Prince Charming & The Old Woman in the Shoe

Back in the Castle, Archie had eventually removed the damaged helmet from his head. 
“That blow must have caused a lot of damage,” remarked the Queen’s Physician. “Are you feeling faint? It surely would have have killed a lot of brain cells.”
“No, I am fine,” announced Archie as he began removing his armour. “I must get back to work.”
“Yes,” said the Evil Queen. “I need you on the job.”
“I see,” he nodded. “I shall return to the battlefield once we have the necessary reinforcements.”
“It’s not the battlefield I want you on tonight.”
“What?”
“No,” she winked at him as the Physician rolled his eyes before leaving the room. “Although, maybe it is a battlefield I want you on tonight…”
“Make up your mind!”
“My battlefield,” she raised an eyebrow although the effect was limited due to her excessive Botox injections. “Is fertile ground. Dangerous but ultimately fulfilling. I want you to charge into it with your big musket.”
“What Kingdom is this battlefield in?” he inquired.
“A place just South of here,” she pressed herself up against him. 
“I see, well I had better go and assess it. Can your servants prepare my horse?”
“Your horse is eating in his stable. His nose deep in a bag.”
“Right…”
“I want to be your nosebag.”

The Prince and the others had barely been travelling for half an hour when they came to a stop. On the horizon stood what could only be described as a huge shoe, about the size of a large house. It was of brown leather, battered and worn. The black laces were undone and hung in the air at the sides of the shoe. Yet on one side towards the heel, was a door. A little window was to the left of it. At the top was a makeshift roof of thatched straw.
“What on earth?” exclaimed Snow White.
“I think I have heard about this,” said Percy.
“Travellers?” 
“No, the woman who lives in a shoe,” explained Percy. “I’ve been told she actually does reside in it along with an army of her children.”
“Why does she have so many children?” asked the Dirty Shepherdess.
“More to the point, why’s she living in a shoe?” cried the Prince.
“I’m not sure about that,” replied Percy. “Maybe it’s an avant-garde thing?”
“Well let’s knock her up,” said the Prince, approaching the door.
“I think she’s had quite enough of that,” said Percy.
The Prince knocked on the red wooden door. From inside he could hear several voices, all those of children. The door flew open to reveal an old woman in a dress and bonnet. She gave the Prince a weary look.
“Yes?” she sighed.
“My dear woman…”
“I’ve told them before, the council! These kids are happy living in a shoe! Yes, it’s unconventional I admit, but they are safe and warm! Can’t people see? It’s the best I can do!”
“I’m not from the council,” replied the Prince. 
“Then the census people!” she went on. “I know your game, doubting what I put on the form and hoping there are more kids in here so you can raise my taxes!”
“That neither.”
“So who are you?”
“Charming, Prince Charming.”
“Oh, are you! How delightful” she started touching up the grey hair poking out from under her bonnet. “Want to come in for a cup of tea? I’ve always wanted to meet you!”
“I don’t think we’ll come in,” the Prince said as two small children, a boy and a girl, darted out from inside the home and went to look at Percy. “It seems like you have your hands full. You have an awful lot of children in there! Are they all yours may I ask?”
“Yes,” she yawned. 
“Why did you have so many?” the Prince said before becoming rather judgemental. “In an era of a Pandemic and civil unrest, was having so many of them the wisest thing to do?”
“I’ve tried my best not to have so many!” insisted the woman. “But I just kept on falling pregnant!”
“Oh dear,” said Percy. “I think we might be getting into controversial territory here.”
“You should have used protection,” the Prince told the woman. 
“Protection! I have used it many times!” she left the threshold of the doorway for a moment before returning. “Look! Here it is!”
The woman of the shoe held aloft a woollen sock which she pointed at indignantly. 
“Is this your form of…” the Prince blushed. “Contraception?”
“Yes! The traditional good old fashioned way!”
There was some amusement from the three damsels after seeing the sock, punctuated by giggling. 
“You wear your lucky sock during…” the Prince was struggling. “Intercourse?”
“No, the man does!”
The Prince turned to Snow White, the Dirty Shepherdess and Red Riding Hood with a perplexed expression.
“I don’t think they’ve been wearing it on one of their feet,” suggested Snow White. “It’s been worn on another part of the body…”
“My word!” the Prince was flabbergasted.
“Classic moneysaving contraception device,” nodded the Dirty Shepherdess. “Used it many a time.”
“I would have thought smelling of dung would have been the perfect contraception device,” remarked Percy. 
“Well using a sock doesn’t seem to work?” the Prince gaped. “I can hear about a dozen kids in there!”
“It’s all about the quality of the sock,” the Dirty Shepherdess nodded with authority. “The problem with what she’s using is that it needs darning. There’s at least two holes I can see.”
“I can’t afford the darning wool,” cried the owner of the slightly stiff looking sock. “Not with all these kids!”
“How come you are living in a shoe?” the Prince asked her.
“Oh, not this again!” she cried. “People are always coming here asking that. Saying it’s no place to bring up children! Poking their noses in and complaining about the smell!”
“I was merely interested in how you acquired such a unique residence?”
“This ‘ere shoe used to belong to a giant,” she told them. 
“But how did that work?” frowned the Prince. “This place would have been too small for a giant to live in!”
The others all looked at him with a grimace.
“Sire,” Percy came to his rescue. “I think the shoe was worn by the giant?”
“Oh yeah…silly me.”
“Yes, you see about six years ago,” explained the old woman. “The Giant came down from his Castle in the clouds and spitefully destroyed our old house. My husband the Woodcutter was dragged away by him and taken to the Castle. However, some of my older children attacked the Giant with bows and arrows so that he stumbled during his retreat causing his shoe to come off. Seeing as we were now homeless, we took the shoe as our new house. But the children are without their father.”
“Six years ago?” Red Riding Hood and Snow White exchanged funny looks as they regarded the two toddlers lurking in the doorway of the shoe just behind their mother. “Is there any chance of him returning?”
“No,” the old woman replied sadly. “I expect the Giant probably ate him. We’ve not heard a thing of him since.”
“How many children do you have?” asked the Prince.
“About twenty I think,” she frowned. “I lose count. You’re definitely not from the council or the census people?”
“No,” the Prince said before adding. “Although I think we might be able to help you? In finding your husband or, at least, learning what his fate was.”
“You think?” the old woman’s mood changed. “My dear blessed husband? Oh, if only you could find him. I miss him. I miss the income he brought in.”
“Leave it with us!” the Prince bowed. 

