Good evening, children.

It's Granny Maduff, ready with a story.

So make yourselves comfy, and I'll begin.

Once upon a time, there lived a king and queen who ruled a magnificent land.

They had everything they could dream of, but no children.

The queen wanted desperately to be a mother.

Day and night she would say,

I am a field on which nothing grows.

The sorceress who lived in the palace and only practiced

magic that was good insisted that she could help the queen. But the queen would hear none of it.

No magic, the queen would say.

The sorceress Inalda pressed the queen perhaps a bit too hard one day.

One potion, your majesty, that is all it will take.

The queen could not hear any more of it.

And so she had Inalda removed from the palace.

Ootr, go into the woods, the guard told her. Inalda could not believe it. She and the queen were great friends. Or so she thought. The sorceress grew angry and bitter.

She set out into the woods, vowing never to return.

Finally, a child did come.

A boy.

The king proclaimed, the prince has been born, my son and heir, and when I am gone, he shall sit upon my

throne and rule. But what the king and queen did not know was a spell had been put on their son.

Inalda no longer practiced good magic,

...