One summer's morning, a little tailor sat by his window, sewing cheerfully. A peasant woman came down the street, calling, "Good jams, cheap!"
The tailor called her up, inspected her pots, and bought a small amount. Annoyed, the woman left. The tailor spread the jam on bread but decided to finish his work first.
As he sewed, the sweet smell attracted many flies. After trying to shoo them away, he lost patience and struck them with a cloth, killing seven at once. Proud of his deed, he embroidered a belt with the words: "Seven at one stroke!"
Believing his workshop too small for such valor, he set out into the world, taking only an old cheese and a caught bird.
On a mountain, he met a giant who mocked him. The tailor showed his belt, making the giant think he had killed seven men. The giant tested him: squeezing water from a stone, throwing a stone high, and carrying a tree. The tailor cleverly used his cheese (squeezing it), the bird (throwing it to freedom), and tricked the giant into carrying both the tree and himself.
When the giant bent a cherry tree for him to eat, the tailor was flung into the air. He claimed he jumped to avoid hunters, challenging the giant to do the same. The giant got stuck in the branches.
Impressed, the giant invited the tailor to his cave for the night. Other giants were there, feasting. The giant gave the tailor a huge bed. At midnight, thinking the tailor asleep, the giant smashed the bed with an iron bar. At dawn, the tailor appeared unharmed, terrifying the giants, who fled.
The tailor journeyed on and fell asleep in a royal courtyard. People saw his belt and assumed he was a great warrior. They told the king, who offered him a military position.
The king's soldiers, fearing the tailor, asked to be dismissed. The king, afraid to dismiss the tailor directly, tasked him with killing two destructive giants in a forest, promising his daughter and half the kingdom as reward.
The tailor went to the forest with one hundred horsemen but told them to wait. He found the giants sleeping under a tree. He climbed a tree above them and dropped stones on one, then the other. Each giant blamed the other, leading to a furious fight where they tore up trees and killed each other. The tailor then claimed victory.
The king, regretting his promise, set two more tasks: capturing a unicorn and a wild boar. The tailor outwitted both creatures—trapping the unicorn's horn in a tree and luring the boar into a chapel and locking it in.
Forced to keep his word, the king gave the tailor his daughter and half the kingdom. The wedding was grand but joyless.
Later, the queen heard her husband talk in his sleep about tailoring and realized his true origin. She told her father, who plotted to have the tailor bound and sent away. A friendly servant warned the tailor.
That night, the tailor pretended to sleep and then loudly proclaimed his past deeds, frightening the would-be captors away. Thus, the little tailor remained king for the rest of his life.