ould not bear to
think of that lovely and delicate lady all alone in the great, black
forest waiting until the giant came back from killing her seven brothers.
He would return with their seven heads swinging pitifully from his
girdle, and, when he reached the castle gates, he would gnash his teeth
through the keyhole with a noise like the grinding together of great
rocks, and would poke his head through the fanlight of the door, and say,
fee-faw-fum in a voice of such exceeding loudness that the castle would
be shaken to its foundation.

Thinking of this made his throat grow painful with emotion, and then his
heart swelled to the most uncomfortable dimensions, and he resolved to
devote his whole life to the rescue of the Princess, and, if necessary,
die in her defence.

Such was his impatience that he could not wait for anything more than his
dinner, and this he ate so speedily that his father called him a
Perfect-Young-Glutton, and a Disgrace-To-Any-Table. He bore these
insults in a meek and heroic spirit, whereupon his mother said that he
must be ill, and it was only by a violent and sustained outcry that he
escaped being sent to bed.

Immediately after dinner he set out in search of the giant's castle. Now
there is scarcely anything in the world more difficult to find than a
giant's castle, for it is so large that one can only see it through the
wrong end of a telescope; and, furthermore, he did not even know this
giant's name. He might never have found the place if he had not met a
certain old woman on the common.

She was a very nice old woman. She had three teeth, a red shawl, and an
umbrella with groceries inside it; so he told her of the difficulty he
was in.

She replied that he was in luck's way, and that she was the only person
in the world who could assist him. She said her name was
Really-and-Truly, and that she had a magic head, and that if he cut her
head off it would answer any questions he asked it. So he stropped his
penknife on his boot, and said he was ready if she was.

The old woman then informed him that in all affairs of this delicate
nature it was customary to take the will for the deed, and that he might
now ask her head anything he wanted to know--so he asked the head what
was the way to the nearest giant, and the head replied that if he took
the first turning to the left, the second to the right, and then the
first to the left again, and if he then knocked at the fifth door on the
rig