It's a fairy tale conceit, isn't it? The complacent
people start listening to the wicked blandishments of tricksters and goblins,
who tell them that their wise protectors have been playing them for fools. They
can get a better deal, a better relationship with the gods, elsewhere, somehow.
The kingdom decides to invite in the terrible ogre and they cower and act
craven around him. He comes to the castle and eats with the princesses and
princes and king and queen and seems quite civilised, for a day or two.
Oh, the kings and queens are so old and snowy-haired.
They look tiny and shrivelled beside the ogre and his unsmiling fairy queen
consort and all his doll-like children. The royals are weighed down by crushing
diamond crowns and weighty orbs and sceptres. They look so bony and stringy
it’s like the ogre could grab them up in his fist and crunch them between his
jaws. They shuffle about and show him all their jewels and pictures and
priceless things and he nods his craggy head and drools.
The witch who invited him to this land jerks her
shoulders gleefully. All she can think about is how she’s gonna dance right out
of here any day now and leave them all to it.
Some of the peasants shout and complain outside the
palace walls: You have let in an ogre and his whole family - can't you see?
They will eat us all. But those inside don't listen, and the ogre looks over
the battlements and frowns: 'There's no one out there. No naysayers. All I can
hear is grateful applause.'
Well, the old wizard is at the head of the crowd
outside and he’s happy shouting here beyond the palace walls. He’s a loud
shouter and he loves shouting, but only loud enough so that everyone who already
agrees with him can hear. Then the people in the palace say, 'Why don't you
come inside to our fancy dinner and talk to the Ogre yourself? You're posh and
you've got a golden invite on your mantlepiece. You're the magic wizard, and
you're best placed to give him a piece of your mind. You can tell him how you
think the world should be.' But the wizard shakes his grizzled head, 'No thank
you, I'll stay out here in the rain, shouting at my friends, about how I'll
make the world a better place sometime soon.' And the Ogre catches a whisper of
this and he says, 'Who..? Did someone say something?
Then the ogre gets up on the banquet table to speak
and everyone cringes at what he might say. And like ogres always do, he says: ‘You've
let me into the castle and you think we can have a special relationship. But
like ogres always do, I'm going to throw my weight around. I'm gonna tell you
who should be in charge here, in your funny little kingdom. I'll take my pick
of which foolish popinjay will lord it over you lot. And then, I will ask for
the thing that you prize most of all, and you will give it to me. Simple as
that. Didn't you know, didn't you remember, that's how these tales always go?'
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