Khatijah and the giant

Once upon a time,
there was an old farmer in Malaysia. He
had three daughters. One was beautiful but
the other two were ugly. Many rich men wanted to marry the beautiful
one. Her name was Khatijah. Her two ugly sisters were jealous of her. They
thought of a plan to get rid of her.

They asked her to go with them to collect
fruit in the forest near where they lived.
They knew that a fierce giant lived
there. They led her to his garden where he grew bananas, mangoes, and
rambutans.

"Collect as many as you like,"
they said. "They don't belong to anyone. We'll move on to another garden
about a mile away. We'll see you later."

But the giant saw the
girl picking his fruit and he ran out
of his hut and caught her.

"What a lovely girl you are,"
he said. "I'll fatten you up and make
you my wife." But he was really going to fatten her up for his
dinner.

At last the day came
when he was going to eat her. The
giant's cat, who liked Khatijah because she
always gave her milk to drink, came up to her and said:

"Be careful!
The giant isn't going to marry you. He's going to eat you. Give me some
milk and I'll tell you how you can escape."

After the cat had finished licking up the
milk, she spoke to Khatijah. "Now please listen carefully. There's no time
left. You must run into the jungle straight away. Take with you some hairpins,
a bucket of water, some string and a stone." The cat quickly told Khatijah
how to use them.

When the giant
found that Khatijah had run away, he went
into the jungle to look for her. When she saw him coming she threw the bucket
of water at him. At once the water became a huge lake. The giant did not know
what to do. However, in a short time he had swallowed tip all the water.

"I've got you now, Khatijah,"
he roared.

Khatijah threw down
the string. It changed into hundreds
of poisonous snakes. The giant drew his
knife and soon cut them to pieces. After that, he ran so fast that he
almost caught Khatijah.

"You can't escape this time,"
he shouted.

Khatijah quickly threw down the hairpins.
They changed into a great forest of sharp bamboos. The giant chopped them down
with his axe. It seemed as if nothing could stop him.

Finally, Khatijah dropped the stone she
was carrying. It be­came a tall mountain. The giant started to cut steps up the
mountain. He got half way up when his axe
became so blunt that it would
cut no more.

"Help me, Khatijah!" he cried.
"I'm not going to hurt you. I only want to marry you."

"All
right," Khatijah replied. "But you must leave your knife on the ground with the sharp edge
pointing upwards. "

The giant went down
the mountain and did as Khatijah
told him.

Then Khatijah let down a rope and the
giant climbed up al­most to the top of the mountain. He reached out to get hold
of her. She let go of the rope. The giant fell down to the ground far below. He
landed right on top of his knife and that was the end of him.

Khatijah was able
to climb down the mountain without any
horrible. When she returned home, she told
her parents what had happened. They
drove her two wicked sisters out of the House.

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