There was once a king who had a beautiful daughter. She was so beautiful that every man wanted to marry her.
In those days it was fathers who decided who their daughters would marry. The daughters themselves had no say in the matter. So it was up to the king to take his pick of the men who came to court her.
The problem was the king couldn't make up his mind. All sorts of rich men - princes, merchants, sultans - kept coming to promise him more land, or jewels, or whatever, if he would let them marry his daughter. But the king already had quite enough of these things, and didn't want any more. He began to get bored with listening to all these men droning on about how much they were worth and how much they loved his daughter.
So the king decided to have a competition. He put up lots of posters everywhere promising to give his daughter to any man who could get the king to call him a liar.
Over the next few weeks hundreds of men from all over the kingdom queued up to see the king. They all tried to make the king call them a liar, but none of them succeeded. No matter what whoppers people told, the king always said he believed them!
After a time every single man in the kingdom had tried his luck. Except, that is, for Jack.
Jack was the poorest lad in all the kingdom. He was also the scruffiest. He looked like a scarecrow. He had no shoes on his feet, which were as black as soot.
Jack thought he might just as well have a go at the competition. So he turned up at the king's castle and went in to see the king. All the king's servants held their noses or snorted behind their hands as Jack stood before the throne.
"What are you doing here?" asked the king.
"I bet I can make you call me a liar," said Jack.
"I bet you can't," said the king. "And what makes you think I'd let a scruff like you marry my daughter?"
"It doesn't matter to me," said Jack. But you'd have to if I won the competition."
"All right, then," said the king, yawning. "You'd better start"
"Well," said Jack, "I was having this bath ....
The King gave Jack a funny look. He doubted whether Jack would know a bath if he saw one.
'do you mean to call me a liar?" asked Jack.
"Oh no," says the king. "I'll not call you a liar".
"Anyway" l says Jack, "I was sitting in this bath for six weeks".
"Hope you didn't fall asleep," said the king. "You should never fall asleep in the bath".
"I didn't sleep for six whole weeks," said Jack.
"Really?" said the king.
"D'you mean to call me a liar?" said Jack.
"Oh no," said the king," I'll not call you a liar"
"Anyway," said Jack, "I was in this bath, and it was getting cold, so I decided to pull the plug out. And d'you know, the water went out in such a rush I went down the plug-hole with it."
"Wow," said the king.
"Do you mean to call me a liar?" asked Jack.
"Oh no," said the king, "I'll not call you a liar."
"Anyway," said Jack, "I was going down the drain and into the sewer. You'd never guess what was in the sewer".
"I think l could," said the king.
"Watches," said Jack. "Rings, brooches, tins of peppermints."
"Get away". said the king.
"Are you calling me a liar?" said Jack
"Oh no," said the king. "I wouldn't want to call you a liar".
"So I was in this sewer," said Jack, "and eventually I came out under the sea. And there was a huge whale, and it gobbled me right up. So I was sitting in this whale's stomach," said Jack, "and what do you think I found?"
"I can't imagine," said the king.
"There was this family of elephants," said Jack, "sitting down playing with yo-yos. And the youngest had ears the size of Africa. And they stuck out as far as China. And d'you know?" said Jack, "the next one had even bigger ears, sticking out even further. And the next one's were even bigger. You can imagine how big the daddy elephant's ears were! I've only ever seen bigger and more sticking-out ears on one person."
"Who's that?" said the king.
"You," said Jack.
"YOU"RE A LIAR!!" said the king.
So Jack got the king's daughter, and they married.