All the villagers said that Jack was a bad boy, so when rumors spread of giants living in the land, they blamed Jack. Jack leaves town with a cow as his transport. Along his travels he encounters and tricks seven giants until by tricking the Green Queen, her spells die with her and the cow returns to her original form: as Jack's long-lost mother and former princess, now the Queen. The giants represent the seven deadly sins: sloth, gluttony, anger, lust, greed, pride and envy (with lust depicted as a tickle-loving giant).

Nice enough story with some funny bits about a boy who is considered bad by adults, but leaves the village where he has been abandoned as a baby because he thinks his presence puts them in danger of giants. The moral I suppose is that boys who misbehave in the eyes of authority figures aren't really bad and may be better than the "good" people around him. The main authority figure in this case is the community's preacher and he is overly strict, intolerant, stupid, and, well, mean: he blames Jack for the giants because he has no answer to the problem. When Jack is left on someone's doorstep in the village, he is passed around from house to house because no one wants him. In spite of this, he is concerned about the welfare of the everyone else.

The giants are supposed to represent the seven deadly sins; sloth, avarice, gluttony, anger are obvious, but I don't know what the others are offhand and the story doesn't give me enough clues to figure them out. There is the required-in-fairy-tales old man with whom Jack shares his meager supply of food and gets a magic bean in return. SPOILER: Jack lives happily ever after, as required in fairy tales, with a beautiful woman, but it's his mother, who tucks him in bed every night after a wonderful day of adventures. Finally, someone loves him and does so unconditionally. One of the giants eats himself; like the mythological Ouroboros, Igli in Heinlein's Glory Road, and Linus Pauling's benzene-dream snake. ( )