The “young giant” is one of many strange and significant fairy tales that never became popular. It begins like many fairy tales, with a statement that it certainly hadn’t happened recently. The farmer in the story has a son who is a little thumb. It is interesting to note how many people in the past commonly had thumbs within stories, such characters could indicate and awareness of the events that happened to them and what these meant.
From about 900 AD. C. until 1200 AD. C., people in Europe were as tall as they are today, then over time their average height began to decrease. It is interesting to note how important nutrition is to height and how the presence of a thumb seems to indicate poverty in folktales. At the same time, of course, making the main character a thumb is in part to make his feats even more significant, and in the case of this story, that feat is turning the thumb into a giant. Because as the little thumb is in the field with his father, the giant comes and drives him away with his stories. This giant female then acts as a mother to the thumbling, caring for it for years and making it grow and grow. After the now young giant has grown for a while, his new mother takes him to the forest and asks him to break a sapling, however this does not satisfy the giantess, who decides that the young giant needs to be nursed some more. to get stronger. Three times the giant uproots trees in the forest before his new mother is satisfied, when he uproots the largest oak tree in the forest and splits it in half.
After pleasing his adoptive mother with his strength, he returns to his parents, who are at first afraid of him, denying that he is their son. However, she convinces them of her relationship, after which she plows everything for them without the help of the horses, and then brings the horse home. The son asks his father for a cane, and his father goes to great lengths to provide one, however, the young giant breaks every cane his father gives him. Realizing that his father can no longer support him, the young giant leaves home.
It is interesting to note that when he was a thumb all he wanted to do was help his father, when he grew up he did a great job for a short time but left his parents because they couldn’t help him anymore. Certainly, for the Age of Exploration and the Industrial Age to occur, children had to start leaving their parents en masse instead of staying home to help them. As one might anticipate from such an event, the young giant goes to find a blacksmith, offering to work for the blacksmith in exchange for the right to hit him. The blacksmith, being greedy, agrees to these terms. However, the giant can’t do much good in the forge because he’s too strong, so after landing a blow, he takes a metal bar as a staff and leaves.
The Giant then offers to work for a bailiff in exchange for the right to beat up the bailiff after one year. The Bali also being greedy agrees to this. After this, the giant fulfills his duties well; however, he secretly hinders the other workers to make himself look better. He sleeps late and, in truth, the work itself is not that difficult for him because of the sheer size of him, this is not the work ethic that people might associate with peasants and others of the pre-Victorian eras. This seems to indicate a certain amount of desire to be lazier, and look better than was really possible. Also, when the Young Giant ends the story by beating up both the bailiff and his wife, sending them flying almost forever, there seems to be some desire to beat up those in charge at all times, especially if those people are greedy. . In many ways, the aspects of this story, the funny way the giant works, and the bosses being greedy and punished for it, makes it the equivalent of a modern office comedy. While such comedies cannot be taken entirely seriously, they do strike a certain amount of truth regarding sentiments towards the social structure of the time.
