Das tapfere Schneiderlein

The Brave Little Tailor

A little tailor kills seven flies with one blow and sews „Sieben auf einen Streich!“ on his belt. With an old cheese and a bird in his pocket he goes into the world, outwits a giant (squeezing the cheese, throwing the bird, riding on the tree the giant carries, jumping the cherry tree) and escapes the giants' iron bar in their cave. At a king's palace everyone takes him for a great war hero; the king, afraid of him, sends him against two giants, a unicorn and a wild boar, and the tailor wins each time by a trick. He marries the princess and gets half the kingdom; when the young queen hears him talk about tailoring in his sleep, the king plans to have him carried off to a ship, but the tailor, warned by the armour-bearer, pretends to dream and boasts so loudly that the servants run away. He stays a king all his life.

Retold from Kinder- und Haus-Märchen, Band 1, 7. Auflage (Ausgabe letzter Hand, 1857), KHM 20 by Brüder Grimm (public domain).