As a child, John never seemed to fit in with the other kids. It was hard enough being a Scottish lad in a small English village full of prejudice, but it also didn’t help that he was always much bigger than the other boys his age. Despite his size, John’s ma had always taught him to be gentle and non-violent, so as you might imagine he was bullied an awful lot for his size and his accent and red hair. During his entire childhood, he never had a single friend.

When John reached the age of 15, he was at least a head and shoulders above the tallest boy in his class and still growing. His greatest wish was that he could shrink down and hide from his bullies – maybe then people wouldn’t notice him so much. Most days after school a group of lads would follow him home, throwing stones and shouting insults. John’s ma worried about him when he went straight to his room without saying a word to her.

On the outside, he became quiet and withdrawn, but inside something was boiling away, fast approaching a point where it would explode. And then, one day at school, he turned around and grabbed the boys who were flicking things and whispering insults by the ankles and dangled them upside down, knocking their heads together until the headmaster was called to expel him.

From then on, whenever John kept his anger bottled up, it wouldn’t be long before a fit of rage came upon him. When this happened, it felt like a dark blanket was covering him and voices sounded like echoes from far away. John would come to with splinters in his hands and a broken chair on the floor, and although he was scared by what he was capable of, he always felt better after releasing his anger.

At the age of 17, John left home. His ma shouldn’t have to deal with the eggs that were thrown at her house, or the bricks thrown through the windows every time a child died in the village. He packed up his few belongings and went off in search of a job. He knocked on every door in the village, asking for work, but of course no one would employ an outcast like him. The kinder villagers just shut the door in his face as soon as they saw him, but most threw water at him, or chased him down the street, shouting curses after him.

A week later, feeling tired and hungry and depressed, John came across a farmer on the edge of the village. The man didn’t run away or produce a gun as soon as he saw him, so John stopped and begged him for food, offering his services in return. He was told that the farmer had no work to spare, but did know of a house out of the way of the village, where John could grow his own food and never have to face the villagers ever again. The farmer gave him the means to reach this house and sent him on his way.

As promised, the house was plenty big enough to accommodate John, who still hadn’t stopped growing and was one-and-a-half times the size of a normal man by now. There were cabbages and wheat and onions and apples already growing in the garden, and the first thing that John did was pluck a dozen juicy apples from the topmost branches and eat them all at once.

In the following months, John settled into his new life nicely. There was no one around to inflame his anger or make him depressed, although he did miss his ma terribly. To keep him company, he raised chickens and allowed them to roam free in his house. He would call them by name and talk to them in his gentle, rumbling voice as they clucked and pecked and ruffled their feathers, and at night they would gather around his warm body like a feather blanket, comforting him while he slept.

The months stretched out into a year and John, needing a hobby, took up carpentry. His first attempts at making chairs and a table for his kitchen went horribly wrong, resulting in a chair with five legs and a table that sloped so much everything would slide straight off, but John’s ma had taught him perseverance, and his work improved gradually. He was most proud of the harp he had crafted lovingly with his bare hands, and in the evenings he would play it for his chickens. The harp would sing out and John’s deep baritone could be heard for miles away as he made up the words to accompany it.

So John lived for almost five years, by which time he was more than twice the height of a normal man. By this time, he had become aware of an emptiness inside him that never seemed to go away. He no longer found the same enjoyment in life as he used to, not even when he played his harp. Something important was missing, and John suddenly realised what it was one day when he heard a gentle, feminine voice joining in with the song of his harp. Rushing out to his garden, he looked down the overgrown path that provided the only way to reach his house.

There was someone on the other side, staring back at him. It was hard to tell because they were so far away, but John was sure that it was a woman, and that she was much bigger than the average villager. John would even be willing to bet that she was almost as big as he was. He hurried down the path, hoping that she wouldn’t wander away while he was trying to reach her.

Finally, he found himself face to face with this mysterious woman. She wasn’t quite his height, but she was at eye level with his shoulders, and now that he saw her up close John realised that she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. Her body was homely and nicely curved and her smiling face was framed by soft red curls, the same colour as his own unruly hair. John found himself staring into her shining green eyes and almost didn’t notice when she spoke.

“Are you the man who lives in the house up there?” she asked in a soft, lilting voice. He just about managed to stammer out a yes, and she replied: “I’ve been watching you for weeks, but until now I’ve been too scared to call out. When I heard you playing that harp I couldn’t help but join in. I love to sing, you see.”

Finding his voice, John told her that she was the most beautiful woman on Earth and that his heart would break if she refused to marry him. Casting his eyes around, he saw some white flowers growing nearby – he’d never been good with the names of such things – and plucked one from the ground, careful not to squash it between his thick fingers.

When he presented it to her, she smiled and said: “Why, that would be a terrible thing. I wouldn’t want to be breaking your heart. You seem so kind and gentle, and you’re the first man to tell me I’m beautiful. I should like to marry you very much.”

And so John married April, the most beautiful girl on Earth, and although they weren’t blessed with children, they were very happy together in their house away from the villagers who had taunted them. One of the chickens started to lay golden eggs, and every night John would play the harp and April would sing and the sound would carry across the clouds like the song of an angel.

On his wife’s request, John crafted an axe and threw it down towards the base of the overgrown beanstalk that provided the only way to reach the house. With a mighty groan and a crash, the beanstalk fell to the ground. Now no one would ever be able to bother them.

And so they lived happily ever after. That is, until a greedy English boy named Jack disobeyed his mother and sold his cow for some magic beans, but I’m sure you’ve heard that story.

A/N: I might write a sequel to Jack and the Beanstalk, in which April was pregnant when John was killed, and their child grows up and avenges his father's death. That would explain the pot of gold - they melted down the eggs from the hen and turned them into gold coins so that their son could have a better chance at life than they did. Therefore - giant no greedy. Giant nice man :)