admiring himself. The town must hear of this—no, the whole world. He cut a girdle, stitched it carefully, and embroidered in large letters: SEVEN AT ONE STROKE. His heart wagged with joy like a lamb’s tail. The workshop suddenly felt too small for such valour. He searched for travelling stores and found nothing but an old cheese, which went into his pocket. At the door a bird had tangled itself in a thicket; it joined the cheese. Then he took the road boldly, and being light and nimble he felt no fatigue.

The road climbed until, at the highest point, a powerful giant sat looking peacefully over the land. The little tailor marched up. “Good day, comrade! Come and try your luck with me in the wide world.” The giant sneered at the ragamuffin until the belt was shown. Reading the boast, he took it for seven men slain and felt a grudging respect—yet he meant to prove the stranger. He closed a stone in his fist until water seeped out and challenged the tailor to match it. “Child’s play,” said the little man; he squeezed the soft cheese until liquid ran and claimed the better show. Still doubtful, the giant hurled a stone so high the eye could scarcely follow. “Well thrown,” said the tailor—“but that stone came down; I will throw one that never returns.” He freed the bird; it delighted in liberty, rose, and did not come back. “You can throw,” the giant admitted, “but can you carry?”

He led the tailor to a mighty oak lying felled and ordered him to help bear it from the forest. “Readily,” said the little man—“you take the trunk; I will manage the branches and twigs, for they are the heaviest.” The giant heaved the trunk onto his shoulder; the tailor sat himself on a branch, and the giant, unable to look round, carried tree and passenger together. Behind, the tailor whistled a merry gate-song as if the load were nothing. After a stretch the giant gasped that he must let the tree fall. The tailor sprang down, seized the wood with both arms as if he had borne it all along, and mocked the great fellow for weakness.

They went farther and passed a cherry-tree heavy with ripe fruit. The giant bent the top down, set it in the tailor’s hand, and told him to eat. The little tailor was far too weak to hold the springing trunk; when the giant let go, it tossed him into the air. He landed unhurt. “Have you not strength for a twig?” the giant scoffed.

“There is no lack of strength,” came the answer—“do you think that matters to one who struck seven at a blow? I leapt over because hunters are shooting in the thicket; jump as I did if you can.” The giant tried, stuck in the branches, and lost the contest again. “If you are so valiant,” he said, “spend the night in our cavern.” The tailor agreed.

Inside, other giants sat by the fire, each roasting a whole sheep. The little tailor glanced about and thought the hall much roomier than his workshop. They showed him a bed and told him to sleep. The bed was enormous; he crept into a corner instead. At midnight, believing him sound asleep in the bed, one giant rose with a great iron bar, smashed through the mattress in a single blow, and thought the grasshopper finished. At earliest dawn the band went into the forest and had forgotten him—until he walked up merry and bold. Terror took them; they feared he would strike them all dead and fled in a hurry.

He wandered on, following his own pointed nose, until weariness dropped him on the grass of a royal courtyard. People gathered, read the girdle, and whispered that a mighty lord had arrived in peacetime. They told the king such a warrior must be kept if war came. A courtier waited beside the sleeper, and when the tailor stretched and opened his eyes, offered him military service. “For that very reason I came,” the tailor said, and accepted. He was housed with honour. The soldiers, though, wished him a thousand miles away. “If we quarrel,” they muttered, “seven of us fall at every blow.” In a body they begged the king for dismissal rather than serve beside the belt’s owner.

The king regretted the hire—he hated to lose faithful men for one newcomer—yet dared not dismiss the tailor for fear of a blow that might clear the throne. He thought long and found a plan. Word went to the little warrior: “As you are so great a hero, the king has one request. Two giants in the forest rob, murder, burn and ravage, and no one can go near them without danger. Conquer them, and you shall have the king’s only daughter and half the kingdom; a hundred horsemen will go with you.” “A fine offer,” thought the tailor. “Princesses and half-kingdoms do not arrive every day.” He answered that he would finish the giants and needed no hundred horsemen; he who hits seven at once need not fear two.

