THE COTTAGE CASTLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 67, 19 March 1932, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE COTTAGE CASTLE.

NORMAN HUNTER.)

In Woggiuslavia, the front of .the King's castle, is at the back. A most unusual arrangement. This is how it happened. A wicked and crafty wizard very much wanted to marry the King's daughter. "What!" cried the King, when he asked for the Princess' hand. "Marry a wizard with n pointed bat mid long whiskers! Never! Princess Loveliblossom will marry nobody who is not voung and handsome, and at least an earl." "Ha!" cried the wizard, getting very annoyed at this, "lou scorn me. \ou become rude to me. You tell me oil'. Very well. I will be revenged. So. Juzzipotroosle." He waved his hands and instantly the castle turned into a loaf of bread. "Ha! ha! Your castle is now a cottage," snarled the wizard, and he vanished in a putt' of green smoke. "Good gracious me!" cried the King, when he had recovered from liis surprise. "Whatever are we going to do now ?" "Do?" said the Queen sharply. "Why, get the court magician in to change the castle back again and go and live in apartments till he's done it. What else should we do, I should like to know?*' So the court magician was sent for and told to change the cottage loaf back to a castle, and off went the King and Queen to lind apartments. "Well," said the magician, scratching his head, "this is a bit of a job. Making eggs disappear is easy. Finding rabbits in hats is child's play. Taking bowls of water from handkerchiefs is simple. I can do all these tilings, and a lot more, too. But turning a loaf back into a castle is different. That means real magic, and all I know is conjuring.'' Still, lie set to work, and after trying a few spells that didn't do anything, he carried the loaf round to the baker's to see if it looked any different fvoin ordinary loaves. He put it down od the counter beside another loaf and found they both looked the same. "I must make a note of that," he said. But, while he was writing down "Loaf looks the same as other loaves'" in his notebook, who should come into the shop but the King's cook. "Nice cottage loaf, please," she said, put down her money, picked up the loaf that was really the enchanted castle, put it in her basket and off she went. The magician didn't notice that sheVl taken the wrong loaf, and off he went with the ordinary one. He looked up all his magic books. He learned up all the spells he could find. And he tried one after another to make the loaf turn into a castle, but, of-course, it wouldn't. Then, sudden, he hit on the right spell, hut didn't know it, because the ordinary loaf just went on being an ordinary*loaf. But at t :e King's apartments, Their Majesties were just sitting down to tea and the cook had just cut a slice off the enchanted loaf, when the magician got the spell right. "Whoosh!" went the loaf and became the castle again, and the King and Quean found themselves sitting in the garden having tea. "There, now," said the Queen, taking it all as a {natter of course, and not knowing anything about the mixed-up loaves, "here we are again." "'\es," said the King, "but the castle is the wrong way round, though that doesn't matter, because we shall get the sun in the dining room now. What's that bit missing ofl' the east wing?" That missing bit, of course, was the slice the cook had cut off, and it had to he built on again. Then the King said the Princess had better marry the court magician to save any further trouble from fierce people who might want to marry her.

(( H° s young and handsome," lie said, he isn't an earl," said tile Queen. Then I'll make him one," said the rung.