... there was a young man called Jack.

When we saw Jack last he had managed to plunder the cloud giant's castle and slain the giant by cutting down the magical beanstalk that had allowed him to reach the castle in the first place. With his new-found wealth, he and his mother lived quite comfortably in a new and somewhat bigger cottage than they had had before. Alas, it was not meant to last forever.

As everyone knows, Jack was young and strong and supposedly well endowed but sadly somewhat slow of wit. He traded a cow for a handful of magical beans after all. How clever could he be? It didn't take long for him to lose most of his fantastical possessions, including the singing harp and the goose that laid gold eggs, and almost all of the gold and silver he had stolen. His mother, now older and frail, was getting worried.

She ordered him to take one of the magical beans and plant it a good distance from their new home, so he could return to the castle and find more valuables. Jack was not too keen on the idea, having only narrowly escaped alive the last time, but she convinced him that with the giant dead and rotting in the neighboring field, there was nothing for him to worry about up there.

So Jack packed a bag and left his home, a magical bean safely tucked away in his pocket, intent on putting at least a few miles between his house and the new bean stalk he was going to plant, to prevent the damn thing from destroying the cottage like it did last time. He was so single-minded in this pursuit that before he knew it the sun had set and he was further away from his home than he had ever been before - horizontally, at least.

Just one thing left to do, Jack thought, and put a hand in his pocket. But just as he pulled out the bean, a sudden noise behind him startled him. The bean flew out of his hand and disappeared somewhere in the deepening shadows of the fading daylight.