How The Last Ogre Met His End

(a tale of the Mad Queen)

Now as you may know, the two worst things about ogres were that they were always hungry, and that they could only be defeated by other ogres. All the other problems stemmed from these two, for an ogre would kill and eat anything that moved if it was hungry. And it was always hungry.

The only good thing about the situation was that an ogre's best sport was wrestling, baking and eating other ogres - since only other ogres had a fair chance of defending themselves. As you can imagine, as time went by, there were less and less ogres, but each surviving ogre was fiercer and fiercer, until finally there was only one ogre left, the biggest and hungriest of them all. But since an ogre can only be defeated by an ogre, he was not only big and hungry, he was invincible!

Well, it could be said that this was a good thing for most people because one ogre can only run so far and eat so much, but it was a very bad thing for the people of the Mad Queen's village because they lived quite close to the last ogre's lair. And people don't like to become lunch.

Now the Mad Queen had noticed that ogres will eat anything that moves, so the first thing she did was to tell all the villagers to keep completely still so that the ogre would pass by and not eat them. But that didn't work too well, because ogres are as patient as they are stupid. And the last ogre was very stupid. So sometimes when the ogre was hungry it would just sit around and wait and see if anything was going to move, and the first thing that did move, got eaten. And while knowing that there's an ogre on the dancing ground that's waiting to eat the first person who moves is a powerful incentive to keep still, after three or four weeks even the Mad Queen's people were unable to control themselves and the ogre made some of them his lunch.

So the Mad Queen took up pottery.

Now as you may know, when the Mad Queen makes something with her own two hands, the results are often special. And in this case she made herself an eating bowl. It was sort of lumpy and the decorations went up and down where they are supposed to go round and round, but an eating bowl it was: a Mad Queen bowl.

Next the Mad Queen went to her kitchen and started to cook.

For a week she cooked, then another week, and yet a third. And when she was done the people saw that she had made a noodle, a Mad Queen noodle.

Then she put the Mad Queen noodle into the Mad Queen bowl and walked off toward the ogre's lair. When she got there, the ogre was out hunting, so she sat down on her cloak and hummed Mad Queen songs while she waited for the ogre to come home.

Eventually the ogre arrived. And when he did arrive he stopped and stared in astonishment, for there was the Mad Queen, cool as you please, sitting in front of the door of his lair and eating a Mad Queen noodle from a Mad Queen bowl.

Well, the ogre was too stupid to be surprised for long, and he said, This is my lucky day: walking all the way back from my lunch has made me hungry, and here a snack has brought itself to me! Prepare to be food, Mad Queen!

But the Mad Queen said, Can't you see that I am having an afternoon snack myself? And she went on eating.

And the ogre replied, Ah, yes; and if I wait for you to finish, there will be more of you to eat. But hurry up; all this talking is giving me an appetite!

But the Mad Queen smiled and said, Stupid ogre, you aren't watching very closely! This is a Mad Queen bowl and a Mad Queen noodle and I have put magic in them. See? As much as I eat there is always more in the bowl. When I started, there was only one noodle here, but already there are twenty!

And the ogre said, I am stupid, yes! I am stupider and fiercer and invincibler than all the other ogres who are now lunch and eaten. But I, the last ogre, am not lunch!

No, you are not lunch, replied the Mad Queen. Not yet.

Not yet? roared the ogre, What can you mean? I am the last ogre and only ogres can harm ogres. Therefore you cannot harm me!

Not unless I can trick you, replied the Mad Queen, and quick as thought changed herself into another ogre even bigger and fiercer and invincibler than he was. So I'll tell you what, she continued, let's wrestle for the noodle bowl. These noodles are really best with chopped ogre on top, anyway.

So straight away they started to wrestle. But the ogre had seen the Mad Queen change form, and he knew that she was not truly an ogre at all. So he was able to fight with her and win, and as soon as he had her pinned so she couldn't move there was a pop and she looked like herself again.

Well, she said, I guess you are not so stupid after all. But that means you don't get any chopped ogre for your noodles, which you would have done if you had let me stay an ogre. What a pity!

The ogre thought about this and slowly smiled. But I won the fight, he said, so I could have chopped human on the noodles, if I wanted. It's only fair.

That's true, said the Mad Queen, but myself I never did like chopped human on noodles. I think it's better to eat the human afterwards, for dessert. Humans are so sweet!

Don't try to trick me, warned the ogre, but the Mad Queen said, no trick! Think about it. If you try the noodles without chopped human on top and you like it, you can still have me for dessert. And you can still change your mind if the noodles are too bitter. But if you chop me up and put me on top first, and you don't like it, you're going to have an awful time trying to scrape all the gooky human off the noodles again.

Well this almost persuaded the ogre, and he agreed. But only on the condition that the Mad Queen sit down inside his lair and wait for dessert time. He knew she was tricky and he thought she would try to get away before the end of the meal. And to tell you truly, she had thought so too.

But the ogre sat down in the doorway where he could see her. Then he picked up the Mad Queen's noodle bowl and he started to eat. And in fact, the noodles were very good. They were very good indeed. Better yet, what the Mad Queen had said was true: the more he ate out of the bowl, the more there was left still to eat. First there were twenty noodles left, then fifty, then a hundred. And they kept on tasting better and better!

So the ogre ate and ate, and ate and ate and ate. But there was always more food and it kept tasting better, and it was true: putting chopped ogre on top might have been good, but chopped human would be too sweet. Better to save the human for when the noodles were finished!

By the time the ogre started to get full there were noodles heaped a foot deep all around him. And they tasted so good that he just kept eating.

By the time the noodles were three feet deep, the ogre was beginning to feel that he might have had enough, but the noodles were now so tasty that even chopped ogre would have spoiled them.

By the time the noodles were five feet deep the Mad Queen was starting to worry that the ogre could keep eating forever and the world would fill completely up with noodles.

But before the noodles were six feet deep there was a bang so loud it was heard in the Mad Queen's village.

And that was how the last ogre met his end.

But the Mad Queen had an awful time scraping the gooky ogre out of her hair.