The Sword In The Stone

This is a tale of heroes. Not modern day heroes. You know? Ones that wear pink or yellow shirts and tight pants. Or are liable to go "Coooeee!” at any moment as they arrive at your front door with a TV camera crew and a bottle of the most powerful bog cleaner in the world, right at the exact moment you were going to throw a wobbly because the toilet is blocked.
‘Oh, my heroes!’ you squeal.
No. Not those type.
Neither are they the types to scale mountains, cross the seven seas (in this case it would probably be because they couldn’t count past five)
merely to leave a double-decker box of dark chocolates on your bedside table.
If they were this type of hero it would be a safe bet they would have already opened the box and scoffed the second layer.
Once more, no.
And these heroes are not the types to wear their underpants over their trousers, either.
Although, to be truthful one of them wore his underpants on his head for a while. These days, he is much more circumspect when around strong liquor. Or at least liquor he cannot pronounce the name of.
These heroes go way back. Back along the mists of time. Before bog-cleaners, pink shirts, and boxes of chocolates. Back before the Days of Yore, Our day, My day and Them Were The Days. In fact, back before Days of Our Lives. Yes, this tale is that old.
So, dear reader, envisage the scene I am about to unfold.
In a clearing in a forest a short distance from what appears to be a rocky outcrop, lies a huge boulder. Pale morning sunlight has just begun to penetrate the canopy. Birds are a-twitter; small noses are poking out of burrows or from behind thickets. Flowers are flowering, buds are budding and leaves are… staying where they are.
Somewhere in the distance can be heard the faint sounds of singing. You catch a snatch of tune. To your untrained ear it sounds like, ‘Hi Ho, something or other.’ Was that a scream? Did you hear a cry of “Aaaargh”? Could it be that a Hi Ho-er missed their footing and fell down a mineshaft? Alas, we will never know.
There is a crunch of leaves as one of our heroes’ steps from behind the boulder.
This is Reg the Dra. Reg is a fearsome sight, guaranteed to strike fear into the hearts of four-year-olds everywhere. In poor light.
Now, you may be wondering about Reg’s title? The Dra.
You weren’t? Oh. In that case we’ll move right along then, shall we?
Reg is wearing a fake mammoth-skin loincloth. It’s actually the fur of a dead squirrel he found one morning while wandering around the forest with his underpants on his head.
However, telling everyone that his loincloth once adorned a mammoth adds much more macho to our hero’s street cred.
His once long hair is a spiky shadow of its former self, having succumbed to the perils of kneeling down too close to a fire whilst trying to cook a rabbit.
He also has a livid scar on his left cheek; a momento from an angry badger, and the necklace of several teeth around his neck are his own, courtesy of a misunderstanding with a brown bear.
Ah, yes. They made ‘em tough in those days.
Reg was contemplating the sword that had been driven, almost to the hilt, into the boulder.
‘Whaddya reckon?’ he asked his companion.
‘Couldn’t rightly say,’ replied a female voice.
And, lo! From around the other side of the boulder steps our second hero. Or maybe that should be heroine.
Dressed in a two piece outfit of similar design to her companion’s, the young woman is tall and blonde. Obviously strong, and by no means pneumatically challenged. The epitome of female hero, she is lissom and winsome.
(If she were to win anything, a few more clothes would be a start)
Her name is De-Bra. A rather befitting name but at the same time not. If you catch the drift?
‘Doncha get to become King if yer pull it out?’ Reg said.
De-Bra flashed him a look of concern.
‘The sword, of course!’ Reg replied.
‘I know you meant the sword, Reg. I’m worried about your back.’
‘Oh, yeah. Forgot about me back.’
‘Besides, isn’t there supposed to be a dragon and a virgin involved, as well?’
‘Right. None of those round ‘ere, that’s for sure.’
‘Oh, thank you very much, I’m sure! De-Bra retorted.
‘Sorry. No offence,’ Reg grumbled.
‘Anyway, I am almost a virgin,’ De-Bra said in a haughty tone, tossing her wheaten tresses over her right shoulder.
‘Almost. What you talkin’ about, girl?’
‘I did a course on oral sex.’
‘Oh, and that makes you an almost virgin, does it?’
‘I reckon, yes. I can talk about sex all day,’ De-Bra said. It sounded like a challenge.
‘Sooooo…. You haven’t ackchewlly, well you know, done the business?’
‘Hmmmpf! That’s none of your business!’
‘Ah’ Reg nodded. ‘So we might be in business after all?’
‘What do you mean?’ De-Bra asked suspiciously.
‘We’ve got two outta three. It’s a start.’
‘Oh, really? Reg the Dra. Ha! Does anybody know what that means, by the way?’
‘Weren’t my fault.’
‘Is that right? Well I heard when they found you all you could say was Dra…dra…dra… And there was a suspicious looking puddle around your feet.’
‘Spilled my water, thas all,’ Reg countered.
‘Yes, I heard so,’ De-Bra, replied with a wicked grin. ‘Should have been Reg the Dragon-Slayer, but the dragon had buggered off without you offering one sword swipe. And now you think you can pull this sword out of this rock, convert a virgin, kill a dragon and Robert’s your father’s brother: claim the throne and become king. Ha! You’ve got no chance with the sword, even less with the virgin and there are no dragons anymore.’
Behind the pair, the rocky outcrop opened an eye.
‘Excuse me. But I would beg to differ,’ said a voice.
As the two heroes ran screaming into the forest the dragon sighed.
It reached for the sword, which glowed magically for a brief moment then, slid out of the stone as if in butter.
He began to use it as a tooth pick. After a while, teeth sparkling, he replaced the sword in the stone.
“It always amuses me,’ he said to himself, ‘Why no one ever asks how the sword got in the rock in the first place.’
The dragon settled once more, and soon dozed off.
And he at least lived happily ever after.

Arkenaten.

Copyright 2010