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"Jack and the Beanstalk" is an English fairy tale. The earliest known appearance in print is Benjamin Tabart's moralised version of 1807.〔Tabart, ''The History of Jack and the Bean-Stalk.'' in 1807 introduces a new character, a fairy who explains the moral of the tale to Jack (Matthew Orville Grenby, "Tame fairies make good teachers: the popularity of early British fairy tales", ''The Lion and the Unicorn'' 30.1 (January 2006:1–24).〕 "Felix Summerly" (Henry Cole) popularised it in ''The Home Treasury'' (1842),〔In 1842 and 1844 Elizabeth Rigby, Lady Eastlake, reviewed children's books for the ''Quarterly Review'' (volumes 71 and 74), recommending a list of children's books, headed by "The House () Treasury, by Felix Summerly, including The Traditional Nursery Songs of England, Beauty and the Beast, Jack and the Beanstalk, and other old friends, all charmingly done and beautifully illustrated." (noted by Geoffrey Summerfield, "The Making of The Home Treasury", ''Children's Literature'' 8 (1980:35–52).〕 and Joseph Jacobs rewrote it in ''English Fairy Tales'' (1890). Jacobs' version is most commonly reprinted today and it is believed to be closer to the oral versions than Tabart's because it lacks the moralising.〔Maria Tatar, ''The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales'', p. 132. ISBN 0-393-05163-3〕 "Jack and the Beanstalk" is the best known of the "Jack tales", a series of stories featuring the archetypal Cornish and English hero and stock character Jack. ==Story== Jack is a young boy living with his widowed mother and a cow who is their only source of income. When the cow stops giving milk, Jack's mother has told Jack take the cow to the market to be sold. On the way, he meets an old man who offers "magic beans" in exchange for the cow and Jack makes the trade. When he arrives home without any money, his mother becomes furious, throws the beans on the ground and sends Jack to bed. A gigantic beanstalk grows overnight which Jack climbs to a land high in the sky. There he comes to a house or a castle that is the home of a giant. Jack breaks into the house. When the giant returns, he senses that a human is nearby: :''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.''〔 When the giant sleeps, he steals a bag of gold coins and makes his escape down the beanstalk. Jack returns up the beanstalk twice more. He learns of other treasures and steals them when the giant sleeps: first a goose that lays golden eggs (the most common variant is a hen; compare the idiom "to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs."), then a harp that plays by itself. However, the giant is woken when Jack leaves the house with the harp. The giant chases him down the beanstalk and Jack calls to his mother for an axe. Before the giant reaches the ground, Jack cuts down the beanstalk, causing the giant to fall to his death. Jack and his mother then live happily ever after with their riches that Jack stole from the giant. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Jack and the Beanstalk」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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