Tales of a Wolfe - The Hen and The Bean

The Golden Hen and the Bean

Disclaimer: this is based on the original tale: Jack and the Beanstalk

         Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a hen named Mirabelle. Mirabelle lived in a sumptuous palace in the clouds where the sky was blue and the sun shone every day of the year. She feasted on the finest grains and seeds available, for her master was very rich indeed.
However, though Mirabelle knew she was the best looked-after hen in the whole world, she couldn't help but yearn for a different life. The reason for this was that although the master and his wife treated her very well, they always took away her eggs, so she couldn't have any chicks. The master and mistress did not seem to be bad people, but they sold her eggs, and though they thanked her profusely for her generosity, she could not help but see how greedy the master was.
         One day, when Mirabelle was happily pecking away at some new grain in her garden, an odd little boy came running up to the house. Now normally, Mirabelle was a very polite sort of hen; she would lay an egg whenever her master told her "lay", and her mother had taught her not to stare, but this little boy was so strange that she couldn't help it.
         Of course, she had seen little boys in stews, or pies, or even on toast, but never had she laid eyes on a little boy walking around. She didn't even know that little boys were alive before you cooked them. As she was pondering this new revelation, the mistress came up to the doorstep - presumably to sort out the puzzling matter. However, it was the little boy who spoke first.
         'Good morning ma'am,' said he. 'Could you be so kind as to spare me some breakfast?'
         What an odd request, thought Mirabelle, and evidently her mistress thought so too.
         'If it's breakfast you want, it's breakfast you'll be if you don't get going. My husband is an ogre, and there's nothing he likes better than broiled boys on bread. Now you'd better go afore he gets home.'
         'Oh please ma'am,' said the boy pitifully. 'I haven't eaten since yesterday morning, and I'm awfully hungry. I might as well be broiled, since I'd die of hunger anyway.'
         The boy looked so dejected that Mirabelle's heart went out to him, and so did, it seemed, her mistress's, as the big woman invited him in. Mirabelle followed quietly, and hid in the doorway, curious as to what would happen to this strange walking food.
         The mistress gave him a jug of milk, and a hunk of cheese and bread to eat, and the boy sat himself at the table, which was at least twice his size. But no sooner had he told her mistress that his name was Jack, than the master returned.
         Thump! Thump! Thump! The walls themselves started to shake, and Mirabelle quickly ran to the pantry, where she was expected to be when the master came back.
         'Good gracious me!' cried the mistress. 'It's my husband! Whatever shall I do with you? Quickly, jump in here, and not a peep before I open the door.' And so she pushed Jack into the oven and closed the door.
         Not a moment later, the master returned with three calves that he had caught for dinner. 'Here wife, use these to cook with tonight.'
         But as he sat at the table, he suddenly gave a great sniff, and stood back up, saying:

'Fee-fi-fo-fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman.
Be he alive or be he dead,
I'll grind his bones to make my bread.'

         And with that, he began to search the kitchen nooks and crannies to see where the boy had hidden himself. Mirabelle nearly squawked with excitement, eager to see what would happen next.
         'Nonsense dear,' the giant's wife said hurriedly. 'It is only the smell of the boy you ate for breakfast this morning. Now go and put those down, and I'll set to making dinner.'
         So the giant skinned the calves and set them down, and disappeared off to find something to do before dinner. This evening, he decided to count the bags of gold stored in the chest.
         Now ordinarily, Mirabelle would have taken a nap, as she didn't have anything to do, but she was curious as to how the little boy would get out, for she had grown rather fond of him over the course of his stay. So she watched as the giant started counting the gold, until he nodded off and began snoring with such zeal that the house began to shake. The mistress lost no time.
         'Quick, Jack!' she whispered urgently, opening the oven door. 'Hurry home before he wakes up!'
         And with that, the mistress retired to her chambers.
         Mirabelle was about to follow suit, when she saw a curious thing happen. The little boy Jack had stopped next to the giant, and was prying two sacks of gold out of the master's arms!
         font:times}Even though she had taken a liking to him, Mirabelle knew stealing was evil, and so as Jack sprinted for the door, she started clucking and squawking, making as much noise as possible. The master woke up with a snort, but by then it was too late. Jack had gone.



