The Selfish Giant

Just outside the town there was a big garden, green and full of soft grass. Every day after school the children ran there to play. The garden belonged to a Giant, but the Giant had been away for seven years, visiting an old friend on the far side of the mountains.

Twelve peach trees grew in that garden. In spring they were covered in pink and white blossom, and in autumn they gave sweet peaches. Birds sat in the branches and sang so beautifully that the children would forget their games and just listen.

"Isn’t it lovely here!" they called to one another.

Then one day the Giant came home. He opened the gate, and what did he see? His garden was full of children!

"What are you doing here?" he thundered.

The children scattered every which way.

"My garden is my garden," the Giant grumbled. "Nobody plays here but me."

So he built a high stone wall all around the garden and hung a sign on the gate: "KEEP OUT!"

Now the children had nowhere to play. They tried playing in the road, but it was dusty and full of sharp stones. After school they would walk along the wall and sigh:

"We used to have such fun in there!"

Then spring came. Flowers bloomed everywhere and birds began to chirp and twitter. Only in the Giant’s garden was it still winter. The birds didn’t want to sing there, because there were no children, and the trees forgot it was time to blossom. One little flower peeked out of the grass, saw the sign and felt so sad that it slipped back into the ground and went to sleep.

The only ones who were happy were Snow and Frost.

"Spring has forgotten all about this garden!" they said, rubbing their hands. "We can live here all year round!"

Snow tucked the grass under a white cloak, and Frost painted the trees silver. Then they invited the North Wind to stay. He came flying in, wrapped up in furs, and howled over the garden all day long: whoo-oo-oo! He tore tiles off the roof and whistled down the chimney.

"What a marvellous place!" cried the Wind. "Let’s invite Hail too!"

So Hail came, grey and prickly. Rat-a-tat-tat! he drummed on the roof, and then he raced round and round the garden, faster and faster.

The Giant sat by the window, wrapped in a blanket, staring out at his cold white garden.

"Why on earth is spring taking so long?" he grumbled.

But spring never came. Summer didn’t come either. Autumn handed out golden fruit to every garden around, but she passed his garden by.

"He loves himself far too much," said Autumn.

One morning the Giant was lying in bed when he heard music, soft and sweet. It was a little linnet singing outside his window. The Giant hadn’t heard a bird in so long that this little song seemed to him the most beautiful in the world. Hail stopped drumming, the Wind fell silent, and a breath of warm air drifted in through a crack in the window.

"Spring at last!" cried the Giant, jumping out of bed to look outside.

And what a wonderful sight he saw! The children had crept into the garden through a little hole in the wall and climbed up into the trees. On every branch sat a child. The trees were so happy that in a moment they burst into blossom and gently waved their branches over the children’s heads. The birds sang, and the flowers peeped up out of the grass and laughed.

Only in one corner was it still winter. A tiny boy stood there, the smallest of them all. He couldn’t reach the branches no matter how hard he tried, so he walked round and round the tree, crying his heart out. The tree was all covered in frost, and the Wind blew and howled above it.

"Climb up, little one!" the tree whispered, bending its branches as low as it could.

But the boy was just too small.

As the Giant watched him, his heart began to warm, like snow melting in the sun.

"How selfish I’ve been!" he said. "Now I know why spring wouldn’t come. I’ll lift that little boy up into the tree, and then I’ll knock down the wall. My garden will belong to the children, for ever and ever."

He crept quietly downstairs, opened the door and stepped out into the garden. But when the children saw the Giant, they ran away. And winter came back to the garden.

Only the smallest boy didn’t run. His eyes were so full of tears that he didn’t see who was coming. The Giant walked up to him, gently picked him up in the palm of his hand and set him on a branch.

At that very moment the tree burst into blossom, and birds came flocking to it. And the little boy threw his arms around the Giant’s neck and kissed him on the cheek.

When the other children saw that the Giant wasn’t angry anymore, they came running back. And spring came running back with them.

"It’s your garden now, children," said the Giant.

He took a great big hammer and, boom! boom!, knocked the wall right down. And the people walking to market at noon saw the Giant playing with the children in the most beautiful garden in the world.

In the evening the children came to say goodbye.

"But where is your littlest friend?" asked the Giant. "The one I lifted into the tree?"

"We don’t know," said the children. "He’s already gone."

"Tell him he simply must come back tomorrow."

But the children didn’t know where the little boy lived. They had never seen him before. And the Giant felt very sad.

From then on, every day after school, the children ran to play with the Giant. He was kind to them all, but he missed his first little friend terribly.

"Oh, how I wish I could see him again!" he would sigh.

The years went by. The Giant grew old, and his beard turned grey. He couldn’t run and play anymore, so he sat in a big armchair under the trees, watching the children and admiring his garden.

"I have lots of flowers," he would say, "but the loveliest flowers of all are the children."

One winter morning the Giant looked out of his window. He wasn’t afraid of winter anymore: he knew it was only spring having a sleep and the flowers having a rest. But suddenly he rubbed his eyes. In the farthest corner of the garden stood a tree covered all over in white blossom. Its branches were golden and its fruit was silver. And underneath the tree stood that very same little boy!

The Giant hurried down into the garden faster than he had in years.

"It’s you!" he cried. "I’ve waited so long for you!"

The little boy smiled.

"Once you let me play in your garden," he said. "Today you will come with me to my garden."

The Giant didn’t ask a single question. He just nodded. He sat down under the blossoming tree, and the grass beneath him was as warm as in summer. The children came running and gathered all around him. The little boy talked softly about something lovely, the birds sang sweetly overhead, and the Giant listened and smiled.

Then the children ran off to play. They threw snowballs and chased each other along the paths, and their laughter rang through the whole garden.

But when they came back to the tree, the little boy was gone. The Giant lay very, very still on the warm grass, covered all over in white blossom, and his face was peaceful and happy.

The children stood beside him for a long time without saying a word. They understood: the Giant had gone with the little boy to his garden.

And he had left his own garden to them. For the children, for ever and ever.