Once upon a time, there was a woman who longed to bear a child. At length she and her husband were delighted to learn she was pregnant. During her pregnancy, the woman gazed over the wall into the luscious fields beyond, and was consumed with longing for the leaves that grew there.
She begged her husband: “Fetch me some of those leaves, for I crave them.”
He agreed, but was caught taking the leaves by the Old Woman who owned those lands. “Forgive me,” he begged, “for my wife, who is heavy with our first child, has conceived a desperate longing for these leaves.”
The Old Woman said in a voice like dead leaves, “Well then, take them. But you must deliver up your first-born child to me in payment.”
The husband agreed, and hurried off to bring the leaves to his wife.
The child was born, and she was a beautiful baby girl with hair of gold. Honest Sheila was her name. But scarcely had she been suckled when the old woman swooped down and took her into her own keeping.
Honest Sheila was installed in a high Tower, in the middle of a deserted landscape. There she was surrounded with promises and small luxuries, and grew up to be a beautiful girl.
Whenever the old woman wished to visit the girl, she would email her in this wise: “Dear honest_sheila, As a valued customer, you must fully comply with the User Agreement that I signed on your behalf when you were first installed in the Tower. As per section C, paragraph 4, please let down your golden hair. Regards, Old Woman.”
Honest Sheila would obediently untie her long golden tresses and let them down the side of the Tower, so that the old woman could climb up. This hurt a great deal, but when Honest Sheila had complained, the old woman had said, “Please call Live Help for assistance if you have any queries.” Live Help had seemed to think she was calling for a perm, so Honest Sheila gave up and simply put up with the pain.
So Honest Sheila dwelt in the Tower, not realising how lonely she was, or how noise-jangling it was when construction turned the hitherto deserted landscape into an industrial jungle.
One day a handsome prince became lost riding his horse (named Shirley) among the tall buildings, and he came to a confused stop in front of the Tower. As he gazed up, he beheld the beautiful girl singing a sad song to herself.
“Excuse me,” he called up. “Could you help me? I am lost.”
Honest Sheila looked down. “ “I don’t know that I can help at all,” she said. “You’re supposed to contact Live Help, and I can’t say they’ve ever been able to assist me.”
“Is there no other way of asking for help?” persisted the prince, peering up at her. “I would ask some of these industrial merchants, but they all seem to speak fractured English with very bad spelling, offering me dim sums for very high prices.”
“Yes,” agreed Honest Sheila glumly. “They delight in shady calculations. Oh! I think you’d better hide. The Old Woman is coming – and she won’t be pleased if she sees me talking to you.”
Thus the prince hid behind a thorny bush, and watched as the Old Woman emailed the girl to let down her long hair. Once the Old Woman had finished her visit and climbed back down again, the prince came forth and – on his iPhone, using the app iPrincemail – he emailed the girl with his request.
Honest Sheila let down her luxurious golden tresses, and the prince grabbed hold and climbed upwards until he had reached the window of the Tower. There he hauled himself in and stood gazing at Honest Sheila in wonderment.
“How beautiful you are!” he exclaimed.
Well, to cut a long story short, after the prince gave Honest Sheila some amazing positive feedback, she plummeted in love with him too and promised to marry him so that together they could go off and forget about section C, paragraph 4 forever. This might even mean she could get rid of the permanent headache which the constant climbing efforts of the Old Woman had caused.
Alas – disaster struck. The Old Woman, paying a surprise visit, crept back and used a grappling hook to climb up and gain entry. Spotting the prince, she screeched, “Unsatisfactory dashboard! You’re on report, my girl – and as for you, you interloper, how dare you try to negotiate a marriage outside my Tower?” So saying, she grabbed hold of the prince and threw him out of the window. Down, down he fell, landing with a crash upon the rubbish-strewn ground below, narrowly missing his horse called Shirley.
“And as for you, missy”, she snorted, “you’ve lost your PowerTower rating, and I’m withholding all your food, drink and shampoo.”
“Not the shampoo!” cried out Honest Sheila, aghast at this cruelty. But the Old Woman would not relent, and cast her from the Tower, changing the passwords on the door and blocking her from all access.
Numb with sorrow, Honest Sheila wandered through the industrial wilderness for two years until she met a blind man all bearded and tangled with hair.
As soon as she saw him, Honest Sheila knew him to be the prince, and cried bitterly over his face. As her tears fell onto his eyes, the prince’s blindness was cured, and he placed a bid on a pair of scissors, an electric shaver, and a fine gold ring.
“Oh, glory to the snipe!” cried Honest Sheila when he won these items with free postage. She gave her prince a fine haircut and a shave, and they were married that same hour and lived happily ever after.
Ending Addendum: (Well, until Honest Sheila found her ring finger turning green – but by then it was too late for Significantly Not As Described. Ah… it’s all right. The Royal Treasury had lots of real bling.)
