What was the title of J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1949 comic fantasy story about a farmer and a giant?

Farmer Giles of Ham is J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1949 comic fantasy story about a farmer and a giant. The title character, Farmer Giles, lives in the fictional Middle Kingdom and becomes an unlikely defender of his community.

The story begins when a giant wanders into the region and is driven away by Farmer Giles, whose blunderbuss gives him an undeserved reputation for courage. That reputation leads to further adventures involving a dragon named Chrysophylax Dives and a sword called Caudimordax.

Tolkien wrote the work as a humorous fairy tale rather than as part of the main legendarium of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Its mock-medieval setting, wordplay, and satire of heroic reputations show another side of his writing.

The story was published in book form by George Allen & Unwin in 1949, with illustrations by Pauline Diana Baynes. It is often confused with Tolkien’s shorter allegorical tale “Leaf by Niggle,” but the farmer-and-giant description identifies this work specifically.