The Selfish Giant

Every afternoon, when school was finished, the children went to play in the Giant’s garden.

It was a beautiful place.

Soft green grass covered the ground, and flowers grew through it like little stars.

There were twelve peach trees.

In spring, their branches filled with blossoms of pink and pearl.

In autumn, they bent beneath the weight of fruit.

Birds nested among the leaves and sang so sweetly that sometimes the children stopped their games simply to listen.

“How happy we are here,” they would say.

The garden belonged to a Giant.

But the Giant had been away for seven years, visiting his friend, a Cornish Ogre.

For seven years the children had played there freely.

Then one afternoon, the Giant returned.

He walked into his garden and stopped.

Children were everywhere.

Some ran across the grass.

Some climbed the trees.

Some gathered beneath the branches to listen to the birds.

The Giant stared at them.

“What are you doing here?”

His voice was so loud and rough that the children fled.

The Giant looked around at his garden.

“My garden is my own garden,” he said.

“Anyone should understand that.”

“And nobody shall play here except me.”

So he built a high wall around it.

Then he placed a large sign upon the wall:

TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED

The children could no longer enter.

After school they tried to play along the road.

But the road was dusty.

It was covered with hard stones.

There were no flowers.

No trees.

No soft grass.

So instead they wandered around the Giant’s wall and spoke quietly about the garden beyond it.

“How happy we were there.”

Then Spring came.

Across the country, tiny flowers opened.

Birds returned to the trees.

Fresh leaves unfolded beneath the sun.

But inside the Giant’s garden, Winter remained.

The birds would not sing because there were no children to listen.

The trees forgot to blossom.

Once, a small flower pushed its head above the grass.

Then it saw the sign upon the wall.

It thought of the children.

And it became so sad that it slipped back into the earth and went to sleep again.

Only the Snow and Frost were pleased.

“Spring has forgotten this garden,” they said.

“So we can live here all year.”

The Snow covered the grass in white.

The Frost painted every tree silver.

Then they invited the North Wind.

He wrapped himself in furs and roared through the garden all day long.

“What a wonderful place!”

He rattled the windows.

He bent the branches.

“We must invite the Hail.”

And so the Hail came.

Every day, for hours, he beat against the castle roof until tiles broke loose.

Then he raced around the garden as quickly as he could.

He was dressed in gray.

His breath was ice.

The Giant sat beside his window and looked outside.

“I do not understand,” he said.

“Spring is very late this year.”

But Spring did not come.

Nor Summer.

Nor Autumn.

Autumn gave golden fruit to every garden in the country.

But to the Giant’s garden she gave none.

“He is too selfish,” she said.

So Winter remained.

Snow.

Frost.

North Wind.

Hail.

They ruled the garden together.

One morning, the Giant lay awake in bed.

Then he heard something beautiful.

Music.

He wondered whether musicians from the King’s court were passing nearby.

But when he listened more carefully, he realized that it was only a small bird singing outside his window.

It had been so long since he had heard birdsong in his garden that it seemed to him the most wonderful music in the world.

The Hail stopped.

The North Wind became quiet.

A sweet fragrance drifted through the open window.

“At last,” said the Giant.

“Spring has come.”

He rose from bed and looked outside.

And there he saw something extraordinary.

The children had found a small hole in the wall.

They had crawled through it.

Now they were sitting in the branches of the trees.

And everywhere a child sat, the tree had blossomed.

Green leaves filled the branches.

Flowers opened across the grass.

Birds flew from tree to tree and sang.

The children laughed beneath them.

Spring had returned.

Except in one corner.

There it was still Winter.

A little boy stood beneath a tree.

He was so small that he could not reach even its lowest branch.

He walked around the trunk crying.

The tree was still covered in Frost and Snow.

The North Wind blew above him.

“Climb up, little boy,” whispered the tree.

It bent its branches as low as it could.

But the child was too small.

The Giant watched from his window.

And something inside him changed.

“How selfish I have been.”

He looked at the little boy.

“Now I understand why Spring would not come.”

He hurried downstairs.

“I will put that little child into the tree.”

“And then I will tear down the wall.”

“My garden shall belong to the children forever.”

The Giant opened his door.

He stepped into the garden.

The children saw him.

They were frightened.

They ran away.

At once, Winter returned.

The trees lost their blossoms.

The birds became silent.

But the smallest child had been crying so hard that he had not noticed the Giant.

The Giant approached him quietly.

He lifted the boy gently in his enormous hands.

Then he placed him among the branches of the tree.

Immediately, blossoms opened.

Birds flew into its leaves.

The little boy wrapped his arms around the Giant’s neck and kissed him.

The other children saw what had happened.

They realized that the Giant was no longer cruel.

So they came running back.

And with them came Spring.

The Giant smiled.

“This is your garden now, little children.”

He took a great axe.

And he tore down the wall.

Later that morning, people going to market saw the Giant playing with the children in the most beautiful garden they had ever seen.

The children returned every afternoon.

The Giant welcomed them.

But the little boy he loved most did not return.

The Giant asked the others:

“Where is your little friend?”

They shook their heads.

“We do not know.”

“Where does he live?”

“We do not know.”

“We had never seen him before that day.”

The Giant felt very sad.

“I wish I could see him again.”

Years passed.

The Giant became kind to all the children.

Every afternoon they came from school and played in the garden.

Still, the Giant often remembered the little boy.

“I would like to see him again.”

More years passed.

The Giant grew old.

Very old.

He could no longer run with the children.

So he sat in a great chair and watched them play.

He looked across the garden.

He watched the blossoms moving in the wind.

He listened to the birds.

“I have many beautiful flowers,” he said.

“But the children are the most beautiful flowers of all.”

One winter morning, the Giant looked through his window.

He no longer hated Winter.

He had learned that Winter was only Spring sleeping.

And that beneath the snow, the flowers were resting.

Then he saw something that made him rub his eyes.

In the farthest corner of the garden stood one tree completely covered in white blossoms.

Its branches were golden.

Silver fruit hung beneath its leaves.

And beneath the tree stood the little boy.

The child he had never forgotten.

The Giant’s heart leapt.

He hurried downstairs.

Though he was old and weak, he crossed the garden as quickly as he could.

But when he came close to the child, his happiness disappeared.

There were wounds upon the little boy’s hands.

And wounds upon his feet.

The Giant’s face filled with anger.

“Who has hurt you?”

The child looked at him gently.

“Tell me who did this.”

The Giant clenched his enormous hands.

“I will take my sword and punish them.”

But the boy shook his head.

“No.”

“These are wounds of Love.”

The Giant became still.

“Who are you?”

Something like awe came over him.

He knelt before the child.

The boy smiled.

“Long ago, you allowed me to play in your garden.”

“Today, you shall come with me to mine.”

“My garden is Paradise.”

That afternoon, when the children came from school, they entered the garden as they always did.

Then they stopped.

Beneath the beautiful tree lay the Giant.

He was dead.

And his body was covered with white blossoms.