Before he was king and before he became the Jack of the Border or the Beanstalk, the king was a youth who lived with his mother and father in a house near the fey border. So near in fact, with only fifty-paces between it and the border, that it had no neighbors. So near in fact that the closest village, a small one, sat more than five miles away. So far from any surrounding bush, that both his parents and him thought it better to risk collecting deadwood from the trees at the border's edges rather than waste time on the further trek.

With the dangerous fey so close, it was for good reason, no one was interested in building settlements so close to the border. The lords of these strips of land wouldn’t even risk coming to collect taxes from such places. Frequent visits would increase run-ins with the fey, after all and disfavorable land such as this couldn’t possibly produce the necessary reward for that.

That said, no taxes was an offer that many men were willing to risk life and limb for and as such, one could not go two dozen miles north or south along the border line without running into one of those brave foolish men managing a homestead. The father of the future king was one such man.

He’d gotten the idea in his head that since the fey loved nature in general, then they'd favor his farm if he were to grow one so near the forest. If he just kept working hard and waiting for a kind fairy, he thought that he’d wind up growing ten men’s produce with the labor of one. Unfortunately for him, such a kind fey never did come his way and he spent years toiling away in poverty barely making ends meet doing odd jobs along with his wife in the village just over five miles away.

One year, however, late in the king's youth, a passing merchant spotted his father picking deadwood from the border's edge and asked if he had no fear of the fey. When he told him he feared not being able to provide for his son and wife more, the merchant offered him a job picking plants from the forest for him and delivering them to the village. Desperate as he was by that point, Jack's father agreed and went into the forest.

Surprisingly, this went well for a while and Jack's father was able to make enough money selling what he collected that for the first time his family knew comfort. He'd even done so well over the course of a year that he'd managed to finish all the house’s repairs and save up enough money to buy them a milking cow.

That year came and passed, however, and one day when Jack's father went out passed the border he never returned. Jack and his mother waited for him the first day when he didn’t come and they waited the second day too, but when the third day without his return and Jack’s mother wept, the future king went into the forest to fetch his father.

Not long into his search, he met a fey hag who said she'd been waiting for him and that she was the one who had taken his father. With no fear in his heart for the powerful witch, he asked her why. The hag told him that his father had been stealing from the forest and that she would not return him unless Jack paid back all the coin his father had earned from doing so.

Now the king was no fool and he knew as well as anybody else that unlike other fey, hags did not care for nature or the forest, they merely acted as parasites upon the land. What she was doing was for her and her alone, not for any sense of twisted justice that other fey might have. With that said, however, he was in no position to question her false altruism and so he left the forest with her task in mind.

When Jack returned home without his father and told his mother of what the hag had demanded, her sorrow began anew as she knew had nowhere near enough to pay for a year of his father's labor. Jack was able to convince her, however, to at least let him take the cow to the market to see what they could get for her.

While he was at the market, Jack asked around for how much it would be to get a cart ride to the nearest town to the west. Though he told his mother he would be selling the cow for his father's sake, in truth, he thought to spend the money on moving him and his mother away from this place as he had no hopes of paying the hag’s ransom. Unbeknownst to him, fate had made its plans for him already.

“You’ll never have enough to get your father back from just selling that cow,” a merchant said as Jack passed by. "Even more so now that she’s run out of milk."

Jack turned back to the merchant he had at first ignored and saw that he was dressed in foreign garb and covered from head to toe in protective charms to guard against the fey. He was a man from the eastern kingdoms, no doubt.

"How do you know about my father?" Jack asked. And how did he know that his cow was freshly out of milk.

"I know what I know, Jack," the merchant said, holding up a small pouch filled with half a handful of beans, "And I know that you'll never be able to save your father without these beans."

Jack crossed his arms. "I supposed you’re going to tell me that they’re magic?” he asked.

"I need not tell you what truths have already been spoken. All you need know is that if you plant these beans, you'll have more than you need to save your father."

Jack thought the merchant was a funny one, as all men who make it passed the fey from the eastern kingdoms tend to be, but that only meant all the more chance of the man's words being true. He knew the tales of the Jacks of the Beanstalk before him and knew it was a title given only once a hundred years, but as long as the only real risk he was taking was losing time, he was more than willing to try.

He asked the merchant to put himself into the village chief’s custody until he’d tested the beans and the merchant agreed. Once he had traded his cow for the beans, the future king set off on his way home.