“Sire,” Percy said as they trooped away from the shoe in the direction of where the old woman had told them they might find the Giant’s castle. “I am getting rather concerned about the amount of castles with giants there are in the clouds! Remember there was that other one with the beanstalk? This could be an epidemic for all we know! If they all started coming down here, they could create far greater chaos than the Evil Queen for example!”
“More to the point,” said Red Riding Hood. “How are we going to get up there to find the Castle?”
“I think we need to draw him out,” answered Percy. “But how?”
“The old woman told us his Castle is in the clouds directly above the centre of the forest so we should head there,” said the Prince. “Before starting a big fire so that the heat and smoke rise to irritate him so that he comes down.”
“We’ll be smoking the bugger out?”
“Yes Percy.”
They reached the centre of the forest where the Prince produced a box of matches and set fire to a tree.
Ten minutes later there was a forest fire raging.
“Sire,” Percy was dubious. “I don’t think this is very good for the climate. Burning down an entire forest?”
“We won’t burn down the whole forest Percy.”
“Won’t we? There are about a dozen trees on fire now. It’s got out of control.”
“We should really plant some more in their place,” said Red Riding Hood.
“If we get out of here without ourselves being burned to a crisp,” said Percy as a tree collapsed nearby and a cloud of smoke and orange sparks went their way.

