Collected Folk Tales. Alan Garner

      The whole of the following day the brothers tramped through the forest until they came to another lake at sunset, and there they made a fire, and the second brother stood guard that night. And a monster attacked, as the other had done, but this one had two heads, which the brother split with his sword. He cut off both pairs of ears and put them in a bag, then he slept.

      On the third night, by the third lake, the third brother watched, and the third water monster came, and it had three heads. The youngest brother killed the beast, and put three pairs of ears in a bag, and then he slept. Nor had any of the brothers mentioned any of the monsters to each other.

      Now they left the forest behind them, and came into a fearsome desert, where the sun burnt them by day, and the winds chilled them by night. They built a fire of dead thorn bush, and while two brothers made a shelter the youngest went off in search of wood for the fire.

      He had not gone far when he came to the top of a rocky height, and below him he saw flames in a valley. He climbed down to beg wood of the people there, but when he came near he saw that the fire was burning in the mouth of a cave, and round the fire sat nine giants, roasting two men on spits. A cauldron seethed the limbs of more men, and there were long shapes hanging from hooks in the cave roof.

      “Hello!” said the young prince, and he stepped forward into the light. “I have been looking everywhere for you, my friends!”

      The giants sized him up, but made no move. “Welcome,” they said, “since you are one of us. And since you are one of us, take a joint of this man now, eh? And then you will help us when we go a-foraging, eh?”

      “By all means,” said the prince, “and thank you.”

      He joined the circle round the fire, and dipped his hand in the cauldron.

      After this supper the giants said that they would have to go to find their breakfast before they slept, and the prince would come with them.

      “Naturally,” said the prince. “You will find a dwarf giant very useful, I promise.”

      “We need not be long,” said the biggest giant. “The city is not far away from which we have filled our larder these nineteen years.”

      When they came to the city, the giants uprooted two pine trees, and put one against the wall. The prince, being small and light, went up the tree, and the giants then gave him the second tree to lean against the wall on the other side.

      “I don’t quite understand what it is you want me to do,” said the prince. “Come and show me.”

      So one of the giants climbed to the top of the wall, and propped the tree on the city side. The prince drew his sword in the shadow of the parapet, and when the giant bent forward to secure the tree against the wall, the prince took off his head with the sword, and pushed the body from the parapet into the dark of the street below.

      “All clear,” he said to the giants outside the city, “so up you come: one at a time, please, and don’t rush. There’s plenty for all.”

      When the giants were headless, the prince went down into the city. He found the place empty.

      But there was one light shining in the city. It came from a window at the top of a tall tower. The prince found the door and the stairway, and climbed to the room. It was furnished with silks and jewels, and on a bed of silver lay a beautiful girl, asleep.