tHe KiNg AnD ThE dWaRvEs

Long time ago there once lived a miser and a cruel king. There also lived his subjects which included people and non subjects that included dwarves.

To understand this story better let me tell you that kings have power because they have wealth. If they lose wealth they don’t get to have power because the world runs on money and if there is no money the world does not run. All the king’s soldiers, his ministers and other subjects withdraw a salary from king. The king in turn rules by putting taxes on quite a lot of things that people use and then allows flow of money within his kingdom. Most of the times it is affordable to pay taxes but some times like in this story, the king levied such high taxes that people were not left with enough money to even buy food for their families and that they did not like.

Also, amongst people lived many dwarves who were always on the wanted list by the king and many of them had been captured by him.

The dwarves were really angry at the king. They including the people of his country were fed up of his rule so they were thinking a way out of it.

At those times the king was in search for a “wisdom minister” that gives him some good ideas to rule his kingdom and levy more taxes. So he sent his soldiers all across the kingdom who spread the word that the king needed a wise guy to be his “wisdom minister”.

Now, the dwarves heard that too and they got an idea from it. They choose the oldest of their kind to go and apply for that job. Since that dwarf was old he had so much beard on his face that he did not look like a dwarf instead he looked like a regular old man with short height who used a stick for walking.

Since very few people liked king, very few applied for this job and so all those who applied got interviewed by the king. All of them failed except this dwarf. The king had only one question in his mind. He wanted to know from the men and women that were being interviewed that what could be the favourite colour of a king like him. All of them tried but ended up in wrong answers except the wise old dwarf.

The wise old dwarf said that since the king is mighty and rules the day so their should be no other, other than light blue colour- the colour of endless visible sky which should be his favourite. Although the king had some other colour in his mind but hearing that light blue coloured sky was endless and that that should be his favourite colour he liked it and made the dwarf who looked like a short old man as his “wisdom advisor.”

Now king was happy that he had a new advisor with him who was wise and that he would make him more powerful and richer. He used to keep on asking silly questions from him everyday like when will i grow more rich? Or when will i rule the world? The wise old dwarf used to satisfy him with calming answers.

Meanwhile the dwarves knew that if the king loses all his riches he will be nothing more than a pauper who would not receive any thing even if he begs. But since the king was miser he had put all his gold in a huge treasury which was so secure that it could not be robbed. So they made a plan. They told their oldest dwarf who was serving as an advisor in the king’s court to somehow ask the king to move his gold to a different storage so that they can rob his gold while it was outside the secure facility. When the old wise dwarf heard it he made up a plan to fool the king wisely and force him into moving his gold to another location.

Next day in the morning all the advisors and the king had a meeting. In the meeting the wise dwarf told the king that a great omen has fallen and that if the king does not change the location of his gold he will be robbed of it .

He then explained to the king that if he plans to change the location of the gold to protect himself and gold itself it should be done in three parts and in three days. Then he said that those 3 days should happen very soon when they see shooting stars. These shooting stars would fall for three consecutive nights beginning from the 5th night from that night.

(This plan was made like that because dwarves were less in numbers and they won’t be able to rob all of the gold at once so they needed three days time to do all that and his they had asked for from their old wise dwarf. The falling of shooting stars was a separate plan.)

“The king when heard that knew the old man was very wise and would not be telling a lie because shooting stars are a sign and if the do fall let him not.”

He then immediately ordered his soldiers to start packing gold. This gold, then he told his soldiers should be ready to go to a another secure building across the town in 3 shipments. The soldiers obeyed his orders

Now the second plan of dwarves came in. They were going to make artificial shooting stars fall from sky by using their huge catapults.

The day came and they parked a huge catapult outside the kingdom’s boundaries. They then took a huge rock, put oil on the rock, loaded it on the catapult, set it on fire and then threw it across the sky during night from the far end of the kingdom.

Meanwhile the king’s men where waiting to see the shooting star so that they can transfer gold to the new location. As soon as they saw the sign which was the shooting star they started transferring gold (which was laden on the horses) to the secure location. But, they did not know that the dwarves would be waiting for them and the gold. When the soldiers and their horses carrying gold passed through the dense part of forest the dwarves passed a sleeping potion through the breeze that only affected humans. All the soldiers fell into sleep and the dwarves looted all the gold.

Since the old wise dwarf was in charge of gold transportation he did not tell anything about the disappearance of gold to the king . All he said was that the gold had been shifted to the new location safely and that they should wait for the next shooting star to come so that they can transfer the next shipment of gold.

In three days the dwarves created three shooting stars in the sky and robbed all the gold of the king. They then distributed it to their true owners - the people of that kingdom. The king was reduced to a pauper and had thus lost all his powers. He was therefore unable to punish anybody. Thanks to the dwarves, the kingdom and its people were saved.