Nonetheless, the heat and smoke was indeed rising into the clouds above so that they could hear a cacophony of coughing. Suddenly there was an almighty thud as the Giant had leapt into the forest. He was about twenty times bigger than the Prince with long straggly hair and a scruffy beard. Unsurprisingly, he wore just one shoe.
“What the hell are you playing at?” he glared at them. 
“So here you are!” the Prince managed to hide his nerves. “We want to talk to you!”
“What about?” he asked moodily.
“You abducted a man several years ago!” the Prince pointed at him. “A husband and a father! Do you know who I mean?”
“Oh the Woodcutter?” he nodded in recognition. “Yes!”
“And what did you do with him you scoundrel?”
“Nothing, he’s in my Castle.”
“Under duress, taken prisoner!” the Prince gave him a frosty look. 
“No, no,” shrugged the Giant who seemed a little offended at the suggestion. “He’s fine. You can see him if you want!”
“Yes, I will!”
“Right, fine,” the Giant nodded indignantly before looking upwards and shouting.  “Throw down the ladder!”
From the clouds came a huge rope ladder, the end of which dropped by the Giant who pulled on it to check it was secure. He held out a hand which the Prince, a bit reluctantly, jumped onto before being scooped upwards as the Giant quickly ascended the ladder.
“This could go horribly wrong,” said Percy as he and the others watched the Giant disappear into the clouds.
Above them, the Giant had reached his Castle. He passed through the open gate where several of his servants, all similar in size to the Prince, were stood by the top of the rope ladder. 
The Giant nodded at them prior to entering the Castle to walk up a set of stone steps into a hall. 
“Woodcutter!” the Giant hollered as he approached a large wooden dining table.
“Yes?” came a man’s voice. 
“A friend for you!” the Giant carefully lowered the hand containing the Prince towards a fruit bowl at the centre of the table. “He wants to talk.”
“Thank you!” the Prince hopped off his hand to see another man, the same size as himself, holding a grape in both hands and chewing on it.
“I will leave you to it!” the Giant stomped away from the table. “I have to put that infernal fire out!”
The Prince regarded the fruit bowl that towered above him before turning to the middle aged plump man who was eating the grape.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Prince Charming.”
“Oh right, what are you doing here?”
“I am here to rescue you!” 
“Rescue me?” he was puzzled. “I don’t need rescuing?”
“Yes you do!” the Prince sighed. “Oh dear, have you been brainwashed? Stockholm syndrome?”
“No, why do you think I need to be rescued?”
“Your wife told us you were kidnapped many years ago?”
“Kidnapped?” he smirked. “I guess that was what she was supposed to think!”
“What do you mean?”
“I had to get away! You’ve probably seen all those kids! Ten kids! How was I meant to feed them all? I’m a humble woodcutter and, I can tell you, money doesn’t grow on trees. Anyway, between you and I, I am not convinced they were all mine either!”
“There have been some additions,” said the Prince.
“See! The woman can’t help herself! It was costing me a fortune. Therefore, I got together with the Giant who kindly agreed to help me get out of there. He attacked our old house and took me away. Unfortunately, my kids or whoever they belong to, attacked him during the escape and he lost his shoe.”
“Which your wife and family are now housed in.”
“Are they?” he winced. “I like the Giant but he’s not one for foot hygiene! He’s got athlete’s foot, corns, warts and they are very pungent you know!”
“But why did you remain here?” the Prince was baffled. “It must be quite precarious here given his size. One accident and you could be flattened!”
“I did think about fleeing to a distant Kingdom,” the Woodcutter admitted. “But then look at that!”
He indicated a jug of wine to the side of the fruit bowl which, like that item, towered over them. Next to it was a silver tumbler. 
“So?” the Prince didn’t understand.
“Where else could I drink infinite supplies of wine? Litres of the stuff every day! Obviously the Giant doesn’t skimp on measures!”
The Woodcutter launched himself at the side of the silver tumbler to reach his hands up to grip the rim and pull himself upwards. Scrambling over the rim, he dropped into the tumbler with a splashing sound. A few large drips of red wine landed on the Prince. 
There was some sloshing about in the tumbler before the Woodcutter cheered and chuckled to himself. After a few moments, he appeared at the top of the receptacle to climb out and lower himself to the surface of the dining table. He was drenched, his skin and clothes stained with the claret coloured liquid. Licking his hands, he swayed back and forth in front of the Prince. 
“But you are feared dead?” the Prince resumed the subject under discussion earnestly. 
“Yes, that’s the beauty of it!” he clapped his hands together in delight. “Because they don’t know I am alive and I have no fixed abode, they can’t send anyone after me for child maintenance payments!”
Unsteady on his feet, the Woodcutter collapsed in a heap.
“Therefore, in summary,” the Prince folded his arms in disapproval. “You legged it from your family because you couldn’t be bothered to face up to your responsibilities, leaving them homeless in the process initially, to then spend your time idly up here getting sozzled.”
“That’s it!” he exclaimed cheerfully. “Great isn’t it?”
“Don’t you feel guilty?”
“No!” he hiccupped. 

Back in the burning forest, Percy, the Dirty Shepherdess, Snow White and Red Riding Hood were relieved when several gallons of water landed on the fire from the Castle above. Although they were soaked while running for cover, the fire had been extinguished. 
“That would suggest the Giant is a reasonable creature,” said Red Riding Hood. “If he was that beastly, surely he would have returned to take us up there to do whatever it is presumed he did with the Woodcutter.”
Moments later the rope ladder started shaking as the Giant was descending it from the Castle. He reached the forest floor where the charred remains of the trees were. They all shuddered.
However, the Giant eyed them benignly prior to leaning down and placing his hand on the ground so that the Prince could step away from it and towards the others.
“I bid you farewell!” he arose, his voice booming across the nearby vicinity. “I should probably go and retrieve my missing shoe but I will leave it to the old woman and her family. She needs all the help she can get, seeing as the Woodcutter is a lazy little freeloader.”
With that, he began climbing the ladder back to his Castle in the clouds. Just after he vanished from view, the rope ladder began rising into the air after him.
“What happened?” asked Snow White.
“It has come to light that the Woodcutter is not quite the victim of a cruel abduction,” explained the Prince. 
“No?” 
“No, he’s still alive and, as he merrily told me, his capture was all a ruse to get him away from his wife and children. 
“But what the heck do we tell the old woman in the shoe?” asked Red Riding Hood. 
“I reckon we just deny all knowledge of it and tell her he was brutally murdered by the Giant,” nodded the Prince. “That might make her feel better than knowing that her husband is a cowardly drunken layabout.”