Naturally, his mother was right pissed when he told he’d traded the cow for beans, but when he explained that the merchant was in the chief's holding he was able to calm her down. With his mother watching, he planted the beans just like the other Jacks of the Beanstalk had done before him.

"Jack! Jack!" His mother called him on the morning of the next day. As had been with all other Jacks of the Beanstalk, his magic beans had produced a giant beanstalk. He was now one among their ranks.

With strength and endurance he did not know he had, Jack climbed the beanstalk up from his house and into the sky where the giants live. Where his beanstalk ended there was only one residence, a castle far too big for any normal-sized man. The castle was unguarded, so Jack had an easy time sneaking his way in and after some exploring he found his way to a treasure room filled with far more present than what he needed to pay his father's ransom.

In the midst of his exploring, however, he also found a giant, the lord of the castle, going to and fro within his abode. A thief he was not, Jack left the giant's treasure untouched and returned down to his home below.

Much to his surprise, the merchant who sold Jack the beans was waiting for him when arrived back on the ground. When the chief had seen the beanstalk touching the sky, he'd let the man go as he could not say that he had been anything, but truthful after seeing such a thing.

Jack was grateful to the man for giving him the beans, but told him there was nothing he could gain from them as he was not a thief.

"It is the giant who is a thief here,” the eastern man said. “The treasures he has are the things that he’s stolen from the people he’s crushed under foot. I gave you the beans because I have foreseen that you are the one who will strike down this wicked giant in the name of justice."

"Let's say I believe you," Jack said, "How would I defeat the giant? Certainly, I have no power within me to do so myself."

That’s when the merchant told him that, "In the giant's holding with all the other treasures he has stolen there is an axe passed down from when the great forests were cleared from this kingdom’s land. So strong is its swing that the air shall bend to its will and cut the giant down for you without you having even touched him."

As the merchant had been truthful about the magic beans, Jack decided to trust in his plan. The next day, the two of them climbed up the beanstalk and took as much as they could in bags they found in the treasure room that were much bigger on the inside than they were on the outside. They took treasure along with the axe as well and the giant did not find them.

Eager to take as much as they could, they emptied the bags and filled them again the next day. They planned to do the same without notice on the third day, but once their bags were filled, the giant stepped into the treasure room behind them.

"I knew someone had stolen my treasure," the giant said. It would have been odd not to think that considering they had taken a third of his stolen treasure each of these past two days. Now that they had filled their bags today, the room had become empty. "If you smallfolk reveal where you've taken my treasure to, then I shall make your deaths swift rather than slow and painful."

Those words given with the giant’s booming voice would have intimidated a lesser man, but the future king was left unafraid. "Don't you feel any remorse for having stolen all of this treasure from the little people down below?" Jack asked.

The giant gave a hardy laugh after hearing that. "You dare ask me to feel remorse? Smallfolk are beneath us giantfolk. You all should feel grateful that we haven't crushed you under our feet yet."

That was all Jack needed to hear. There was no helping the giant, he was irredeemable. With a swing of his axe, the wind bowed to his will and lashed out against the giant. The giant wailed in pain as black blood was drawn. He'd thought that a small man could not hurt him, but he was mistaken.

Coward that he was, the giant ran out the room and left Jack and the merchant to do as they pleased. Not knowing what the giant would do next or if he'd call for help from giants who had more spine than he, the two of them decided to take what they had already and cut the beanstalk down once they got to the bottom. The giant, however, had been waiting for them to get to the beanstalk and when they'd made a good way down, he made his own descent after them. He probably hoped to follow them close enough to jump down and crush them once they reached the bottom.

Jack, however, swung his ask and commanded the winds to keep the giant at bay and slow his climb down. Once he and the merchant reached the ground, the giant was still too far up to jump down without courting death. Before the giant could decide whether to climb back up or continue down, Jack using both the magic steel of his axe and the winds that it ruled, cut the beanstalk at its base.

With just three mighty swings he brought the beanstalk and the giant screaming down to the ground. The giant was dead and no other would be able to use the beanstalk to come from their holdings in the sky above.

After splitting their treasures, Jack and the merchant turned friend set off into the forest to retrieve Jack's father. With the money from the giant's holding they had more than enough to pay the hag. Still, a hag is never to be taken at their word and with that in mind, they came prepared with protective charms to fight the powerful witch for their lives and the life of Jack’s father.