Out he went with the troop behind. At the forest edge he ordered them to wait; he alone would do the work. He found the pair snoring under a tree so hard the branches waved. He filled two pockets with stones, climbed until he sat above the sleepers, and dropped stone after stone on one giant’s chest. At last that giant woke, shoved his comrade, and demanded to know why he was being knocked. “You are dreaming,” said the other. They slept again; the tailor peppered the second. Accusations flew; weariness closed their eyes once more. Then the tailor chose the heaviest stone and flung it with all his strength. Rage erupted. The giants tore up trees and battered each other until both lay dead. The tailor dropped down, glad they had not uprooted his perch, gave each body a couple of sword-thrusts for show, and told the horsemen the hard work was done. They would not believe him until they rode in and saw the blood and the fallen trunks.

He claimed the reward. The king stalled again: before daughter and kingdom, catch the unicorn that gores travellers in the forest. “I fear one unicorn less than two giants,” said the tailor. With rope and axe he entered alone, met the charge, slipped behind a tree at the last instant, and let the horn jam deep in the wood. He roped the neck, chopped the horn free, and led the prize to court. Still the king named a third deed: a wild boar that ruined the woodland. “Willingly—child’s play,” said the tailor. He refused the huntsmen’s company; they were glad, remembering how the boar had treated them. When the foaming beast rushed, the tailor fled into a nearby chapel, sprang to the window and out again in one bound, ran round, and shut the door. The heavy animal could not leap the sill. He called the huntsmen to stare at their prisoner, then faced the king, who had no further excuse. Like it or not, the promise stood. The wedding shone with splendour and little joy. Out of a tailor a king was made.

Some time afterward the young queen heard him talking in his sleep of doublets to cut and pantaloons to patch, and of a yard-measure ready for idle ears. She understood what trade had bred him and ran to her father for help to cast off a tailor-husband. The king soothed her. “Leave the bedroom door open tonight. My servants will wait outside, and when he is asleep they will bind him and put him on a ship that will carry him into the wide world.” She agreed. But the armour-bearer, who liked the young lord, overheard and warned him. “I’ll fix that business,” said the little king. He went to bed at the usual hour and only pretended to sleep. When she rose, opened the door for the plotters, and lay down again, he shouted clear, “Boy, make me the doublet and patch the pantaloons! I smote seven at one blow; I killed two giants; I caught a unicorn and a boar—and am I to fear those standing outside the room?” Dread took them; they ran as if chased by the wild huntsman, and none dared another move against him. From then on his crown sat secure for the rest of his life.

Where this story comes from

“The Valiant Little Tailor” is German, from the Brothers Grimm, and is not an Indian tale. Margaret Hunt’s 1884 translation gives it as number 20, “The Brave Little Tailor” (Das tapfere Schneiderlein). The words here follow the Gutenberg text resting on Taylor and Edwardes.

The Grimms’ note explains that the first half joins two stories from Hesse. The second half, from the tailor’s arrival at court, comes from Wegkürzer, a book of comic tales by Martinus Montanus of Strasbourg printed in 1557. The boast “seven at one blow” was already well known: the note finds it alluded to in Fischart and in Simplicissimus.

The retelling includes the giants killing each other and the tailor adding sword wounds to make his account convincing. These are part of the trickster’s success, not harmless practical jokes.

Read the original: Grimms’ Fairy Tales, tr. Edgar Taylor and Marian Edwardes (Project Gutenberg #2591, The Valiant Little Tailor)

Best for ages 9–12 with adult discussion: attempted murder, a fatal fight, deceptive evidence and a princess promised as a reward without being asked. The humor includes threats and coercion.

Reading the story closely

‘Seven at one stroke’ is technically true but deliberately incomplete. The missing object—flies—lets listeners supply men, and that false inference drives both the king’s offer and the soldiers’ fear. Later the tailor adds sword marks to the dead giants, turning a true result into misleading evidence of how it happened. His victories involve practical ingenuity, but also management of other people’s beliefs.

Make three columns for the belt, cheese, bird, tree-carrying and final bedroom speech: what happens, what the observer believes, and what the tailor lets them believe. Then examine the royal bargain. The king repeatedly changes its terms, while his daughter has no say in being offered. Her class prejudice and the forced marriage can both be criticized; one does not cancel the other.

Talk about it

• The tailor’s belt said “Seven at one blow”. Why did everyone misunderstand it?
• Which of the tailor’s tricks do you think was the cleverest, and why?
• The tailor wins by bragging and bluffing. Is he a good hero? Explain your answer.

Related stories

• The Little Peasant — another Grimm trickster whose success comes with serious harm
• Doctor Knowall — a Grimm peasant who bluffs his way into being a famous doctor
• Tom Thumb — a tiny Grimm hero who survives by being quicker and cleverer than the big folk