         After that, life went on much as it had before, and Mirabelle had almost forgotten about the whole incident when she saw Jack appear at the doorstep once more. He wasn't as little as before, though he still wasn't nearly half of the size of the giants.
         What? Mirabelle asked herself. How dare he show his face here again? This is outrageous!
         And so she waddled towards Jack, fully intending to give him a piece of her mind, and if not that, at least a few pecks to the face.
         However, the mistress beat her to it, and so she steamed in irate silence as Jack made up some excuse and everything happened as before.
         Thump! Thump! Thump! The giant was back, and so the wife hid Jack in the oven once more.

'Fee-fi-fo-fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman.
Be he alive or be he dead,
I'll grind his bones to make my bread.'

         'Nonsense dear,' replied the giantess. 'It's only the little boys left over from last night's pie.'
         All happened as it did before, and then the giant called for his wife to bring Mirabelle. She obediently hopped onto the table, and when the giant shouted "lay" she laid one of her precious eggs all made of gold. The ogre scooped it up greedily and made her lay until she thought she could stand it no longer.
         Presently the giant fell asleep, and Mirabelle sighed, grateful for the respite. But no sooner had she started to move over to her bed in the pantry than Jack grabbed her.
         'Stop it!' she squawked. 'What do you think you're doing? Put me down, right now!' For Mirabelle had no intention of being kidnapped by a thief.
         The ogre woke up, but it was already too late; Jack had sprinted down the path and down a giant tree that went all the way down to an underground world. Mirabelle was very frightened, for she had never set eyes upon the world underneath the skies, and it seemed very big and dark.
         When they got to the bottom, Mirabelle was put in a pen inside a little house, but it was very cold, and Jack and his mother only fed her grain. She missed her sunny garden, and she missed the giantess who would always look after her. As the days passed, she became exhausted, and homesick, and Jack got greedy, pushing her to always lay more and more eggs. One day, she couldn't take it anymore, and just stopped laying eggs. That was when Jack decided to climb the beanstalk once more.
         When he came back, it was a scary event. Mirabelle had been let out into the garden, and she could hear the giant's roars shaking the ground even from twenty feet down. The harp that the ogre liked listening to came tumbling down from the heavens, shrieking "Master, master!" all the way down, even when Jack's mother caught it. Jack appeared soon afterwards, shimmying down the vine at an alarming speed.
         'The axe!' he cried. 'Quickly mother, fetch me the axe!'
         So Jack's mother fetched the axe, and Jack jumped down the last few feet and gave one almighty swing at the beanstalk, cutting it clean in two. Mirabelle watched in horror as the giant lost his footing and fell to the ground. Soon after, the great big plant came crashing down on top of him, and that was the end of that.
         For a time, Jack was occupied with the harp, but soon the gold ran out once more, and Mirabelle was forced to lay several eggs a day, becoming meaner and greedier than her old master as time went by.
         One day, Jack's mother forgot to lock Mirabelle's cage, and she was able to escape into the garden. Bitterly unhappy at the way she had been treated, Mirabelle ran over towards the pond at the bottom of the garden.
         'What did I do to deserve this?' she asked the murky water, as a single tear ran down her feathery cheek.
         And as the teardrop fell into the water, the ripples caused a single bean to float to the side of the pool, coming to rest at Mirabelle's feet.
         For a second Mirabelle just stared at it, unsure as to what it was. But then the snatches of a conversation floated to her mind, and she squawked in excitement. For this was one of the magical beans Jack had told his mother about, the ones that his mother had thrown out of the window. This bean must not have had enough soil to be able to grow.
         'This is it!' Mirabelle shouted, and carefully picked the bean up in her beak, making sure not to break it.
She buried it in the garden, and hid in the tree, waiting for it to grow. Presently a shoot appeared. Then that shoot turned into a stem, and leaves sprouted from the sides, and before she knew it, it was climbing to the heavens.
         Not wanting to waste any time, Mirabelle clamped her beak and claws onto a fairly solid-looking branch, and waited until the magic bean brought her back home.
When she reached the castle's door, she pecked and pecked with all her might until the giantess opened the door.
         'Mirabelle!' she cried. 'I thought I would never see you again!'
         Then Mirabelle told her all about Jack the harp-stealer, and the awful way he and his mother had treated her. The giantess waited until night, and then climbed down the beanstalk to retrieve the harp and the riches, chopped down the beanstalk, leaving Jack and his mother exactly how they were before he came to bother them.
         As for Mirabelle, she was allowed to keep as many of her eggs as she wanted, which soon hatched into chicks, and they all lived happily ever after.