Perhaps that preparedness deterred the hag from attacking them directly or perhaps keeping her word was a part of her scheme all along. Either way, the hag just took what treasures they offered and let the duo return with Jack's father with no further hassle.

"Come back anytime you'd like!" the hag called out as the three men left. "I'll be more than willing to take your money for the next ransom." As they left, the sound of her cackling laugh echoed throughout the surrounding forest.

When they returned home, Jack's father was acting strange. Jack's mother was so happy to finally have her husband returned, though, that Jack just left him be.

The night came and Jack and his new friend stayed up late talking about their plans for the future. Jack wanted to move his family away from the border to somewhere safe while the merchant wanted to return to his own family and share his wealth. Unfortunately, neither man got what he wanted.

After falling asleep, Jack woke up to the sound of a struggle. With his merchant friend beside him, Jack walked into his parent’s room to find his own father murdering his mother. Or at least what he thought was his father. Before Jack had even entered the forest, the hag had already murdered him. What he was looking at was just a puppet she had placed in his body. She had hoped it would murder them all, so she could replace them and take their riches for herself.

To save Jack the dishonor and suffering from cutting down his own father, his friend was the one to put the hag's puppet down.

With righteous fury burning within them, they set out the next morning to put an end to the wicked hag. After a brutal battle, they accomplished their mission, but at the cost of the merchant’s life. As he held his friend’s lifeless body in his arms, he realized his tragedy caused by the fey was nowhere near unique. and in honor of his parents and his friend, he decided to fight against the fey who danced at the edge of the border and played with the innocent peoples' lives.

“And so began the story of the Jack of the Border as the king himself has told it,” Mr. Edward said, ending his tale.

“That was definitely more interesting than I thought it would be," I said. It was also very informative. The king's rendition of Jack and the Beanstalk had multiple parallels to the versions of the story told on Earth with only a few adjustments to make it fit in with this world and continue after where the happy ending should have been. "Thanks for telling me."

"Of course," Mr. Edward said, before drinking the last of his raspberry juice. "There’s other stories to tell too about the time in between that and him being dubbed the Jack of the Border or marrying into the royal family, but I think we'll have to save that for another day."

"Right, but about the other Jacks of the Beanstalk. Were all their stories like the king’s?"

"No, the king's situation is his own and it's the same for the rest of the men who shared his title. Jack the Peacemaker, for example, was loved by both the fey and the giants he encountered. To get his beans all he had to do was whisper to the earth that he wished to meet with the giants in the sky and the earth spirits bestowed him with his magic beans. When he’d climbed his beanstalk, he found the giants at the top to be aggressive at first, but once he appeased them, they came to see him in a warm light and made friends with him in particular. If it were not for knowing his story, I'd say the king would not have even tried to give the giant in his story a chance.”

“I see,” I said, “So the only relation between the Jacks of the Beanstalk are the giants, the beans and the stalks?”

Mr. Edward nodded and I thanked him, then got up from my chair. We scheduled lessons for much of the summer, but in turn, each one would have to be short.

“Do you have any more questions to ask before we part?” he asked me. “If they’re simple, I still have time to answer a few.”

"Do you know any stories about people who tell stories?" I asked.

"Like the boy who cried wolf?"

It was kind of surprising to hear that they actually had that story here, but, "No, I was thinking something more along the lines of a story about a magic storyteller."

"Isn't that what the boy who cried wolf is?" The confused look I gave him led into a quick summary.

Apparently, the version of the boy who cried wolf told here was a story about fey playing tricks on a young lookout by making sounds and enchanting his imagination, so that the other villagers would grow to distrust him. The tale ended with everyone being dragged kicking and screaming into the forest. Rather than teaching children not to lie, the lesson was that the fey could make even honest men appear to be liars.

"I had something else in mind,” I said after listening to the summary. “Like a story about someone who actually makes stories."

"Have you become interested in becoming a bard?" Mr. Edward asked.

"No," but that seemed like a good enough excuse for why I was asking, so I stuck with it. "I was just interested in the idea is all."

"Bards don't usually tell stories about themselves, even when they appear in them. I'm afraid that I can't think of anything off the top of my head." Which unfortunately meant I'd be leaving the conversation knowing as little about being a Teller as I came into it with.

"Right, thanks anyways, Mr. Edward," I said, heading towards the door. "I'll see you tomorrow."